No service. Snow. Visited Mrs Bond (3), Job Harris (5), Eli Webb (3), Widow Scruby (1), Buckingham (7), Edward Scruby (8), John Padbury (2), Hannah Keene (1), Widow Reason (1); she told me that both her lodgers had left. Kirby the hurdle maker had left very much in debt to herself and others. He earned plenty of money but was a great drunkard. The other man, Mr Woolgrove’s carter, of same sort had gone to live with Mr Tims at Hook Norton Leys.

Conversed with Mrs John Prophett at Widow Scruby’s. She says she is a church woman though her husband is a quaker. That her health has been such that she could not come to church. She has recently sent her little girl to our school, but for a long time she went to Ann Fox’s where she did not learn anything. She said the reason she did not send her to our school before was that she thought they would not be allowed to send a child that had not been baptized. I told her that was a great mistake.

Visited Joshua Lines (10), Sam Lines (3) not at home, Thomas Rimell (2) not at home, Austin Hillman (4).

Sent present of books to Sarah and Maria Dix. To former, nice copy of Keble’s Christian Year and Hymns A & M Organ Edition, and to Miss Maria – Devotional Library, 9 volumes in a case.

A thank-you letter from the Misses Dix is pasted into the diary:

Sibford Gower
Easter Eve 1879

Dear Mr Stevens,

For my sister and myself I thank you most heartily for the valuable books received this evening. I am however quite ashamed to accept them – they make me feel how very little I have done to what I ought.

Still it makes me glad and grateful to hope that that little has been accepted in the name of Him to Whom it is offered.

With our kind regards and best wishes to you all for a Happy Easter-tide I am, dear Mr Stevens yours very sincerely
Maria Dix