The hop-gathering was over, and the hoppers--a motley crew--had returned to the slums of Stafford and Birmingham, the men not sorry to cease hard work, but the poor, draggled women and the little children with a wistful good-bye to the green fields, and all, I think, with a half sigh of regret for the Rector, who had toiled unceasingly among them during their brief stay, hoping, if by ever so little, to raise the hopeless lives and the sodden minds to a knowledge of higher things.