Yet he tried to labour hard and well for the interests of the family, as if they were bound up in his good management of the cattle and land.

He was out and about by the earliest dawn, working all day long with might and main.

He bought himself a pair of new spectacles, which might, he fancied, enable him to read the _Farmer's Complete Guide_, his dead master's _vade-mecum_.

But he had never learnt more than his capital letters, and had forgotten many of them; so the spectacles did him but little good.

Then he would take the book to Sylvia, and ask her to read to him the instructions he needed; instructions, be it noted, that he would formerly have despised as mere book-learning: but his present sense of responsibility had made him humble.
Sylvia would find the place with all deliberation: and putting her finger under the line to keep the exact place of the word she was reading, she would strive in good earnest to read out the directions given; but when every fourth word had to be spelt, it was rather hopeless work, especially as all these words were unintelligible to the open-mouthed listener, however intent he might be.