The School-Girls' Treasury; or, Stories for Thoughtful Girls., by Lucy Ellen Guernsey

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870,

BY "THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL SOCIETY FOR THE

PROMOTION OF EVANGELICAL KNOWLEDGE,"

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the

United States for the Southern District of New York.

YOU would not oftener see a pleasanter parlor than the one where Anna was sitting. It was handsomely and tastefully furnished, with abundance of pictures and prints on the walls. There were pretty chintz curtains to the one large window, and the couches and chairs were covered with the same material. There was a bright blazing fire burning in the grate, and a pretty kitten sat purring on the rug before it. The gas was lighted, and a table at Anna's elbow was strewn with books and magazines.

Yet Anna sat in her comfortable chair before the fire, looking very doleful indeed, and she had been sitting so for a whole hour. She had a book in her hand, but she was not reading: her eyes were apparently fixed on the kitten before the fire, and it was easy to see that a very little would make them overflow with tears. In fact, Anna felt very unhappy, and—in spite of her long frocks which she had worn for a full half year—very babyish indeed.

Anna had been left at home to keep house for a week, while her father and mother and the two younger children went to visit her grandfather. Anna had expected a very dear friend to stay with her while her father and mother were gone. Lillie Adams was to have come by the evening train, and Anna had caused a dainty hot supper to be prepared for her; but instead of her friend, the postman brought a hurried letter from Lillie Adams, saying that her father had been suddenly called abroad on business and wished her to go with him: so she was going to Germany upon three days' notice, instead of coming to visit Anna.

This was a grievous disappointment, no doubt, and it was no wonder that Anna felt it; but she was not going to work to meet it in the right way.

She was making the worst instead of the best of the case. She would not eat a mouthful of the supper which had been prepared for her friend; she betook herself to none of her usual evening employments, but sat moodily before the fire, picturing to herself the merry group which would be assembled at her grandfather's fireside, and the delightful bustle in which Lillie Adams was engaged preparing to go abroad. And contrasting these things with her own lonely condition and the long tiresome week of solitude which was before her. There was great danger of the eyes overflowing, after all: when the opening of the door and the entrance of the cook made a moment's diversion.

Caroline Davis was a colored woman who had lived with Mrs. Grey ever since her marriage, and was regarded as a friend and counsellor by all the family, from the oldest to the youngest, especially by the children. She was apt to "speak her mind," as she said, on all occasions, especially when she thought she saw any of the children going wrong, and she had come to speak her mind now to her favorite, Miss Anna.

"Miss Anna!" said she, planting herself in front of her. "Ain't you going to eat any supper?"

"You'd better have something," persisted Caroline. "I've got some splendid batter cakes, just baked, and a chocolate cake such as you like; and I'll make you a famous cup of coffee."

"I don't think I want any, thank you, Caroline," repeated Anna, still more dolefully, though she was conscious of certain stirrings within at the mention of the chocolate cake and other dainties.

Caroline took a step forward, and placed her arms a-kimbo, as she was apt to do when disposed for an argument. "Look here, honey," said she. "Do you calculate to go on this way all the time your pa and ma are away? Because, if you do, I think I'd better write to them to come home again."

Anna smiled, in spite of herself. "I hav'n't made any calculations about the matter, Caroline. My calculations have not turned out so well that I should want to make any more," she added, rather bitterly.

"Just so, honey. You've been disappointed, I don't deny it; and no wonder you feel bad. But the question is, are you going to feel as bad as you can, or are you going to make the best of it? You know what the Bible says about taking up the cross, Miss Anna, my dear. Now this disappointment is a cross that He has sent you, and the question is whether you are going to take it up and bear it like a Christian or sit down on the ground and fret under it, like a baby?"

Anna seemed a good deal interested by this view of the case. "But it hardly seems right to call such a thing as this a cross," said she.

Caroline smiled. "Well, I don't call it the biggest kind of a cross," said she, "that is compared to what some folks have to carry—old Mrs. Williams, for instance, with her bad leg and her rheumatic shoulders and her poor consumptive daughter. Still it is a cross for you to be disappointed of your friend's visit, and to have to stay alone all the week; but I would not make it any worse than it is, if I were you. Now I shall go and get your supper and bring it to you in here, and I guess you'll find you want some, after all."

Anna sat thinking, after Caroline left the room, but it was with quite a different expression of face.

"How silly I am!" she was saying to herself. "Only yesterday I was reading the lives of Margaret Rogers and Lady Jane Gray, and wishing I had lived in times when there were some great things to do; and hear I am actually crying like a baby over the very first thing that comes to try my strength, and sitting down as though them were no more to be done in the world, because Lillie Adams is going to Europe. I won't be such a fool, and that is all about it. Come, Pussy, get up and make yourself agreeable!"

Pussy was very ready to exert herself for Anna's benefit and her own, and the two were in the midst of a famous romp, when Caroline entered with her dainty tray of provisions.

"There, now! I call that something like!" said she, much pleased with the change. "Come and eat your supper, honey, while it is hot."

Anna disposed of her batter-puffs and other good things in a way which showed that her trouble had not entirely destroyed her appetite, and she could not deny that she enjoyed her supper.

"Caroline," said she, "you know that breakfast shawl Aunt Anna left here? It is rather faded, but not at all worn out. I have been thinking that I might ravel it out and make it over with some stripes of a new bright color. That would make it quite pretty again, and it would be nice and warm for Mrs. Williams' lame shoulders."

"That is an excellent notion of yours, my dear. The old lady needs a shawl, I know, and she likes bright colors, too: and she will think all the more of the shawl if it is your own work."

Anna was one of those people who, when they think of a project for the benefit of another, like to set about it directly; so she went up-stairs and brought down the old shawl and a large basket of bright-colored worsteds, of many different shades.

The rest of the evening quickly passed away in ravelling out the shawl and contriving the best way of making it over so as to be better than before. And Anna was surprised when Caroline came in and said it was nine o'clock.

Anna hesitated. She felt very shy about reading and praying before the servants.

"I would, if I were you," said Caroline. "You see you are the head of the house, now that your father and mother are away."

"And I am sure we need to ask God's protection all the more when we are separated one from the other," thought Anna. "No, I will not give way to false shame. I may as well begin now as any time. Yes, Caroline, we will have prayers, if you will tell Jane and Albert to come in."

Anna's heart beat fast when she began to read, but she tried to fix her mind upon the sacred words, and by the time she came to the prayers, she was ready to pray with all her heart.

"Well, I didn't believe Miss Anna would read prayers!" she heard Jane say, after the servants had left the room. "She is such a shy young lady, generally. You know for all she plays so well, how she hates to play before company."

"She is her father's own daughter," replied Caroline. "When she knows she ought to do a thing she does it; I tell you she isn't ashamed to confess her Lord before men, and He won't be ashamed to confess her in the great day!"

"Was that confessing Christ, I wonder?" thought Anna. "I suppose it was, in one way, though I did not think of it at the time. I am glad I did read, at any rate."

Some of Anna's unpleasant feelings returned when she found herself in her own room up-stairs. It seemed so very lonely without papa and mamma in the next room and the boys overhead, and she began to wonder whether she was going to be afraid.

"But, after all, what is there to be afraid of?" she said to herself. "The bell-rope hangs close to my head and I have only to pull it to call Caroline and Albert in a minute. Besides it is God who takes care of me when my father and mother are here, and He can do it just as well when they are away!"

So Anna read her chapters and said her prayers, and learned her two verses to repeat in the morning, as was the custom of the family; and then went bravely to bed without even looking under the bed, as she did sometimes when her parents were at home. She had thought she should lie awake and listen for suspicious noises; but, as it happened, the first noise she heard was the ringing of the first bell in the morning.

"Now, what had I better do to-day?" she said to herself, as she was dressing. "I have no particular work, and there is nothing to be done about the house. O dear, I wish it was not vacation and all the girls I care about were not away. But then if it is vacation, that is no reason why I should be idle; I mean to practise two hours instead of one, and try to get those waltzes perfectly that papa likes so much."

"And what else shall I do? I believe I will try painting a picture all by myself, and see what I can make of it. Miss Jeffrey says I ought to be able to work by myself now, and I am sure she will be pleased if I have something pretty to show her when school begins again. I will copy that chromo which Aunt Anna gave mamma; and if it turns out nicely, it will be a pretty present for one of the old ladies at the Home."

Anna read prayers after breakfast, and then, after dusting the drawing-room, she sat down for two hours of vigorous practise. Then she began her picture, and by dinnertime she had her paper prepared, her outline drawn, and her first tints washed in.

"There! I have made a good beginning!" said she, looking at her work with great satisfaction. "And if nothing happens, I shall have finished it before mamma comes home, and before school begins again. I mean to work at music and painting in the morning and take a good long walk every afternoon. Then I will work at Mrs. Williams' shawl in the evening, and that will use up my time nicely."

Something was destined to happen, however, which sadly interfered with all these calculations. When Anna returned from her walk that afternoon, she saw that the blinds of the front bed-room were opened.

"I wonder if Lillie can have come, after all!" she said to herself, as she quickened her steps.

"Well, yes, honey, somebody has come, though I'm afraid it isn't any one you want to see very bad."

"Not Aunt Dorinda!" exclaimed Anna, rather more loudly than was prudent, considering the tone in which she spoke.

"Hush, my dear! She will hear you! Yes, it is Aunt Dorinda, sure enough! Never mind, honey, we can't help it now. We must only make the best of it, that's all."

"Aunt Dorinda, of all people!" thought Anna, as she went to her room to take off her hat. "Well, there is an end to all my fine plans. However, as Caroline says, there is no help for it now. Poor thing, I suppose I may as well have her for a little while as anybody else. I must just leave off studying painting and study patience, that is all."

Poor Aunt Dorinda! She was a woman of a good deal of talent. She was tolerably rich, and decidedly well educated; and she fully intended to be a Christian, and to do a great deal of good in the world; and yet there was not one of all the families she visited who did not dread to see her come into the house, or who did not feel relieved when she went away.

All this inconsistency is easily explained. Aunt Dorinda never did or could mind her own business, and let the affairs of other people alone. She was possessed with a great desire to do good, and she was always making presents; but she wished always to do good exactly in her own way; and her presents were generally accompanied with remarks and admonitions which rendered them bitter pills to those who were obliged to accept them.

"So it seems I have come just in the nick of time!" said she to her niece, after the first greeting. "I do wonder your mother should have you to keep house alone. I don't suppose you know anything about it."

"I don't have very much housekeeping to do, Aunt Dorinda," replied Anna. "Caroline is the housekeeper when mamma is away. And I did not expect to be alone either, for Lillie Adams was coming to stay with me, only she was obliged to go away unexpectedly."

"Worse and worse! Two giddy heads are worse than one. I am surprised that your mother should think of leaving you alone with such a vain worldly girl as Lillie Adams."

"Lillie is neither vain nor worldly, Aunt Dorinda!" said Anna, with spirit. "She was confirmed last Easter, and the is a good Christian girl, if ever there was one."

"Don't tell me that, Anna Grey!" returned Aunt Dorinda, angrily. "Haven't I seen her with my own eyes with three ruffles on the lower skirt of her dress and as many on the upper? Do you call that being a Christian?"

"Lillie does not follow her own taste in dress," said Anna, smiling in spite of herself. "Her stepmother dresses her. Lillie said to me that she preferred to dress more plainly; but Mrs. Adams had always been so kind and good to her, that she did not like to contradict her on a matter of no great importance. You know, Aunt Dorinda, how devotedly Mrs. Adams nursed Lillie through her long illness, after she had that dreadful accident. Papa himself said that Lillie owed her life and health more to her stepmother's nursing than to his skill. Mrs. Adams gave up everything to her."

"O yes, I know!" said Aunt Dorinda, scornfully. "I heard all that when I talked to Lillie as I did about her dress."

"'What of that?' said I. 'You ought to follow your own convictions of duty, whatever your stepmother may say.'"

"And all Lillie did was to toss head and say that 'her convictions of duty led her to honor her father and mother.'"

"At seven-o'clock, aunt, because it is more convenient to papa: but I will order it earlier, if you are hungry, after your ride."

"Well, I am surprised!" This was Aunt Dorinda's favorite phrase. "I should think your father, being a physician, would know better than to eat so late in the evening. Half-past five is the very latest hour that any one ought to eat."

Anna could not help thinking that her father, being a physician, would be likely to know what was good for himself and his family; but she said nothing, and ordered tea at half-past five, thinking that at least she would have a good long evening to work.

Aunt Dorinda, came down at tea-time, bringing a very large work-basket with her. She shook her head at the biscuits, declaring them very unwholesome, but managed to eat a fair share of them nevertheless, with a due proportion of stewed oysters and other good things.

Anna tried to keep her entertained by asking questions about different relatives and family friends; but she found there was not one of them all who had not displeased Aunt Dorinda in some way or other, generally by having opinions of their own about the management of their private affairs. Aunt Dorinda was one of those people who think that they are always right, and therefore always entitled to find fault with others. She had, as it were, cut out a pattern of Christian character according to her own notions of perfection, and she went about the world trying this pattern upon all her acquaintances, and endeavoring to pare and prune them or else to stretch them to fit it. She frowned and shook her head when Anna brought out her crochet work, after tea.

"Always at that useless fancy work!" said she. "Why do you not do something useful? How much better to be working for some poor person or for the missionaries, than to be spending your time in such idle pursuits!"

"But this is for a poor person, aunt," said Anna, determined not to be vexed. "It is for old Mrs. Williams, at the Home."

"How absurd, Anna! Making such a fanciful thing for a poor woman who is dependent for her daily bread! You might buy a woollen shawl for half the money, which would do her just as much good and save your time and your funds."

"I don't think so, aunt! You see this shawl did not cost me any money, except twenty-five cents for some scarlet-shaded wool. Aunt Anna left it here when she went away and told me to give it to some poor person. And almost all the new wool I am using is made up of odds and ends left from different pieces of work."

"Because it would not be as acceptable, aunt. Mrs. Williams loves pretty things and colors, and she will like the shawl all the better if it is my own work."

"Humph! I suppose you flatter yourself that you are doing all that work for Mrs. Williams and not for your own amusement?"

"Well, here is the proof. I have in this basket some shirts to be made up for a missionary at the west. Let me see you put away that senseless worsted, and stitch one of these bosoms."

"I cannot do it this evening, aunt, because papa does not like to have me do fine work in the evening," said Anna, speaking pleasantly, though she felt annoyed. "But I will stitch it to-morrow, with pleasure."

"We shall see when to-morrow comes!" said Aunt Dorinda, rather ungraciously. "I hope no new excuse will turn up in the meantime. There now, child, you need not color so and look so vexed. I mean all for your good, and you know I always say just what I think to everybody."

"But you don't like it one bit, when people say what they think to you!" thought Anna, but she did not say so.

She began asking about the missionary to whom the shirts were to be sent, and about other missionaries; and the rest of the evening passed over very comfortably.

"We have prayers at nine o'clock, Aunt Dorinda," said Anna, when the clock struck the hour.

"I did last night and this morning," replied Anna. "I thought perhaps you would do so to-night."

"You had better do just as you would if I were not here," said Aunt Dorinda. "I will see how you manage, and tell you if there is room for improvement."

Anna did not feel any more devotional for the thought that Aunt Dorinda was criticising her; but she tried to collect herself and to think of nothing but the solemn duty in which she was engaged; and she succeeded better than she expected.

"Because, aunt, I think that the words in the book are better than any I could use. And besides," added Anna, rather, timidly; "if I were to try to pray in my own words before others, I am afraid I should be thinking more of the words and of how to express myself than of the sense."

"Do you think then that all those who pray in their own words before others are thinking more of the words than of the sense?" asked Aunt Dorinda, sharply.

"No, aunt, not at all. I was only speaking of myself. And I don't see either why I should use my own words when I have such good and suitable words all ready for me."

"I am afraid you have no proper spirit of devotion," said Aunt Dorinda, severely. "I am afraid you have never learned to pray in the true spirit of prayer."

Anna was too much hurt to reply, and perhaps it was as well she did not do so. She went to her room feeling tired, discouraged and unhappy. Was it really tree that she had never learned to pray, and had none of the true spirit of devotion? Had all her enjoyments in the Church services and in her private devotions been a delusion? Had she done wrong, after all, in performing the duty which it had been so hard for her to undertake? And if she had been wrong so far, how was she to set herself right?

"Oh, how I do wish mamma was at home!" said she, sighing. "She would tell me what I ought to do. And how am I to get on with Aunt Dorinda, all alone, for a week?"

Anna took up her little book of texts for every day in the year. It had been given her by her Sunday-school teacher with the advice that she should learn the text for every day, and keep it in mind as a topic for meditation. She opened to the day of the month, and her eyes fell on the words:

"'All things,'" she thought. "And 'to them that love God.' Do I love Him? Yes, I am sure I do. Aunt Dorinda says it is very hard to tell whether we love God or not; but I don't see why it should be so. I don't find it hard to tell whether I love my other friends or not. Yes, I am sure I love Him, and if so, this promise is for me."

"Then there must be some way in which Aunt Dorinda's visit may do me good. I do not see how, unless in teaching me to be patient at being contradicted and put out of my way. Mamma says of me sometimes that I am very pleasant when I am pleased. Well, I must learn to be pleasant when I am not pleased. I know that Aunt Dorinda, does really mean to be good and kind, and I must try to remember that and have patience with the rest. I suppose I shall have to give up my painting and work at those shirt-bosoms, but that is no great sacrifice, after all, and the shirts will do somebody good. It isn't the heaviest kind of a cross, as Caroline says, after all."

By the time Anna had finished her prayers and reading, she felt once more contented and happy. She went to sleep with the words of praise upon her lips and in her heart, and awoke feeling cheerful and brave, and ready to "make the best of anything that should happen."

That day Anna not only stitched the shirt-bosom, putting aside her painting for the purpose, but she nearly finished the garment. She did not, however, think it necessary to give up Mrs. Williams' shawl, though her aunt went out in the afternoon and bought some marvellously coarse yarn expressly that Anna might, as she said, have no excuse for that senseless fancywork: thinking that her poor old friend had quite as much claims upon her as a person she had never seen, and whom even her aunt did not know.

Aunt Dorinda stayed three days, and then received a letter which decided her to go back directly. Anna helped her to pack with a right good will, and she drew a long breath of relief as Aunt Dorinda drove away.

"Well, she's gone!" said Caroline. "She means to be a good woman, I don't doubt, but she is a trial. There's one thing I must say, Miss Anna, my dear, that you might learn from your aunt, and that is to mind your own business, and not interfere with other folks, even when you think you know more than they do. It is just that which makes her so disagreeable, and makes her do harm where she wants and means to do good. And you know, honey, you do interfere sometimes, even with your mother."

"Well, then, that is one way to make the best of Aunt Dorinda. Try to be like her in wishing to do good and to help others; and learn from her, not to spoil all the good you do by dictating and interfering so as to make people dislike you. I tell you, honey, these disagreeable Christians have a great deal to answer for."

The remaining days of the week passed pleasantly and quickly to Anna; but she was a good deal disappointed when, on Saturday, she received a letter from her father, saying that they should not be at home for three days longer.

"Three more days!" she thought. "But then I shall have time to finish my picture and my shawl; and I am sure mamma will be pleased with them."

Thus you have seen how by a brave and cheerful spirit Anna was enabled to enjoy the time which at first seemed likely to pass so heavily; and how by a spirit of Christian gentleness and humility she contrived to extract real good out of what might have made her only fretful and unhappy.

Try, my dear girls, to do likewise. Try to make the best of whatever happens, and when, as it seems, there is no best to be made, try to receive your trouble as a cross from the hand of your kind and loving Heavenly Father, and pray for His grace to sanctify your affliction, and be assured He will teach you to "make the best of it."

"WON'T you ever tell as long as you live and breathe?" said Dora Hayes to Eva Morrison.

"I don't know," said Eva, taking a second thought. "I always do tell mother everything."

"Then I shall not tell you!" returned Dora, tossing her head. "If you are such a baby as that, I shall never tell you anything. I should think you would be ashamed to run and tell m—a—a everything you hear."

"Well, I am not ashamed, and I don't want any of your secrets, Dora Hayes," said Eva, coloring, but speaking very decidedly. "My mother is the best friend I have in the world, and I love her dearly, and I don't know who I should tell things to, if not to her. So you may keep your great secret to yourself."

"But this is something that somebody said about you," said Dora, seeing that she had made a mistake in laughing at Eva.

"So much the worse," returned Eva, boldly, though she felt her curiosity excited. "I don't want to know what people say about me, and you ought never to repeat conversation either. You know what the doctor said about that in catechism class only yesterday."

And Eva turned away, and sitting down at a distance, she occupied herself in learning her lesson till school began. A good many times in the course of the day, she found herself wondering what it was that Dora wanted to tell her; but she put the thought resolutely away. And by the next morning, she had almost forgotten the matter.

Eva's parents were among the richest people in the place. Eva herself was always prettily and fashionably dressed: she had plenty of pocket-money to spend, and she had been in vacation to Saratoga and Newport, and even to London and Paris with her parents.

According to the usual course of story-books, Eva ought, I suppose, to be represented as proud, and haughty, and vain. I am glad to say that she was nothing of the sort. She was a kindhearted, truthful, good girl, always ready to help her school-mates in their lessons and to amuse them with telling stories of what she had seen. She was, for that matter, not nearly so proud as her classmate and most particular friend Amy Preston.

Amy was the daughter of a widow lady, who kept a fancy-store in the place where Eva lived. Mrs. Preston was the widow of an artist. She might have had a home with her husband's relatives, but like a good and sensible woman as she was, she preferred supporting herself by the beautiful work she had learned to do abroad, and by selling materials for embroidery and other fancywork; and this she did with an honesty and energy which made her very much respected. Mrs. Preston had only one child, and she wished to give her such an education as would enable her to support herself if it became necessary. Her own business was prosperous enough to enable her to afford it: so she kept Amy at the best school in the place and allowed her to take music lessons of the same master who taught Eva Morrison.

Eva had "taken," as the girls say, to Amy Preston from the very first; but it was a good while before Amy responded to her advances. For Amy was proud, as perhaps was only natural, and she was afraid that people would say she flattered and courted the heiress. She persisted for a good while in being very cool to Eva, but at last Eva's loving frankness and persevering kindness won the day, and the two girls were now the best friends in the world.

Mrs. Morrison entirely approved of this friendship. She had known Mrs. Preston for years, and she did not believe that Eva was likely to learn anything bad from Amy. Besides, Amy was a good scholar and very industrious; and Mrs. Morrison thought she might have a good influence over Eva, who was inclined to be rather lazy over all her lessons but music and drawing.

We have said that Amy was proud, and that it was only natural that she should be so. There is a certain sort of pride, if pride it can be called, which is very proper. I mean the feeling which makes people prefer helping themselves, when they are able, to being helped by others; and causes them to be cautious and delicate about receiving expensive presents, and the like.

But this very proper feeling may be carried too far, and too far Amy certainly did carry it. She would walk home from school in the rain rather than ride in the carriage which Mr. Morrison sent for Eva. She would not receive the smallest present from Eva without making her one in return; and it was a long time before she would consent to borrow from Eva's large library of story-books.

In fact, Amy was jealous of her friend's wealth and so-called station. It often happens that we go on indulging very serious faults, just because we will not allow ourselves to call these faults by their right names. Thus we call anger just resentment, and pride self-respect, and blunt rudeness sincerity, and so on.

If Amy had really become aware that she was cherishing envy and jealousy, she would have been shocked, for she was trying very hard to be a Christian. But she christened her fault by the pretty name of self-respect. When the cow-bird lays her egg in the sparrow's nest, the sparrow cherishes it and brings up the intruder as her own; but the cow-bird hatches sooner, and grows faster than the young sparrows, and very soon turns them all out of the nest. So this intruder, which Amy called self-respect, was rapidly outgrowing all the gentle virtues of charity, humility and love in Amy's heart, and was getting ready, when occasion served, to turn them all out and keep the nest to itself.

The occasion was not very far off. There was one girl in the school who entirely disapproved of the warm friendship which existed between Eva and Amy, and that was Dora Hayes. Dora was a far-away cousin of Eva's and would have liked to be very intimate with her. Dora had no pride to prevent her from accepting any amount of obligations from her rich relations, and she would have boarded, and lodged, and dressed at Mr. Morrison's expense the year round without having her feelings hurt or her gratitude excited in the least degree.

Dora was always hanging about Eva, contriving to sit next to her, and fishing for invitations to visit her. But Eva, though she was, or meant to be, kind to Dora, did not like her. She thought her both mean and deceitful, as indeed she was. And while she sometimes made her presents and lent her books, she would never encourage Dora's attempts at intimacy.

This was very vexatious to Dora. She laid it all to Eva's friendship with "that Preston girl," as she called her, and this friendship she determined somehow or other to break up. She had begun upon Eva, but, as we have seen, with little success. Eva would not promise not to tell, and would not hear her wonderful secret at any price. Dora was very much vexed, but she was not one to give up easily any point she had set her heart upon. She determined to try and see what she could do with Amy.

Amy frequently staid in the store and attended to customers when her mother was obliged to be out. Dora knew this, and that very afternoon, finding Amy alone, she pretended to want to select a worsted pattern, and began upon Amy while she was looking over Mrs. Preston's large stock of patterns.

"Yes," answered Amy, rather shortly, as if she would add, "what is that to you?"

"Eva is a good girl," continued Dora. "She is very generous, at least of things which don't cost her anything; but she is queer about some things. I wish she would not act as she does, but there is no use in my saying anything to her, and I shall not try again. Eva has never been kind to me," added Dora, with a sigh; "but still she is my cousin, and I love her, though I do see her faults. Poor thing, every one flatters her, so it is no great wonder if she does think she does anybody a great favor by noticing them."

"That is a pretty pattern for your cushion!" said Amy, who was beginning to feel uncomfortable, and to wish Dora would go away. "And it is easy to work. Why don't you take that?"

"There is not enough variety about it," answered Dora, delighted to perceive the effect of her words. "I want something prettier. As I was saying, it is no wonder that Eva is set up to think that she does you a great honor by noticing you, though I must say I think you do as much for her as she does for you."

".Of course you don't know—how should you?" interrupted Dora. "Nobody likes to make mischief, and so nobody tells you what Eva says. I think myself it is a shame that you should not hear it, because people know how Eva goes on; and, of course, they think you know it too, and just keep on with her for what you get out of her."

"I know you don't, really, and that is just why I say it is a shame for Eva to say so!"

"To say what?" asked Amy, in a tone of irritation. "If you have anything to tell me, Dora, I wish you would speak it out, and have done with it!"

"Oh, well, if you want me to tell you, of course I can. Well, a certain person said to Eva the other day, 'I do wonder how you can make a friend of Amy Preston!' 'Oh!' said Miss Eva, contemptuously. 'Amy is a very cheap friend. She does not want as much as some people to keep her friendship!'"

"Why, I suppose she meant that you, being poor, would be thankful for small favors. And then she laughed and said: 'We know what we are about. Amy gets what she wants, and I got what I want!' I suppose she gives you a great many presents, doesn't she?"

"Well, I am surprised!" said Dora. "I thought from what I have heard Eva say, that she more than half-clothed you. She gave you the dress you have on, didn't she? I understood her so."

"She never gave me a dress in the world!" exclaimed Amy, vehemently. "Nor anything else to wear. It is a likely story, indeed, that I should accept such presents from anybody."

"Well there, I didn't believe it!" said Dora. "I said all the time I didn't; but you see your dress being just like the one Eva wore last winter, people naturally believe the story. I don't see why Eva should tell every one, if she did give you an old dress. I always thought we were not to let our left hand know what our right hand did. Eva pretends to be such a Christian, too! I don't see how she can do so; though, for my part, I never can see that people who make great pretensions to religion air better than any one else."

If it had not been for that little imp of envy and jealousy which Amy had been nursing and potting under the pretty name of self-respect, she would never have given credit to a story so entirely inconsistent with what she had known of her friend's character. She would have seen through Dora at once, and treated her insinuations and stories with the contempt they deserved. But the jealous spirit was whispering in her ear that it was no more than was to be expected, or than she deserved for running after a girl so much richer than herself. She therefore answered angrily:

"If Eva Morrison says she ever gave me a dress, or anything of the kind, she tells a lie, and you may tell her I say so! I should think she would be ashamed of herself to be such a hypocrite—pretending to be so fond of me and then telling such falsehoods about me. I have a great mind to say I will never speak to her again!"

"I wouldn't, if I were you," said Dora, delighted with her success. "But, Amy, don't you ever tell Eva that I told you. It would make no end of trouble in the family, if you should, because my father and Mr. Morrison are in business together. By the way, it is not true, is it, that Mr. Morrison set your mother up in business?"

"Of course not! Mother had money enough from the sale of my father's pictures to set herself up in business, and have something to spare!"

"There, I didn't believe it when she said so. Well, Amy, I don't like any of these patterns. I think I will go down to Mrs. Mercer's and see if she has anything prettier."

Dora went away very much delighted with the success of her scheme, and leaving Amy feeling more unhappy than she had ever done in all her life before. She loved Eva dearly, and was deeply grieved that her friend should have been so treacherous toward her. But her pride was also wounded, and she listened to the counsels of pride rather than to those of affection. The latter advised her to go at once to Eva, tell her what she had heard, and ask an explanation; but pride told her that such a course would be mean and degrading, and would show her to be wanting in self-respect. It would have been well for Amy if, like Eva, she had been in the habit of telling everything to her mother; but she was very reserved by nature, and rarely spoke to any one of her own feelings.

She brooded over what she had heard all that day and the next, and by the time she was ready to go to school on Monday morning, she had fully made up her mind never to have any more to do with Eva Morrison.

Consequently, when Eva came to meet her with outstretched hands, as usual, Amy met her with averted eyes, and the coolest of nods, and going directly to her place, she began to study with all her might.

"Oh, nothing I guess!" replied Eva, though she wondered at her friend's manner. "People don't always feel alike, you know!"

"There is more about it than that," said Dora, who had been watching the meeting. "Only you never will listen to anything, I could tell you all about the matter."

"I shall not promise, Dora, though it is not likely that I shall tell. I am not apt to repeat things."

"Well, then, Amy says you are a regular little liar and hypocrite, and she won't have any more to do with you. She says she has been patronized by you long enough."

"I did not know that I had patronized her at all," said Eva. "I am sure I never meant to do so."

"Yes, but then you see Amy is of such a jealous disposition that she thinks you mean to patronize her, whether you do or not!"

"She is naturally rather jealous, I think," said Eva; "but I can hardly believe that she called me a liar or a hypocrite!"

"She did, for I heard her!" said Dora. "I was in the store, picking out a pattern."

"Well, all I can say is, that I am sorry!" said she, sighing. "But I hope Amy will think better of it. I am sure she will if she knows what is good for herself, for I know she cannot be happy while she is doing me such an injustice."

"So you really didn't speak to Eva this morning!" said Dora, joining Amy as she was walking homeward. "I did not bellow you would keep your resolution, but I was glad you did, especially after what Eva said."

"Oh, she tossed her head, and said you had got a jealous fit; but she guessed you would get over it. You knew what was good for yourself too well to quarrel with her, and if you did you would get the worst of it—that was one comfort. You see, she thinks she has you under her thumb, so she can do as she pleases with you."

"She will find herself mistaken!" said Amy, proudly. "I am not dependent upon her, I am thankful to say."

"Well, Amy, you need not bite my head off. I don't wonder you are angry. I am sure I should be, but you needn't blame me. Anyhow, if I were you, I would show that I did not mean to be domineered over, or coaxed either. 'But Amy has such a way with her—she can twist any one round her finger,' as she says."

"She will not twist me round her finger," said Amy. "I am not such a fool as she takes me for."

Eva went home that night very much grieved. She had made many advances to Amy during the day, but they had all been repelled, and with so much coldness and rudeness that she did not know how to go any farther. She did not more than half believe what Dora had told her, and yet the words were not without their influence upon her mind.

"Amy must know she is wrong," she argued, "and that is what makes her so unwilling to make up. O dear! I don't know what to do! I believe I will tell mother all about it, and see what she says."

"How many times have you sighed during the last half hour, Eva?" asked Mrs. Morrison that evening, as she and Eva were sitting together knitting by the firelight.

The evenings were growing long and cool, and the open fire seemed very pleasant and cheerful.

"I don't know, mamma—yes, I do know, too, I suppose!" answered Eva, rousing herself. "I did not know that I sighed, though."

"Yes, mamma—that is, not exactly in school; but something very unpleasant has happened, and the worst of it is, I don't know what to do about it."

"Suppose you tell me the story," said Mrs. Morrison. "Perhaps I shall be able to advise you."

Eva sat down at her mother's feet on the rug, and told her the whole story as far as she knew it.

"That is what I suppose, mamma, and I think I know who the somebody is. I believe it is Dora Hayes."

"You should not say so unless you have good reasons," said her mother. "Why do you think so?"

"It looks so, certainly," remarked Mrs. Morrison. "Well, Eva, it is always a great comfort when we can find a plain Scripture rule to guide our conduct in difficult places, and I think there is one which applies exactly to such cases as this."

"'If thy brother trespass against thee go and tell him his fault between him and thee alone,'" repeated Mrs. Morrison. "Does not that rule seem to throw some light upon your path?"

"I don't know—yes, I suppose it does. And yet—after the way Amy has treated me to-day, I do not feel very much like going to her!"

"Take care, Eva! Don't listen to the whispers of pride. Remember you do not know what provocation Amy may think she has had."

"If she thought I had done wrong, why did not she come and tell me so, instead of sulking and refusing to speak to me?" said Eva.

"Perhaps she did not feel like it, after the way she thought you had treated her," said Mrs. Morrison, smiling. "At any rate, Eva, her conduct is not the rule for yours."

Eva sat silent for a few minutes. She had her pride as well as Amy, and she had been deeply mortified at the way in which Amy had repelled her really generous advances.

But Eva had this advantage over her friend, that she called her faults by their right names and combatted them as faults, instead of coaxing and nursing them as virtues.

"Well, mamma, I will do as you say," said she, at last. "I believe it will be the best way. I don't think Amy will refuse to hear me, and if she does, I shall be no worse off than I am now."

"That is right, my dear," said her mother. "But, Eva, don't forget to ask for grace to be gentle and humble. Remember 'Charity suffereth long and is kind.' Even if Amy is unreasonable, do not get out of patience with her. You do not know what provocation she may think she has received."

As soon as breakfast was over, Eva put on her hat, and set out to find Amy. Mrs. Preston lived in a pretty house in the suburbs, and Eva was tolerably sure of finding Amy at work in her flower-garden, where even at this late season she always found something to do.

Amy was busy among her flowers, as Eva expected, and just as Eva came up, Amy opened the side gate to throw some dry stems into the street. She started when she saw Eva, and seemed about to turn away, but Eva gave her no time. She walked up to her friend, and holding out both hands, said, with her usual frank manner: "Now, Amy, I want to have you tell me what all this trouble is about."

Amy colored. "Surely you know as well as I do!" said she, trying to speak coldly.

"I know nothing at all!" replied Eva. "Only that Dora Hayes says that you called me a liar and a hypocrite, and, as she has told me such a story about you, I think it very likely that she has told you something about me."

"It was what she told me you said that made me call you so!" said Amy, just ready to cry.

"So I supposed, and therefore I want to know what it was. Now let us sit down on the stops and have it all out. What did she say?"

Amy began to feel a little ashamed of herself, by this time, and to see that she had been hasty to believe evil of her friend. She began at the beginning and told Eva all that Dora had said about her.

"I thought she had had a hand in it," said Eva, when the story was finished. "She came to me in the first place and wanted to tell me something that I was never to tell—something somebody had said about me; but I told her that I always told mother everything, and that I never wanted to hear what people said about me, so she subsided. The truth of the matter is this. Dora was teasing me one day to give her my amber necklace, which I would not do."

"'You would give it to Amy Preston in a minute, if she asked you,' said she; 'you think more of that shop-girl than you do of me, though I am your cousin.'"

"'Well,' said I, half laughing, 'you see, Dora, Amy is a cheaper friend than you are. She never wants anything and you want everything.'"

"So much for that! As for the dress story, there is a little foundation for that, too. Dora asked me a few days ago if that was my old dress you were wearing."

"'Of course,' said I. 'Amy wears all my dresses and I wear hers. That is the way we show our regard for each other.'"

"All the girls laughed, for every one knows how proud you are about receiving presents, Amy."

"And I said, to carry on the joke, 'To be sure I do! I buy all her clothes and books, and my father pays her school bills.'"

"You see, Amy—though you must not tell any one—papa really does pay Dora's school bills, and mamma gives her a great many things; and I thought perhaps by giving her such a hint, I would make her hold her peace, and so I did. As for the rest, it is a sheer manufacture out of whole cloth. I should think you ought to have known me better, Amy."

Amy colored scarlet. "Well, Eva, I suppose I ought, but then you see—there is such a difference—in short you are rich and I am poor, and if you were in my place, you would see how natural it is to be jealous."

"It may be natural, but I cannot think it's right," said Eva. "I don't think poor people ought to be jealous of rich people, any more than rich people ought to despise poor people. Besides, Amy, I should never think of calling you poor. But did Dora say anything else?"

"Never mind what she said," replied Amy. "I ought never to have listened to her. But it was not so much what she said as what she insinuated. However, I was a fool to mind her, for I know of old just what a mischievous thing she is. She has tried it upon me before. When I first came to school, she told me some of the girls made a fuss because I was a shop-girl, and I don't suppose there was any truth in that either."

"Not one word, I dare say. But now, Amy, promise me one thing. If ever you think I have done wrong, just come to me as I have come to you and ask me about it. If we do so, we shall never have any lasting quarrels, I am sure, and no tattler can make mischief between us. Isn't it almost time to go to school? I will wait for you and we will go together."

Amy kept Eva waiting while she went up to her own little room, and there in a short but earnest prayer, asked God's forgiveness for her jealousy and unkindness and begged Him to pour into her heart "that most excellent gift of charity, the very bond of peace and of all virtue, without which whosoever liveth is counted dead before Him."

Dora stared in wonder when she saw Amy and Eva enter the school-room in their old fashion, with their arms round each other's waists.

"So you two have made up your quarrel," she said, in recess, with her disagreeable laugh. "Well, it is a fine thing to have a forgiving temper, especially when it is so much to one's own advantage as it is to Amy's, in this case."

"There is nothing to forgive, as it happens," answered Eva, coolly. "Somebody told Amy a set of stories about me which were either entirely false or else misrepresented, but when she came to hear the truth it was all right again."

"Amy Preston, you are as mean as you can be," exclaimed Dora. "You promised not to tell."

"Because," said Eva, answering for her friend; "you came to me and told what Amy said about me. And I remember what I heard an old Scotch woman say about talebearers, that a dog which would fetch a bone would carry a bone."

Depend upon it, girls, the old Scotch woman's proverb speaks the truth. A person who will come and tell you a story about what somebody has said of you, will tell that person what you have said about them; and in neither case will the story be the exact truth. Never listen for a moment to such tales, if you can help it; and if you cannot help listening, let the words go "in at one ear and out at the other."

If, however, you think your friend has offended you, go and ask her about it kindly and frankly; and two to one the offence will vanish into thin air.

But again, I say, never listen to talebearers, for "the words of a talebearer are as wounds."

"Where no wood is, there the fire goeth out: so where there is no talebearer the strife ceaseth."—(Prov. xxvi. 20.)

IT was a good while after six and a very bright sunny spring morning, yet Esther was not yet out of bed, when somebody knocked at her door.

"O dear!" said she, in a sleepy, pettish tone, "I wish people would only let me alone a minute. Come in!"

The last words were spoken aloud, and a very pretty girl, some years older than Esther, opened the door. She was partly dressed and had her comb and brush in her hand.

"Why, Etty, not up yet!" she exclaimed. "I thought you would be nearly dressed. I came to ask if I might finish my dressing by your glass, for papa wants the painters to begin on my room as soon as they come."

"Of course you can," replied Etty, not very graciously, however. "What time is it?"

Eleanor went back to her roam to look for something she wanted. When she came back, Etty had scrambled up to the end of the bed next the window, and, still in her night-gown, and with her hair hanging over her shoulders, was reading a story-book, which she had drawn from under her pillow. In the book, perhaps, might be found the cause of her morning sleepiness. When a little girl reads in bed till her candle burns out, she is apt to be rather heavy-headed next morning.

"You will be late for breakfast," said Eleanor. "I fear I shall be late myself, I have been so hindered; but, Etty, I am sure you will be behindhand."

"You cannot dress properly in ten minutes," said Eleanor, busily tying up her hair; "and, Etty, there is something else besides dressing to be done before you go down-stairs."

Eleanor went on with her dressing, and said no more till she had finished. Then turning to, Etty, who was still reading, she said, seriously:

"Now, Etty, you have only fifteen minutes left. You may get ready for breakfast, perhaps, if you lose no more time."

"Do let me be, Eleanor!" answered Etty, angrily. "I know what I am about! I wish you would go away and mind your own business!"

"Very well," said Eleanor, and quietly gathering up her dressing things she left the room without another word.

"I will only read to the end of this paragraph," said she. "That will not take long, and I can easily get ready after that."

But it is not always easy to stop at the end of a paragraph, and Etty read on till she was startled by hearing the church clock strike seven, followed by the energetic ringing of the breakfast-bell at the foot of the stairs.

"O dear!" exclaimed Etty, throwing down her book and scrambling out of bed. "Now I shall be late again; that will be the third time this week, and uncle will be angry. It is all Eleanor's fault. She ought to have made me got up."

Etty hastened to dress, but as usually happens at such times, she found that the more she hurried, the less she got on. She broke her boot-lacing and could not find another. She had been in such a hurry to get to her story-book the night before, that she had neglected to braid up her hair, and it was all hanging in what nurses call "witch-knots," and the more she pulled at it, the worse it snarled.

"Now where is that ribbon! I am sure it was here last night. I suppose Eleanor has put it out of place. O dear, I do wish people would keep out of my room and let my things alone!" snapped Etty, tumbling over the things on the dressing-table.

"There, now!" As she spoke, she overturned a tall bottle of cologne, which, with its pretty bronze holder, had been one of her birthday presents. She had often been told never to set the bottle down out of the holder, but she had a trick of leaning it against the side of the glass.

The tall bottle fell on a pretty hand-mirror with a carved frame, and both were broken to pieces. At this new calamity, Etty burst into tears, and throwing her brush to the farther end of the room, she flung herself down on the floor and cried so as to be heard all over the house.

The family were becoming tolerably well used to Etty's "tantrums," and as they were at prayers, nobody moved till the prayer was finished.

"Please, aunt, may I go and see what ails Etty?" said Stella. She was Etty's younger sister, but as she slept with Eleanor, she had not seen Etty that morning.

"You need not look so unhappy, my dear Stella," said Eleanor. "You don't think mamma will be unkind to Etty, do you?"

"No," said Stella, "aunt is never unkind to any one; but Etty does go on so when she gets one of her bad days. Aunt is not used to her, and I am afraid she will be very much displeased."

When Mrs. Grey went up-stairs, she found Etty still lying on the floor, crying and sobbing.

"What is the matter now?" asked Mrs. Grey. "Why are you not ready for breakfast?"

"Etty, if I ever hear you say that again, I shall punish you!" said Mrs. Grey. "Stop crying directly, and tell me what all this is about. How came this bottle broken, and the mirror, too? And here is the cologne running all over the bureau. What have you been about?"

"It is all Eleanor's fault," sobbed Etty, getting up from the floor. "She came in here to dress, and she has put all my things out of place so that I cannot find anything; and looking for my hair ribbon, I knocked down the bottle and broke it and—" Etty was going to wish herself dead again, but she stopped just in time.

"Is not this your ribbon?" asked Mrs. Grey, taking up one which was hanging on the glass in plain sight.

"I don't care, I could not find it," Etty was beginning, but her aunt stopped her.

"I do not want to hear any more now. Dress yourself and come down-stairs as quickly as you can?"

Esther and Stella Grey were orphan children, who had come to live with their uncle and aunt. Mr. and Mrs. Grey had adopted the children as their own, and treated them kindly in every respect.

Stella was very happy in her new home—happier in fact than she had ever been before. She was a quiet little thing, very gentle and good; but not at all pretty, and not particularly bright.

Etty, on the contrary, was both pretty and intelligent; but she was far from being as pleasant a child to live with as her sister. Esther had always been the favorite with her mother, who was not by any means a sensible woman. Ever since she could remember she had been petted and indulged, and talked about before her face as "a very peculiar nervous child," "a child requiring very delicate management," till she had learned to think that she was really something remarkable; whereas she was only a passionate little girl, whose health had been injured by over indulgence, and whose disposition had been almost spoiled by her being permitted to tyrannize over her younger sister as much as she pleased, and to indulge in such fits of passion as we have seen, on the least provocation.

Mrs. Grey soon found out that she had undertaken a very troublesome task; but she was a kind good woman and used to children, and she was determined to do the best she could by the poor spoiled child.

When Etty came down at last, she found breakfast over. Her uncle was reading the paper, Eleanor was washing the breakfast dishes, and Stella dusting the room.

"Come, Etty, eat your breakfast," said her aunt, kindly, but decidedly. "Eleanor wants to put away the table."

Etty took her seat with a very dissatisfied face. "Everything is as cold as it can be!" said she, pettishly. "And I can't bear fish-balls."

"Eat your breakfast and say no more about it, Esther!" said he, sharply. For he had nerves as well as his niece, and her whining grated upon them sadly. "You have made quite disturbance enough for one morning."

Etty shrugged her shoulders and made up a face, but she was afraid of her uncle and said nothing more. She drank two cups of coffee and was just about pouring out a third, when her aunt stopped her.

Etty rose from the table with a flounce, and gave the coffee pot a push which sent it off the table. Stella was close by and caught it, but not in time to save Etty's dress from a deluge.

"There now, see what you made me do, you awkward little toad!" exclaimed Etty, angrily, giving her sister a push. "I wish you were a thousand miles off, Stella Grey. You are always getting me into trouble."

Stella, who was used to her sister's hasty speeches, did not reply; but Eleanor answered for her. She was very fond of Stella, and did not like to hear her falsely accused. "Why, Etty, Stella did not touch you. She caught the pot and risked her own hands to save you from being scalded. You ought to be ashamed to speak so to your sister!"

"Never mind," whispered Stella. "Don't say anything to her, you only make her worse."

"Etty," said Mr. Grey, "go up and change your dress, and don't come down again till you are in a good humor. Let me hear no crying, or slamming of doors, either," he added, sharply. "We have had quite enough for once. I begin to wish that child had never come into the house," he said to Mrs. Grey, as Etty left the room, followed presently by Stella. "She destroys the whole comfort of the family."

"She is certainly very troublesome," replied Mrs. Grey, sighing. "However, we must have patience. I really think she is improving. She has not had one of these bad days in some time."

"Since last week," answered his wife, smiling. "She used to have them every other day when she first came. But I begin to think with you that we shall have to be more decided with her. However, we will try to get on quietly to-day, so that the pleasure of the excursion may not be spoiled for poor Stella."

Meantime Stella was up-stairs coaxing Etty to stop crying and change her dress so as to be ready for their lessons at nine o'clock.

"Come, Etty, do," she urged. "You will not be ready when Miss Beach comes, and then you will have a bad mark again. Do put on your other dress."

"I won't!" said Etty, passionately. "I wish I was dead! They would never dare to treat me so if my own mother was alive, but because I am an orphan they think they can abuse me as they please."

"They may be kind enough to you, but they are not kind to me," retorted Etty. "You know they are not, but you don't care what becomes of me. If you had loved mamma, you would not be so contented here. But you never did. I do really believe you are glad she is dead, because you know she always loved me the best."

Stella could bear a good deal from Etty, but this was too much. She burst into tears, and ran out of the room.

Etty, having succeeded in hurting somebody's feelings, began to feel better herself. She knew that she had uttered a wicked falsehood, but she did not mind what she said at such times. She grew quite cheerful over the wound she had inflicted on her unoffending sister, and by the time Miss Beach rang the bell, she was ready to come down-stairs singing and as pleasant as possible, her face making a great contrast to poor Stella's red eyes and trembling lips.

But cheerfulness which is built on the suffering of others is not likely to be very lasting, and a new cause of trouble soon appeared. Notwithstanding, Etty's so-called talents, she was backward in her lessons; and reading till twelve o'clock the night before did not tend to make her head clear. She found her sums in arithmetic unusually puzzling, and made so many mistakes in her Latin rules that she had to study them over again. She could not make sense of her reading lesson, and declared there was no meaning in it, and she was all the more cross that Stella's Latin lesson was unusually good. By the end of the school hours, she was once more in a thoroughly bad humor.

"Well, are the lessons finished?" asked Mrs. Grey, entering the school-room at twelve o'clock. "Come then, girls, hurry and dress yourselves, that you may be ready when the carriage comes."

"Wait patiently, and you will see," replied Mrs. Grey, smiling. "Only be sure you are ready by one o'clock, for there will be no time to lose in waiting. Put on your gray skirts, and dresses that can be easily washed. Your ginghams will be the best."

"I shall not wear my gingham dress—so!" said Etty, as they went up-stairs. "I shall wear my new muslin."

"I am afraid aunt will not like it," replied Stella. "She said anything that would wash."

"Yes, I suppose so, but you would hardly want to have your new dress done up so soon. I shall put on the gingham."

"I declare, I won't go with you, if you do, Stella Grey," said Etty, stamping her foot.

But Stella was learning to have her own way, when she knew she was in the right. She said no more but went to her room and dressed herself as her aunt had directed.

Etty, meantime, was fretting and fuming over her toilet as usual, because she could not make up her mind what to wear. She would not wear the gingham—that was all about it. The muslin was pretty enough for anything, but Etty had forgotten to sew on certain hooks and eyes without which the sash could not be worn, and the dress without the sash could not be thought of.

Finally she pitched upon the most unsuitable thing of all—a black barege, her very best summer dress, which she had not yet worn. She was just fastening it, when her aunt called to her from the stairs: "Be sure you put on your thickest boots, Etty!"

"Those thick leather boots with this thin dress—how they will look!" said Etty. "I am sure my cloth boots will be thick enough this dry day. It has not rained for a week."

Etty had lost so much time in making up her mind that she was not ready when the carriage came to the door.

"Come, children, we have no time to lose!" called out Mr. Grey. "Are you ready?"

"I am ready," said Stella, entering Etty's room. "Shall I help you, Etty? But what made you put on that dress?"

"Because I don't want to look like a charity school-girl, as you do!" was Etty's snappish reply. "Every one will think you are a servant!"

"No, indeed! I am not half fine enough for a servant," said Stella, shrewdly. "But come, Etty; do hurry. What hat are you going to wear? Let me get it for you."

"Do go along and leave me alone!" said Etty, crossly. "You are trying to hinder me on purpose to get me found fault with."

When all were in the carriage, Etty came down. In the bustle of getting settled and driving off, Mrs. Grey did not notice her dress, and it was not till they had gone several squares that she observed how Etty had disobeyed her orders.

"Why, Etty!" she exclaimed. "What made you put on that dress, of all others? You will have it utterly spoiled."

"There is no help for it now," said Mr. Grey. "If Etty spoils her dress, she must take the consequences. She will not have another new one at her disposal to spoil this summer."

Etty flounced and frowned, but said nothing till they came to the steamboat, which was just ready to leave the dock. Then a new trouble came up. She declared that she could not and would not go on board the boat—that she knew she should be drowned, and that Stella should not go either.

"Very well," said Mr. Grey. "Then, get into the carriage and go home, but Stella shall go, if she chooses. Come, make up your mind one way or the other; but do not stand there making yourself ridiculous any longer."

This was new treatment to Etty, who was used to being soothed, and petted, and admired for her weak nerves and delicate sensibilities. But she had no notion of being left behind, and finally went on board the boat, just the moment before the plank was taken away.

The party were to proceed to a rocky point some miles off, spend the afternoon in exploring it, and return in the evening, when the steamboat would call for them. The place was beautiful and the weather lovely—the luncheon was very nice.

She spoiled every one's comfort. She would go nowhere where the rest wanted to go: she persisted in being afraid where there was no danger, and in being foolhardy in dangerous places, and she cried five different times in three hours. Her dress was torn in a dozen different places before the day was over, and her thin boots cut to pieces so that she could hardly walk, and the stones hurt her at every stop.

"Now I am going to rest a while and then we will go and see the cave," said Mr. Grey, when they had finished their lunch; "but none of you must venture on the rocks without me. They are dangerous in many places."

Stella was searching for shells on the sandy beach, near the place where they had lunched, when Etty joined her.

"I am going up there to get some of those wild-flowers, instead of poking about here," said she, pointing to some flowering shrubs which grew at a little distance, "and I want you to go with me."

"Of course you won't go if I want you to," said Etty. "It is enough for you to know that I wish to do anything to set you against it. I don't care, I shall go alone."

In a few minutes Mr. Grey, who was taking a little nap, was startled by a cry of distress.

There stood Etty on a narrow ledge, over a deep pool, clinging to a small, slender bush, and screaming with all her might; while Stella, with a pale face but steady step; was walking along the dangerous path towards her sister.

"Stop, Stella, I command you!" called Mr. Grey. "Etty, keep still and be quiet. I will see what can be done."

But Etty was past hearing reason. As Stella drew near her, she threw herself forward and seized hold of her sister. Stella tottered, lost her balance, and both the children fell into the pool below. When Etty came to herself she was lying on the bed, in a room of the fisherman's little house on the point, with Eleanor and the fisherman's wife attending upon her, but Stella was not to be seen.

"Stella cannot come to you, and you must not go to her," said Eleanor, seeing that Etty was determined to get up. "You have done terrible mischief by your perverseness and folly, Esther, and the only amends you can make is to try and do no more."

"No—at least we hope not—but she has not revived yet, and we fear that her head is hurt. Be quiet now, and drink the tea Mrs. Fiske is bringing you."

It was a long time before Stella came to herself, and when she did, she knew no one. She was carried on board the steamer and laid on one sofa and Etty on another. As the boat drew near to the wharf, Stella opened her eyes, and seeing her aunt bending over her, she said, feebly: "Please, aunt, don't scold Etty."

Etty hid her face and cried bitterly but silently, as she remembered all her unkind speeches to Stella. She was put to bed in her own room, and left alone for what seemed an age. At last Mrs. Grey came in and sat down by her bed.

"She is better," replied her aunt. "The doctor hopes she will live. You ought to be very thankful." Mrs. Grey paused a little and then said: "Etty, what has been the matter to-day? What has made you behave so badly?"

"Let us go over the day's history and see if it could not be helped. What was the first trouble?"

"Being late for breakfast, aunt—no, breaking the cologne bottle was the first trouble."

"Well, both of these troubles came from the same source—not getting up in time. How did that happen?"

"You should not have been sleepy. From half-past nine till six is long enough for any little girl to sleep. Did you go to bed as soon as you came up-stairs?"

"I know you did not," continued Mrs. Grey. "Your candle was new last night and it was more than half burned out this morning. What were you doing?"

"Then the first trouble came from your disobeying my direct commands. Could you not help that?"

"Then here were two troubles which certainly could have been helped, and which being helped would have prevented most of the others. I will pass over your conduct at the breakfast-table and at your lessons; but could you not have dressed yourself as I told you instead of following your own perverse fancy?"

"That was no reason at all, Etty. When you are commanded to do a thing by those who stand in the place of your parents, your liking or not liking is no excuse for disobeying. Now, to go on to the great trouble of all. Did you not hear your uncle tell you not to go upon the rocks?"

Etty was ashamed to excuse herself by saying that she wanted the flowers, so she said nothing. She was beginning to see that her troubles had been of her own making.

"In every one of these cases you could have 'helped it,' as you say, by merely doing your duty," continued Mrs. Grey. "If you had risen in time, you would not have been hurried and fretted in getting ready for breakfast. You would not have broken your bottle, and spoiled my table, and lost your own temper, and put yourself out of tune for the whole day. If you had trusted your uncle as you ought, you would not have made yourself ridiculous on the wharf as you did. If you had not been so perverse and unreasonable you would not have spoiled your best dress and your own temper as well as that of every one else. To conclude, if you had obeyed your uncle to-day, you would not have run heedlessly into danger, and thus have sacrificed perhaps the life of your poor little sister."

"I cannot tell. She is very dangerously hurt, and even if she should live, it may be months before she can walk. Now tell me, Etty, could you not have helped all these things?"

"Well, I cannot help crying when anything troubles me," said Etty. "I have so much feeling."

"Feeling for yourself, Etty, not for other people. Selfish feeling, which makes you hard-hearted and unkind even to your poor little sister, who would do anything in the world for you. Selfish feeling, which shows that you have never learned to love God or your neighbors, but only to love and please yourself—which will and does make you a torment to yourself and all about you."

"I shall say no more now, Etty, only to recommend you to ask God for the light of His Holy Spirit to teach you to see yourself as you really are. There is no use in trying to cure people unless they can be convinced that they are sick, and there is no use in talking of amendment to one who cannot see that she is to blame. I shall pray for you, my child, and I shall continue to take care of you as well as I can, but I do not know what is to become of you unless you learn to be a better girl."

"Please don't go away, aunt," sobbed Etty: "don't leave me alone. Indeed I will try to be a good girl, if you will forgive me."

"I forgive you, my dear Etty, but there is One whom you have offended more than you have me, whose pardon you ought to ask."

"Please ask Him for me, aunt!" whispered Etty. "And ask Him to make Stella well."

Mrs. Grey knelt by Etty's bedside, and prayed, and for the first time in her life Etty really joined in a prayer.

She wanted very much to see Stella, but her aunt said no, and for once Etty minded without a word.

When Mrs. Grey left her, Etty slipped out of bed, and kneeling down, she prayed herself, with many tears, that her Father in Heaven would spare her dear sister; and that she herself might have grace to be a good girl. That prayer was the beginning of a new life to Etty.

Then feeling a little comforted she rose from her knees. As she did so she felt a sharp pain in her foot, so sharp that she almost screamed. She had felt a pain in the foot a good many times during the afternoon, but her pride would not let her speak of it, lest her aunt should say something about her thin boots.

"O dear, what a wicked little fool I have been!" said she to herself. "Now I have hurt my foot and I dare say I shall have to sit still and be waited on, instead of waiting on Stella."

So it turned out. The next day Etty's foot was found to be so bruised and inflamed that she could not put it to the floor. Here was an end to all her hopes of helping her aunt and waiting upon Stella. Instead of that, she had to be carried up and down-stairs for a month, like a baby, and all she could do for any one was to give as little trouble as possible. She had taken a severe cold which settled in her eyes, already weakened by reading at night, and she could hardly use them at all.

This confinement was one of the best things that ever happened to Etty. She learned for the first time to appreciate the kindness of those who took care of her. She learned to be thoroughly weary of idleness, and to find it a privilege to be employed. She found out too that much as she might try, she could not be a good girl without help from above, and she learned to pray earnestly for the help of God's Holy Spirit. Her "bad days" became fewer and farther between, and at last ceased entirely.

Stella, was ill for a long time, and has never been as well as she was before her fall: but she is happier than ever before, for Etty is now always kind and affectionate to her.

Dear girls, be careful how you excuse your faults by saying you "can't help it!" Remember that you can always have God's help by asking for it in faith and humility, and with Him on your side, you have no right to say that you "cannot help" doing what is wrong.

"I HAVE just been to see Betty Allis," said Emily Dunbar to her cousin Martha. "She is a great deal better, but she is not able to go to school."

"What do you mean, Martha? Of course she has been sick. She would not be very likely to stay out of school just now, unless she was obliged to do so."

"If a girl has been working for a prize, and finds out that she is not likely to get it after all, it may be very convenient to stay out of school a week or two, and then say, at last: 'Oh, of course, I had no chance. I lost so much time by being sick.'"

"Martha, you have no business to say such things," said Emily. "Betty is not that sort of girl at ell."

"And besides," continued Emily, smiling, "I think it as likely as not that Betty will gain the prize, after all. She was ever so far before the rest of us, and she has only been out of school a week, you know."

"Very likely she will. She is a rich man's daughter, and I am a poor man's child; though I dare say she is not so rich as she pretends."

"I don't see that Betty makes any pretence at all," said Emily. "She seems to me as quiet and unpretending as any girl in school, and I don't think you have any right to accuse Miss Lyman of partiality. The fact is, Martha, you have taken such a dislike to Betty Allis, that it makes no difference what she does."

"Well, I have a right to dislike her," replied Martha. "She has treated me shamefully, and she is just as proud, and artful, and hateful, as she can be."

"Who is so proud, and artful, and hateful, Martha?" asked Miss Margaret, who had been sitting all the time behind the blinds of the window which opened on the verandah where the girls were now talking. "Those are hard words to apply to any one."

"I am surprised at that," replied Aunt Margaret. "I have always thought her a very nice girl."

"Well, I do not, and I have good reasons for not liking her," said Martha. "She never loses a chance of provoking and spiting me."

"Come, Martha, if Betty has done so many bad things, you can surely tell of some of them."

"Well, she puts on such airs, for one thing," said Martha. "You would think she owned a whole gold mine, to hear her. The other day, several of the girls were talking about examination dresses. Miss Lyman wants all our class to wear white with black ribbons, on account of Annie Grey's death, you know. Some one asked Betty who was going to make her dress. 'Oh, I am not going to have a new dress made,' she answered, with such an air. 'Mamma likes me to wear white, and I have plenty of white dresses.'"

"I did not see that she put on any airs at all," remarked Emily. "She just said it as a matter-of-course, and she does wear white a great deal."

"Well, last March, when there was snow on the ground, I went over to carry auntie something. I was in a hurry and did not stop to dress myself, but just put on mother's plaid shawl, and tied my old worsted scarf round my neck. I was hurrying along, for I did not want to meet anybody, when I heard some one call me. I turned round, and there was Miss Betty, dressed up in her blue plush frock, and her cape trimmed with sable fur, holding up my old scarf as if it burned her fingers. 'Why, Martha, is it you?' said she, in a tone of affected surprise. 'I did not know you. I found this scarf lying on the snow, and hurried to come up with you, thinking it might be yours.' I could have boxed her ears with a good will."

"She did it just to mortify me!" said Martha. "She knew I should be ashamed of such a dirty old thing."

"And so you ought to be," said Aunt Margaret. "I tell you, you will meet with a great mortification some day if you are not more neat in your dress and habits. But I do not see that Betty was to blame. From what you say, it seems that she had not recognized you when she spoke. I dare say she thought you were some poor body, to whom the scarf would be a serious loss."

"Probably the same business that you had," replied Emily. "She goes over to the Home two or three times a week to read to Mrs. Grimes, the blind woman, and I suppose she has a right to take the shortest road, if she pleases."

"That going over to the Home is just another specimen of her," said Martha. "She likes to have the old ladies make a fuss over her, and to have all the managers say what a charitable, amiable girl Betty Allis is. You would not catch her doing any such thing unless she were sure that people would hear of it."

"Martha, how can you say so?" interrupted Emily. "You know how she helped poor Julia Curtis with her lessons, all the time her eyes were weak, so that she might not lose her place in school. The girls all wondered how Julia could keep up so well; but nobody would have known it if little Fanny had not let out the secret: for Betty made Julia promise not to tell."

"She knew it would come out somehow, or she would not have taken all that trouble," said Martha. "Then her name sounds so silly for a girl fifteen years old Belly Allis! Why does she not call herself Elizabeth?"

"Perhaps for the reason, amongst others, that it is not her name," replied Aunt Margaret, drily. "She was christened Betty at her grandmother's special request."

"She likes the name, though, for she says so," persisted Martha. "Then she makes such a parade of goodness. Miss Lyman said one day, last Lent, that she wished the girls to use their prayer-books in church; and the very next morning, Betty, instead of putting her head down, as she had done before, kneeled down and kept her head up and her book open before her all through the prayers and the Litany. Then she got up with such an air, as if to say, 'Just see how good I am!'"

"I fancy the air was in your imagination," said Emily. "I sat by Betty all through Lent and saw none of those airs that you speak of. Betty is a great deal more serious than she used to be, and I think she is trying hard to be a good Christian girl; but I am sure she makes no parade of it."

"Pray, Martha, what were you doing all through the prayers that you had so much time to observe Betty?" asked Aunt Margaret.

"I think you are cherishing a very wrong spirit," continued Aunt Margaret, seriously; "a spirit which makes you see wrong in everything which Betty does or leaves undone."

"That is just so, Aunt Margaret," said Emily. "I don't want to hurt Martha's feelings, but I am sure she is wrong in that. One Sunday Betty puts fifty cents into the collection and Martha thinks she does it to make a display. Another day she puts in a five-cent piece, and Martha thinks she might have saved something more than that out of all her pocket-money. And that is just the way all the time."

"Such a spirit is a very dangerous one for anybody to cherish," continued Aunt Margaret. "It shows a great want of that charity, without which all our doings are nothing worth:"

"I don't think it is fair to accuse me of want of charity, Aunt Margaret, considering how I saved—"

"How you saved all your pocket-money to give away," said Aunt Margaret, as Martha checked herself. "I am aware that you used a great deal of self-denial in that matter, my dear. I was very glad to see it. But, Martha, St. Paul says, 'though I give all my goods to feed the poor, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.' So you see that it is possible to be very liberal without being charitable at all."

"Yes, my dear. St. Paul, in that beautiful thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, gives us a description of this greatest of graces. He tells us both what it is, and what it is not, and assures us that unless we have it, our greatest gifts and graces are as nothing—

"'Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, though I have faith so that I could remove mountains, though I bestow all my goods to food the poor, or give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.'"

"I advise you to examine your feelings toward Betty by the aid of this chapter, and see if it does not throw some light upon them."

"If she had not served me such a mean trick, I should not care so much!" said Martha. "But it was so shameful in her to go and tell Miss Lyman and get me into disgrace. I don't believe there is another girl in the school who would have done such a thing."

"She went and told Miss Lyman of something I did, and got me into disgrace," said Martha.

"I do know!" returned Martha, angrily. "There was not another person who could have seen me."

"You do not know for certain that any one told," persisted Emily. "Miss Lyman never said so, and you have no proof against Betty except your own fancy."

"Of course you will take her part against me," said Martha. "All I have to say is that I can't bear her, and never shall."

"You are wrong, Martha, and you must know that you are wrong," said Aunt Margaret, gravely. "If you examine your own conscience you will see that it is so."

Martha did not reply. She was not without religious principle, and lately she had been feeling very anxious to become a true Christian. She had tried to give herself to her Saviour, but something seemed to hold back. She had no comfort in prayer, she did not feel as if God heard her, and all her efforts to do good and to love Him seemed hard, up-hill work. Now, as she thought over what her aunt had said to her, she began to wonder whether she had not found out her real hindrance, in the spirit which she had allowed herself to cherish toward Betty Allis.

Martha was a truthful girl. She was very much in earnest, and disposed to be honest in her self-examination. As she read over the description of Charity, she paused at every verse, and compared herself with the words.

"Charity suffereth long and is kind." Kind she certainly had not been. She had never lost an opportunity of saying and doing unkind things where Betty was concerned.

"Charity envieth not." It was rather hard for the naturally proud girl to admit to herself that she had envied her rich school-mate, that a great part of her dislike to Betty arose from the expensive furs, from those same fine white dresses, and the carriage, and the man-servant that called for Betty on rainy days; but One was dealing with Martha who would not let her deceive herself. Yes, it was even so.

"Charity thinketh no evil." She had thought of nothing else. She had put an evil construction on every act of Betty's, however simple, and she was always looking out for bad motives in all she said or did.

"Rejoiceth not in iniquity." Had she not been secretly glad that unlucky day when Betty was surprised into laughing aloud in church, and was afterwards reproved by the clergyman? Had she not rejoiced openly whenever Betty gained a bad mark, or had an imperfect lesson?

There is no use in our going over the whole chapter, though Martha did so to the very end. Then she closed the book and knelt down. She shed many tears as she prayed, but when she rose, her face was full of quiet peace. She had overcome her hindrance for that time. She had acknowledged her sins, and prayed for forgiveness, and for grace to resist her besetting sin, and something in her heart told her that her prayer was granted.

"You were right about Betty Allis and me, Aunt Margaret, and I see I have been wrong all through!" said Martha, after breakfast, when they were alone together in the dining-room.

"I am very glad you do," replied Aunt Margaret. "To see when you are wrong is more than half the battle. But, Martha, had you never known before that you were wrong in cherishing such a spirit? Had not your conscience told you so?"

"Yes, Aunt Margaret, but I would not listen. But I cannot think it was right in Betty to tell Miss Lyman of me. It was none of her business what I did."

"Perhaps not. Nevertheless, Martha, you must forgive, if you would be forgiven."

"I hope I have done so, aunt. I could not help it," added Martha, in a low tone; "when I thought how He forgave me. I would like to be friends with Betty if I could, but I don't know how to set about it."

"Pray for guidance, and keep your eyes open," said Aunt Margaret. "Depend upon it, your way will be made plain."

"Martha," said her mother, opening the door, "suppose you run over to auntie's and carry her these fresh ducks' eggs. She likes them very much, and they will just come in time for her breakfast, if you do not stop to change your dress. You can go through the lane."

"Auntie," was a great-aunt of Martha's, a very old lady. She breakfasted very late, and Martha often ran over to her house with a plate of warm biscuits, a dish of freshly gathered berries, or some other dainty which it was thought the old lady might fancy. She hastily throw on her sunbonnet, and without even taking off her white apron she went to carry the eggs. She staid nearly an hour, doing various little services for auntie, and sharing her morning cup of coffee. As she was returning, she overtook Betty Allis, who was walking slowly in the same direction.

"Just like her!" was Martha's first hasty thought. "Sure to meet me if I look like a fright!"

But she checked herself the next moment and gave Betty a cordial greeting. "Why, Betty, I did not expect to see you out this morning."

"And I am not sure that I ought to be out," replied Betty: "but the morning seemed so pleasant that I could not bear to stay in the house, so I went round to the Home for a little while. Have you been to see your aunt?"

"It must be nice to have an old lady of one's own to go and see!" said Betty. "I wish you would take me to visit your aunt some day, Martha. Do you think she would like to see me?"

The old feeling of jealousy rose in Martha's heart, but she put it down by a brave effort, and answered cheerfully:

"I am sure she would like it very much. She is always fond of young people. I think you must be fond of old people, Betty, you go to the Home so much."

"I am," replied Betty. "I do love to hear the old ladies talk. One learns so much from them. It must be strange," she added, thoughtfully, "to look back upon such a long life."

"I heard the doctor say so," answered Betty. "He told mother that I had consumption, and that though, with good care, I might last on for a year or two, I should never be well, and I might be taken worse at any time."

"Why, Betty!" exclaimed Martha. "Do you believe it? Didn't it make you feel dreadfully?"

"It did, just at first," said Betty; "but I don't mind it so much now, only for mother's sake."

"I don't think the doctor ought to have said so!" said Martha. "He cannot know for certain."

"I believe he feels quite sure," replied Betty. "You know they have ways of finding out those things. He did not tell me, either. I only heard it by accident; but after all I am glad I know the truth. Come into our garden and let me give you some roses."

"I am sure you look very nice in that pretty calico dress and white apron. Besides there is no one to see you. Do come in!"

Martha yielded, and Betty led her from walk to walk, culling roses and other flowers with an unsparing hand. As Martha was going away, Betty detained her.

"Martha, there is one thing I wish to say to you now, because—because—something might happen that I should never see you again." She paused a moment, and went on in a firmer voice: "Martha, I know that you have never liked me, and that you think I do things to spite and mortify you; but, indeed, indeed it is not so. I have always wanted to be friends with you, for I liked you from the first, but if I have ever done or said anything to hurt your feelings, I am sorry, and I beg your pardon. I cannot afford to have any quarrels now, you know," she added, with a sad smile. "I must be in charity with all men."

"You never did, Betty—never but once," said Martha, as soon as she could speak. "I mean when you told Miss Lyman about my walking in the lane with my cousin instead of coming to school. I did wrong, I know, but it did not seem fair that you should tell of me."

"But, Martha, I did not tell of you," said Bettie, earnestly. "What made you think I did?"

"I thought you were the only one who could have seen me," replied Martha, blushing. "There is no other house which overlooks the lane but yours."

"Miss Lyman could have seen you herself from the recitation room when the leaves were off the trees," said Betty. "At any rate, Martha, it was not I who told. I never knew a word of the matter till I heard it in school. Is there anything else?"

"Nothing!" replied Martha. "You have never done me an injury, that I know of. The truth is," she added, coloring and looking down, "that I have always been envious and jealous of you, Betty, and I have tried to justify myself by making out that you were the one to blame. I have been thinking over the matter, and I see how mean and wicked I have been. It is I who ought to beg your pardon, and so I do."

"Don't say any more about it, but let us be friends, and love one another!" said Betty, kissing her. "Come and see me, won't you? You know I cannot go out a great deal now."

"No, I have done with school," replied Betty, sadly. "You will have the prize after all, Martha, and without any trouble, for there is no one else near you."

Martha burst into tears. "I don't care for the prize!" she sobbed. "I would rather not have it."

"Oh, but you will not feel so by-and-by," replied Betty. "But, Martha, just let me say one thing. Dear Martha, do try to be a true Christian. Try to love God with all your heart, to please Him and to work for Him. That is worth all the prizes in the world. Think how I should feel now if I were not sure that He loved me and had forgiven all my sins for His dear Son's sake!"

"I cannot say that," honestly replied Betty. "When I think of dying, I do feel afraid; but I try not to dwell upon that. I think about what is beyond—about seeing my Saviour and all the saints in glory. Doctor Courtland told me that was the best way, and I find it so. But I must not stay out any longer. Do come and see me as soon as you can!"

Martha promised, and went slowly homeward, her heart very full of prayers and resolutions.

"I never was so ashamed in my life!" she concluded. "There, I have been nursing that grudge against her for these two years, and then made up my mind so grandly to forgive what never happened. I feel like a fool, Aunt Margaret."

Before another spring came round, Betty Allis was laid to sleep in the grave, in the sure and certain hope of a joyful resurrection. Her fears of death all passed away before the time of her summons came, and she died in the utmost peace.

Martha spent much time with her during her last illness, and when at last Betty was taken away, she looked back with wonder and shame to the days when she could see nothing but evil in one so gentle and kindhearted.

"SEE that woman coming down the road!" said Mary Willis to her companions. "Isn't she a funny-looking body?"

"She has just come off the cars, I suppose," said another girl. "Look at her bonnet. I should think it had been made before the flood."

"Poor thing, she looks very tired," said Helen Arnold: "and see how lame the little boy is. She seems to be a stranger in town."

"Go and make acquaintance with her, Helen," said Cora Hart, with a sneer. "She is so fashionably dressed and so elegant looking, she would be a nice companion for you."

"See, she is coming this way!" exclaimed Jane Marvin. "I do believe she means to speak to us. Let us have some fun with her, girls!"

"I will have nothing to do with such fun as yours!" said Helen Arnold. "I think it is downright mean and wicked to make sport of poor and old people. Mary Willis, you had better come home with me and be out of mischief."

"Oh, of course she will!" said Jane, scornfully. "I should like to know why Mary Willis is to do as you say. You are neither her teacher nor her mistress, if you are the teacher's niece, and the oldest girl in the class. You stay here, Mary, and show her that you won't be ordered about by her."

"I shall go home when I please, Miss Helen Arnold! I will thank you to mind your own business and let me alone."

"Very well!" replied Helen, and she walked away, feeling both grieved and angry.

She was very fond of Mary Willis, though Mary was much younger than herself. She helped her in her lessons, dressed her dolls for her, and taught her how to make pretty things for them; for Helen was very quick and skilful in all sorts of work. She was anxious that Mary should be a good girl and a good scholar, and she did keep her out of a great deal of trouble which Mary's quick temper and readiness to be led away would have brought upon her.

For a long time Mary had loved Helen more than any one else in the world, except her own mother. But when Jane Marvin came to school, she began, as she said, to put Mary up to be jealous of Helen. She told Mary that Helen did not really care for her, and that she only wished to govern and patronize her, and so show off her own goodness. She laughed at Helen's plain cheap dress and what she called her old-fashioned strict ways, and she told Mary that Helen was a regular little Methodist, and wanted to make her so. Jenny had never been in a Methodist church in her life, and knew nothing about them, but she had heard her father call people Methodists who were religious and strict in their conduct.

It may seem strange that Mary should listen to such talk against her best friend; but Mary had a great idea of being independent and having her own way: and like many other people of the same sort, she was ready to be made a fool of by any one who would take the trouble to flatter her. This Helen never did; nay, I am afraid that in her desire to be honest, she sometimes went to the other extreme and found fault with Mary when there was no reason for doing so.

If Mary had thought a little, she would have seen one great difference between Helen and Jenny. Helen never asked her for anything, and if she happened to borrow a sheet of paper or a steel pen from Mary's store, she was always careful to return it. Mary's mother was rich and Mary had a great abundance of pretty and useful things. She would often have liked to divide with Helen, for she had a generous disposition: but except at Christmas and on her birthday, Helen would never accept presents.

Jenny was very different. She not only took all that was offered her, but she had no scruple in begging for anything in Mary's desk or play-room to which she took a fancy. Mary's paper and pens, Mary's thread and needles, Mary's lunch basket, she used as if they were her own, and she had already got possession of some of Mary's prettiest and most expensive toys. Still Mary could see no fault in her new friend, and she was very much vexed at her mother because she would hardly ever ask Jenny to tea, and would never let her go to Mr. Marvin's to stay all night.

Helen went away feeling very much hurt, and Mary stayed with Jenny and the other girls. The poor woman walked slowly toward them, and when she came opposite she crossed over the street to speak to them.

"Can any of you tell me where Mrs. Willis lives?" she asked, in a sweet, pleasant voice. Her clothes were old-fashioned and worn but she looked and spoke like a lady.

Mary was starting forward to answer her, when Cora Hart pulled her back and at the same moment Jane answered, glibly:

"Mrs. Willis? Yes, ma'am, she lives in that white house up there on the hill," pointing as she spoke to a farm-house which stood about half a mile away upon the side of a steep hill.

"Does she live as far from the village as that?" asked the stranger. "I thought her house was quite near the church."

"She did live near the church," said Jane; "but her house was burned down, and she moved away up there. It is a beautiful place, but rather far-away from the village, and the hill is pretty steep. If you go round the corner by that yellow building with the stairs outside you will be in the road."

The lady thanked her for her information and turned into the street which Jenny had pointed out as leading up to the white house.

"There she goes, trudging along with her bundles," said Jenny, bursting out laughing. "I hope she will find Mrs. Willis at home!"

"Mary was for telling her right away," said Cora. "She would have spoiled all the fun, if I had not stopped her. What do you suppose she wants with your mother, Mary?"

"I dare say she is some beggar woman," answered Mary. "We have heaps of them coming to our house all the time."

"I should think you did!" said Jane, scornfully. "I don't see how your mother can encourage them. I do despise beggars!"

"Well, for my part, I think it was a real mean trick!" said Julia Davis. "Sending the poor woman all the way up that steep hill to an empty house. I wish I had just told her the truth."

"Why didn't you, then?" asked Jane. "Nobody hindered you, Miss Tell-tale; only just let me catch you getting me into a scrape, that's all!"

Julia turned away and went into her own gate without saying a word. She felt very much ashamed of herself, for she knew she had been a coward—she had been afraid to do what she knew was right.

Mary also felt uneasy as she went home. She had been taught her duty towards her neighbor, and she knew right from wrong. All the time she was eating her nice supper, she thought of the poor woman with her little lame boy toiling up the steep road only to find an empty house.

"Helen Arnold would never have done such a thing!" she said to herself, and she wished over and over again that she had gone with Helen.

It was a pleasant, dry evening, and after tea, Mrs. Willis took her work and sat down in a garden chair on the green lawn. Mary stood by her with her doll, but she did not feel like playing or talking. Her conscience troubled her more and more, and she felt very unhappy.

"I have some good news for you, Mary," said Mrs. Willis. "You have often heard me talk of your godmother, your father's sister, who married a missionary and went away to China."

"O yes, mamma!" replied Mary. "I have always wished to see her so much. You know she sent me that beautiful box of shells and curiosities."

And then Mary sighed as she thought how Jenny had begged from her some of the prettiest things, and rarest curiosities in the box.

"Well, my love, I think you will see her very soon. I had a letter from her this afternoon, in which she says she expects to sail the next week for America and will come directly to us. She has a little boy who is lame, and she is bringing him home to see if he can be cured."

"How glad I am!" said Mary. "I have so often looked at her picture—the one you said she painted herself, when she was teaching you to draw, mamma—and wished she would come home."

Mrs. Willis smiled and sighed. "You must not expect to see Aunt Mary looking like her picture," said she. "It was painted long ago, when we were both young, and she has been through a great deal since then."

Mrs. Willis sighed, and looked down on the ground. She was thinking of all that had happened since she had seen her dear sister—how she had lost her husband and all her children but Mary. Mary stood leaning on her mother's chair without speaking, till the sound of the opening gate caused her to look up. There, coming in at the gate, was that very poor woman and her little boy, whom Jane Marvin and her companions had sent "on a fool's errand," as the saying is, to the empty farm-house on the hill.

Before she could make up her mind what to do, Mrs. Willis looked up also, and met the gaze of the stranger. With a scream of delight, she started up and flew to meet her, kissing her and calling her, her dear, precious sister, her darling sister Mary!

Mary came forward. She trembled so that she could hardly stand, and she was very pale, but her mother did not notice her confusion.

"Now run into the house and tell Jane to get tea ready as quickly as she can," said. Mrs. Willis. "And this is my nephew and god-son Willie. But how lame he is, poor little fellow!"

"He is not always so lame," said Mrs. Lee. "But we have had a long and hard walk and he is almost tired to death. I am afraid he will not be able to stir to-morrow."

"I did not expect you till next week, at the earliest," said Mrs. Willis. "But how do you come to arrive at this time of day? The train has been in for two hours."

"I will tell you all about it, presently," replied Mrs. Lee. "Just now I am anxious to find a resting-place for Willie, who, I fear, is suffering very much from his knee."

"Well, you shall soon rest it, my dear boy," said Mrs. Willis. "Where are your trunks, Mary?"

"They will be here to-morrow, I suppose," replied her sister. "They were left behind by some mistake, but I have telegraphed and heard that they are safe and on the way. I must keep out of sight till they come, for between dust and the long journey I look more like a beggar than a lady."

"And now tell me how you came here at this time in the evening?" said Mrs. Willis.

"The matter is easily enough explained," replied Mrs. Lee. "We sailed a week sooner than we expected and had an uncommonly short voyage. We came directly on from Boston, and arrived on the train at four o'clock."

"I am sorry to say we have been made the victims of a most malicious trick," replied Mrs. Lee. "There were no carriages at the station, and I thought I could find your house easily enough. Meeting a party of school-girls, I asked them the way, that I might be sure, and was told by one of them that your house had been burned and that you had moved into a house which she pointed out on the hill-side. If I had known how far it was I should have gone to the hotel, where, of course, I should have been set right."

"But as it was, Willie and I toiled all the way up the steep rough road to find ourselves at an empty, deserted and half-ruined house. Poor Willie broke down entirely, and I felt very much like doing the same, for we had travelled all night and were tired out. I hardly know what we should have done but for a good-natured teamster, who stopped to water his horses at the trough by the gate. I made some inquiries of him, and he not only set me right, but insisted on bringing me back to the village. Poor Willie is quite discouraged at his first experience in a Christian land, and wants to go back to China."

"I did not believe there was a girl in the village who would do such a wicked thing. Who do you suppose it could have been, Mary?"

Mary, in her corner of the sofa, murmured something, she hardly knew what. She was wishing that she were in China, or anywhere else out of the sight of her mother and aunt. Oh, if she had only gone with Helen! If she had only been brave enough to defy Jane, and set her aunt right! But there was no use in wishing.

"She was a short and rather dark girl, with a great deal of curling black hair, and bold black eyes," said Mrs. Lee. "There were several others with her, but I did not notice them so as to be able to know them again."

She turned to Mary as she spoke, and observed her confusion. Could it be that her daughter had been engaged in the trick? At that moment her attention was diverted by poor Willie, who had been trying in vain to eat, and who now, overcome by fatigue and pain, fainted away in his chair. Mrs. Willis saw him carried up-stairs and made as comfortable as he could be, and then returned to the parlor, where Mary was curled up in the corner of the sofa, crying as if her heart would break.

"Now, Mary, I want to know all that you can tell me about this matter!" said Mrs. Willis, seating herself by Mary. "Tell me the whole truth."

"It is one of the most shameful things I ever heard of!" said Mrs. Willis. "How could you join in such a piece of wickedness?"

"No, but by your silence, you consented to what Jane said, when you might have prevented all this trouble by speaking."

"I was going to tell Aunt Mary at first, but the girls pulled me back and would not let me," said Mary, hanging her head.

"She was not there, mamma," replied Mary, eagerly. "She went away before Jane began. She wanted me to go with her, but I was vexed and would not. Oh, if I had only minded her!"

"If you had only minded your own conscience and your own sense of what was right, you would not have needed Helen to keep you out or mischief," said Mrs. Willis. "If you had had one thought of doing as you would be done by, you would not have allowed a wicked, silly girl to send your aunt and your poor lame cousin Willie on such an errand."

"That makes no difference, Mary. You knew she was a woman with a child, and the fact that you thought you were playing a trick upon a poor person makes your fault worse instead of better. Nor do I think you mend the matter by saying that you did not speak a word. You ought to have spoken, especially when the woman inquired for your own mother."

"I know it was wicked and mean, mamma," said Mary. "I have been sorry ever since. I wish Jane Marvin had never come here!" she added, bursting into tears again. "She is always making me do bad things and leading me into mischief!"

"That is sheer nonsense, Mary. Jane could not make you do anything you did not choose, nor lead you where you did not choose to go. If you had been so very easily led, you would have been governed by Helen, whom you have known three times as long as you have known Jane, and whom you have every reason to love and trust."

"You have done very wrong, Mary—very wrong, indeed," continued Mrs. Willis, after a moment's silence. "I cannot excuse what you have done by throwing the blame on Jane. Every one of the party who allowed the cruel imposition to go on was guilty of helping on the cheat. I shall see that Miss Lyman is informed in the morning of the way in which her pupils amuse themselves, and you must expect to take your share of the blame. Now go to bed, and when you say your prayers, ask God to forgive your mean and cruel conduct."

"When I see that you are sensible of your fault, Mary. At present you seem inclined to throw the blame entirely upon somebody else, and to think you are to be excused because 'somebody made you' do what you knew was wicked and cruel."

Mary went away to bed crying bitterly. She had never been so miserable in all her life. It was not the first time she had been "made" by Jane to do wrong. She had done things in Jane's company which she was both afraid and ashamed to have her mother know; but she had always excused herself by thinking they were all Jane's faults.

Now, as she thought about the matter, she saw how useless and vain were all such excuses. If she was so easily led, why had she not been governed by Helen, whom she had known more years than she had known Jane months, who was always ready to give up her own convenience for her sake, and whom she had never known to do a mean action? Why was she not as easily led to do right as to do wrong?

Mary learned more about herself that wretched night than she had ever known before. She had always known that she was a sinner—now she felt it, which is quite a different thing. She thought of all the wrong things she had done lately—the whispering, and reading story-books in prayer-time, the playing truant from school and lying to conceal it—the mysterious private talks about things of which she ought never to have thought; much less spoken—the secrets kept from her mother, to whom she used to tell everything. Mary no longer tried to excuse herself. She felt her own wickedness, and with real repentance asked her Heavenly rather to forgive her for Christ's sake. Then feeling a little comforted, she went to sleep.

She was awakened in the night by her mother sending for Doctor Arnold. Poor Willie was very ill—so ill that for several days no one thought he would live. Oh, how miserable Mary was! She could find no comfort except in running up and down-stairs and waiting upon her aunt and Willie. Dr. Arnold had been informed of the cause of Willie's illness, and the next morning he came into school and told Miss Lyman the whole story, before the minister and all the scholars. All the girls concerned in the trick were obliged to beg Aunt Mary's pardon, and were not allowed any recess for the rest of the term.

Mr. Marvin took Jane out of school, and every one was glad when she was gone, for nobody loved her, not even those who had been the most ready to be governed by her. I am glad to say, however, that Jane herself was sorry when she found out how much harm she had done, and that she had almost caused the death of poor Willie. She went of her own accord and begged his pardon, when he was well enough to see her, and she gladly spent hours in reading to him and amusing him.

But she could not undo the mischief she had done. The lame knee, which might perhaps have been made well, was so strained and inflamed by the long rough walk that it could not be cured, and Willie never walked again without crutches.

Jane learned a great deal from the gentle little Christian boy and his kind mother, and I hope she will grow up a good, useful woman. I think, after all, there was more excuse for her than for Mary. Jane had never known the care and teaching of a good mother. Her mother died when she was a little baby, and she had been brought up by servants and by her father, who was a foolish and bad man. She had always heard him laugh at the Bible as an old book of fables, and at religious people as fools or knaves, and she naturally took her notion from him.

Mary, on the contrary, had every pains taken with her. She had been taught her duty towards God and her neighbor, she had the kindest of mothers, of teachers, and friends, who all tried to influence her for good.

Girls, when you are ready to excuse yourselves for doing wrong by saying somebody "made you," think whether your words are true, and whether if "somebody" had tried to "make you" do right, you would have been as easily led. Remember that God sees your heart, and He will accept no false excuses; and while He is always ready to give you His Holy Spirit to guide you, you have no right to let any human being "make you" do wrong.

"In just one minute," replied Louisa, throwing down the book she had taken up for "just one minute," while she was getting ready for school, and hastening to put on her hat and gloves.

But in that minute the street-car passed. There was not another car for twelve minutes. Then the drawbridge was raised for the passage of a ship, which made a delay of ten minutes more.

The consequence of all these delays was, that though they walked themselves out of breath, Louisa and her little sister Anna were ten minutes too late for school, and poor Anna got a bad mark for no fault of her own except her good-nature in waiting for her sister.

Louisa was in many respects a good girl. She was amiable, truthful, and very obliging, yet she made more trouble and caused more disappointments than any other person in the family. She was much brighter than her sister Anna, and yet she "missed" in school three times to Anna's one. Louisa was truthful, and yet she was not to be trusted: she was obliging, yet she often disobliged those whom she tried to help, and if she was not fretful herself, she was very often the cause of fretfulness in others. All these seeming contradictions are easily explained. The answer to the riddle lay in Louisa's favorite phrase, "just one minute."

For instance. An important message was to go to papa's office and there was nobody to carry it but Louisa. Aunt Maria had written to say that she was coming to make a visit and bring her baby; but the measles were prevailing in D—, and as the baby was a delicate little thing it would not do to have her exposed to the disease. Papa had gone to his office in the city before Aunt Maria's letter came.

"I must write a note to papa and ask him to send a telegraphic dispatch to auntie," said Mrs. Winter; "and you, Louisa, must carry it, for Anna is not well enough to go out. Now, can I depend upon you to go straight to papa's office?"

Louisa meant what she said, and for once she was ready for the car when it came along. But, unluckily, to reach her father's office, she had to pass a toy shop, the window of which almost always presented some new attraction, and had many a time delayed Louisa. She did not mean to stop this time, but only to look at the window in passing. But behold, there was a grand new baby-house with the most wonderful rosewood furniture, and such a kitchen as was never seen in a dolls' house before; and there was her school-mate Jennie Atridge, looking through the glass.

"Oh, Louisa, just look here!" she exclaimed, as she saw Louisa. "Just see what a splendid doll's house! Mamma has promised me one for my birthday. I wonder if she will buy this?"

"I have got a doll's house, but it is not furnished," said Louisa, stopping "just a minute," to look in at the window. "We are going to buy the furniture next week, if Anna gets well enough to come into town. She has been sick two days with a bad cold. I wonder if we could get such a stove as that?"

"I would rather have a range," said Jennie. "See, there is a nice one over in that corner."

The "just a minute" lengthened out into ten, while the girls discussed the furniture, and when Louisa reached the office she found her father had gone out.

"He has gone over to the South End," said the office-boy, "and will not be back till noon. It is a pity you did not come before, for he has not been gone more than five minutes."

When Mr. Winter came back, he found his wife's note and sent a message directly. But it was too late. Aunt Maria had started, and arrived next day to find Anna broken out with the measles, and another of the children coming down with the same disease. The baby took it, of course, and was so ill that its life was despaired of for many days.

Louisa was very sorry, and would gladly have done anything for her aunt or for baby, but she could not undo the mischief she had done by "just one minute's" delay.

One would have expected such a severe lesson to do Louisa some good, but it did not. The truth was that Louisa had not learned to see that she was in fault. She was "unlucky," she thought: "it always happened so." She was sure that she was always ready to do anything that was wanted of her, and she could not understand why her mother should go for baby's medicine herself, instead of sending her, and why Aunt Maria would not let her put into the post-office box the letter which carried the news that baby was at last out of danger.

"Miss Louisa, will you watch these cakes for me while I run out and pick the beans for dinner?" said Mary the cook, one day.

The girls were going to have a party to celebrate Anna's birthday, and Mary had been making and frosting some of the most wonderful cakes in the world. The great table was covered with cocoanut cake, and chocolate cake, and almond cake, and Mary had just put into the oven a pan of macaroons.

"The oven is rather hot, and you must watch it, or the cakes will burn," said Mary. "Just as soon as they begin to brown, open the oven door and leave it."

Louisa promised, as usual. She had already looked at the cakes once or twice, and was just going to look again, when she heard the express man's wagon stop at the gate.

"I do wonder what he has brought this time?" said Louisa to herself. "I mean to run to the front door and see. It will not take more than a minute."

Away she ran, leaving the outside door open, and the oven door shut. The express man had brought a number of parcels, some of them containing presents for Anna from friends in the city, and of course, Louisa had to stop "just a minute" to see them opened. Meantime a beggar woman with a large basket came through the side gate and into the kitchen. No one was there. Louis had deserted her post, and Mary, supposing that she was watching the cakes, was looking over the bean vines and gathering all the beans which were fit to pickle. It was the work of a moment for the woman to slip the cakes into her big basket and slip away herself. When Louisa and Mary came back, both at the same moment, the table was bare and the kitchen full of smoke.

"There now, Miss Louisa, that comes of trusting you!" said Mary, very much vexed. "I thought you promised to stay and see to my cakes?"

"And what has become of all the other cakes?" exclaimed Mary, turning to the table.

Louisa could only say that she did not know. The cakes were safe when she went away.

"Who was that woman I saw going out just now?" asked Mrs. Winter, who had come into the kitchen.

"It was one of those gypsies who are camped over beyond Savin Hill, I'll be bound!" said Mary. "There is no use in running after her. I don't see but poor Miss Anna must go without her birthday cake unless we can send into town and buy some."

"That makes no difference. You knew that you had promised to watch the cakes while Mary was away, and you ought to have kept your word. You have been guilty of a breach of trust!"

"But, mamma, I only meant to be gone a minute—" Louisa was beginning, when her mother checked her sharply.

"Hush, Louisa! Don't let me hear that odious excuse again. Suppose it was only for a minute. Have you any more right to do wrong for a minute than for a day? You are always saying—'only a minute,' 'just a minute,' but your minutes are very apt to lengthen into hours. It was your stopping 'just a minute' when you were sent on an important errand which almost cost the poor little baby its life, last summer. It is your stopping 'just a minute' to read or play or do something else to please yourself, which makes you late at breakfast, at school, and at church; which makes it impossible to trust you to do the least thing or to believe your most serious premises."

"Oh, mamma! I don't tell lies!" said Louisa, crying. "I am sure I never do that."

"I call breaking a promise telling a lie, Louisa. Did you not tell Mary you would stay in the kitchen till she came back?"

"Only you thought of something else you wanted to do, and so broke your promise. The consequence is that all poor Anna's birthday cake is stolen or burnt up. I shall have to leave my work, which is very inconvenient for me, to go into town and buy more; and I shall have to use for it the money I had set apart for another purpose. You can go to your own room and stay there till four o'clock. If it were not for grieving Anna still more, you should not come down again to-day; and you must not ask me for any more pocket-money till after Thanksgiving."

Louisa went to her room crying bitterly, and feeling as though she had been very hardly used.

"Why, Louisa, why are you sitting crying up here to-day, of all days in the year?" asked Aunt Wentworth, Louisa's godmother, who had come out to Anna's party, and had gone up to Louisa's room to arrange her dress and cap. "What has happened to cause so much grief?"

"Mamma sent me up here!" sobbed Louisa. "She won't let me come down till four o'clock, and she says I cannot have one bit of pocket-money till after Thanksgiving—all of three months—only just because I went to the door a minute to see what the expressman had brought for Anna."

"Are you sure that was all?" asked Aunt Wentworth, who, like all the family, had had experience of Louisa's fault. "Was there no more than that about it?"

"Well, I couldn't help it!" replied Louisa, blushing a little. "How could I know that the beggar woman would come into the kitchen and steal the cake, or that the other cakes would burn?"

"Oh!" said Aunt Wentworth. "I begin to understand. You were left in the kitchen to take care of the cake, which was stolen. Is that it?"

"Mary did not say anything about the cakes on the table," persisted Louisa, "she only told me to watch the cakes in the oven."

"I just went through to the front door a minute to see what the expressman had brought for Anna, and while I was gone the cakes in the oven burned up, and a woman came in and stole all the rest of them. I am sure I could not help that!"

"But, Louisa, don't you see that if you had done your duty in watching the cakes in the oven, the cakes on the table would not have been stolen?"

Louisa did not know. She only knew it was very hard to be punished just for running to the front door a minute.

"Louisa, you are very much in fault," said Aunt Wentworth, gravely. "You know that you have done wrong, and yet, instead of being sorry, you are trying to justify yourself and throw all the blame on somebody else. Now, tell me, did you not promise to watch the cakes in the oven? Answer yes or no. Don't begin 'I only.' Did you not promise?"

"But you did break it," interrupted Aunt Wentworth; "so how can you say you did not mean to? You did not certainly go away out of the kitchen without meaning it. That is impossible. You promised to watch, and you did not watch—that is, you broke a promise. Was not that wrong? Is not breaking a promise without reason the same thing as telling a lie?"

Louisa writhed and fidgetted. "I only meant to be gone a minute. It was not as if I had gone away to stay."

"That makes no difference, Louisa. You have no more right to sin for a minute than you have to sin for an hour, or a day. Besides your minutes never are minutes. I know how it was with your music when you used to come to our house to practise. You would take up a story-book for just a minute, and half your practise hour would be gone before you had touched the piano. The fact is that you cannot wilfully do wrong for 'just a minute.' You might just as well set the house on fire and expect it to burn 'just a minute.' What would you think of a sentinel in war time who should admit the enemy into the camp to stay 'just a minute.' When you commit a wilful sin, you make yourself the servant of sin."

"The sin was not in going to the door, but in breaking your promise, as you know perfectly well," said Aunt Wentworth. "I do not at all wonder that your mother is angry with you, Louisa. You not only do not try to get the better of your fault, but you justify yourself in it: and I tell you, in all seriousness, that it is a fault which will ruin your character if you do not try to break yourself of it."

"It has come to that now that nobody can trust you to do the least thing. If you are sent on an errand, there is no certainty of your being in time. If you are set about any piece of work, however necessary, you are more likely than not to neglect it and to disappoint those who depend on you. You are losing your standing in school, instead of gaining, and you are a perpetual worry and discomfort to all around you: and all because of this miserable habit of indulging yourself 'just a minute' in doing what you know to be wrong. As I said, I do not wonder that your mother is displeased, or that she punishes you. The matter is growing very serious, and I tell you, my child, unless you repent and amend in time, your life will be a miserable failure, not only in this world but in that which is to come."

Aunt Wentworth was a very old lady, and one to whom all the family looked up with great respect. She very seldom reproved the children of her nieces, for she was one who understood to perfection the difficult art of minding her own business, and she was very indulgent and kind to young people.

Louisa had been cherishing a secret hope that Aunt Wentworth would intercede with her mother, and, as she said, "beg her off." But Aunt Wentworth had no intention of doing anything of the kind. She knew how serious Louisa's fault was, and that her mother would never have treated her so severely for one single instance of forgetfulness.

For some time after the birthday party, Louisa was more careful. She found it very unpleasant to be without spending money week after week, especially as Aunt Wentworth did not fill up her purse, as sometimes happened, when she went to visit the old lady.

There was another thing which annoyed her even more, and that was the fact that nobody asked her to do anything or accepted her services when offered. She felt that she was not trusted, and this was a worse punishment even than the loss of her pocket-money. She really tried hard to overcome her faults, and she succeeded so well that by-and-by she found herself once more trusted to do errands and other services by her mother and sisters.

But just here it was that Louisa made a great mistake. She thought because she had gained a few victories over her enemy that she was safe, and might relax her guard. She left off watching and praying against her faults, and presently she began to indulge in those "just a minute" readings of story-books and magazines when she ought to have been dressing, or reading her Bible, or learning her lessons—those "just a minute" loiterings, which made her late for school, and those "just a minute" longer morning naps which left her no time to ask God's blessing upon the duties and events of the day.

This was the state of the case when Louisa went to make a little visit to her mother's cousin, Mrs. James Perceval. It was always a treat to go and visit Cousin Frances, not only because she was a very lovely woman, but because she lived in a beautiful old place in the country, only a mile from a famous bathing beach. The house was, in fact, Aunt Wentworth's country-house, but the old lady only went out there for a few weeks in summer, and Cousin Frances kept the house open and in order the rest of the year.

Cousin Frances had been very unfortunate with her children. Three or four of them had died before reaching their third year, and one had been killed by a terrible accident. She had now only two remaining—a delicate, sweet little girl of four years old, and a baby not quite two. Louisa was fond of all children and especially of Milly, and as she was always ready to play with and amuse the little one in her own fashion—to play with the dolls, give tea-parties, and "make believe," to any extent, it is no wonder that both Milly and Milly's mamma loved her dearly.

It happened one day that Captain Perceval came with a carriage to ask his wife to ride with him.

"I should like to go very much," said Cousin Frances, "but nurse has gone into town for the day, and the other servants are busy, so I have no one with whom to leave the children."

"You can take Frank with you," said her husband; "and I am sure Louisa will take care of Milly."

"Of course I will!" said Louisa. "Do go, Cousin Frances; the ride will do you so much good."

"I don't wonder that you are anxious about your children, my dear," said her husband; "but surely Louisa can take care of Milly for an hour. Louisa is almost a woman now, and if she cannot be trusted for so long a time as that, what will she ever be good for?"

At last Cousin Frances consented to go, but the gave Louisa many charges about Milly.

"Be sure you keep her in sight all the time, and do not let her run about the grounds. It rained hard last night and the grass is very wet."

Louisa promised, and Cousin Frances went away. For the first half hour Milly played contentedly upon the veranda with her dolls and books and her pet rabbits, while Louisa worked at the sofa cushion she was making for Aunt Wentworth's birthday. Presently Louisa found she had mislaid some of her wool.

"What have I done with those shades of gray? Oh, I know! I left them in the summer-house last night. I hope they have not got wet. Now, Milly, you stay here and play, and I will be back in a minute."

"Because it is too wet for you. Just stay here and I will be back before you can count twenty."

Milly sat down very obediently and counted twenty two or three times, and still Louisa did not come back. Then the rabbit escaped from her and ran into the grass. Picture-book in hand, Milly pursued him, and after quite a chase, in which her shoes and stockings were wet through, she succeeded in capturing him. Then finding herself in a shady place among the trees, she sat down on the ground, and began to turn over the leaves of her picture-book, the rabbit sitting contentedly in her lap.

Meantime Louisa reached the pretty little Swiss cottage called the summer-house, where she found her worsted uninjured. Unluckily she also found something else—namely, a new book of travels with beautiful wood-cuts, which had been left there the night before.

"There now!" said Louisa, in a tone of triumph. "If I had done that, what a fuss there would have been! I mean to leave it here just to see what a hunt there will be for it. I just want to look at that picture of the leaf-butterfly a minute."

In looking for the leaf-butterfly, Louisa found many other wonderful things, and she lingered, looking at picture after picture, till the ringing of the noon-bell roused her. She hastened back to the house, but Milly was nowhere to be seen. She was not in the house nor yet in the garden. Louisa had not found her when Cousin Frances drove up.

"Where is Milly?" was of course the first question, and Louisa was obliged to confess that she did not know.

She had left her safely seated on the steps while she went for some worsted, and when she came back the child was gone.

"You were away more than a minute, Miss Louisa," said the housemaid, "for I came out here twice and did not see you. I supposed you had taken Milly up-stairs."

"I went to the summer-house for my wool," said Louisa. "I did not mean to be gone more than a minute."

"Surely it did not take all that time to find your worsted!" said Cousin Frances.

"O yes, there it is!" said Cousin Frances. "But I cannot stop to talk now. I must go and find Milly. I might have known better than to trust your word, Louisa, but I was led to think you had improved."

After a long search, Milly was found where we left her. She had been sitting on the damp grass for about an hour, with her shoes and stockings wringing wet. She told her story very artlessly of how Cousin Louisa did not come back, and she got tired of waiting, "and then the rabbit ran away, and I ran after him, and when I caught him, I was tired and sat down to rest. I did not mean to be naughty, mamma," said the little girl, with a grieved face. "Mamma did not tell Milly not to run after the rabbit."

"No, my darling," said Cousin Frances. "If I had told you, you would have minded me. Louisa, did you not promise me not to leave the child?"

For once Louisa had nothing to say for herself, and did not try, even in her own mind, to excuse her conduct.

Milly was undressed directly, but before she could be put into bed, she complained of being very cold, and was presently attacked with a severe chill and pains in her head and chest. Before night, it became plain that Milly had inflammation of the lungs, and the next day her life was despaired of.

Never was any one more wretched than Louisa. She went home the same day, for though Captain Perceval was a Christian man and tried to forgive as he would be forgiven, he could not bear the sight of one who had, as it seemed, been the cause of his child's death. Of course Louisa's father and mother had to hear the story—indeed Louisa herself told her mother all about the matter, with many bitter tears.

"I shall always feel as if I had killed little Milly!" said she. "Cousin James said my faithlessness had caused her death, and I believe it is true."

"I am afraid so!" said Mrs. Grey, sadly. "I have always feared that your besetting sin would lead to some terrible consequences. I hoped you had seen it in its true light and were trying to conquer it."

"I thought I had conquered it, mamma," said Louisa. "I thought I had got all over it!"

"Oh, Louisa, that was a great mistake! You ought never to leave off watching and praying against your faults, for you can never be sure you have quite conquered, especially when a bad habit has been indulged as long as yours has been."

"But what shall I do now, mamma?" sobbed Louisa. "There is no use in my trying any more, now that I have killed poor Milly. I am afraid God will never forgive me."

"You must not think so, my poor child. I hope dear Milly may be spared to our prayers, but even if she is not, you must not despair of God's forgiveness. 'Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be white as snow.'"

"But, mamma, I have been wicked so long! And I have done wrong on purpose. I have always known it was wrong to waste my time so, and to indulge myself in everything I wanted to do, excusing myself by saying that it was only for a minute. I knew all the time it was wrong to leave Milly alone so long, and yet I did it because I wanted to look at the book."

"That is what I have always told you, Louisa—that you were indulging in wilful sin. Now that you are sensible of your fault, I shall have more hopes of you than ever before. Do not distrust God's mercy, whatever you do, for that in itself is a great sin, but humbly ask His forgiveness for Jesus Christ's sake. Ask that your sins may be washed away in His blood, and that you may have the help of the Holy Spirit to keep you from sinning again!"

"My dear, I have no more doubt of it than I have that I am alive," said her mother.

"But even if He does, that will not bring poor Milly to life again!" said Louisa, despairingly.

"Milly is not dead yet, my dear, and it may be that God will spare her in answer to our prayers. But even if He does not see fit to do so, it is no less your duty to ask His forgiveness and to trust in His mercy for the future. You must not throw away the rest of your life, because you have failed so far."

"Good news, good news, mamma! Good news, Louisa!" cried Anna, coming in a few days after, with a beaming face. "Cousin James has just been at the office to say that Milly is out of danger. The doctor says she will get well. And oh, Louis, Milly begs to see you all the time, and Cousin James wants you to comp out to L— this afternoon. He will meet you at the station."

Louisa looked at her mother, and then rising, she went into her own room and shut the door. She did not come out for an hour, and when she did, her eyes were red with crying, but her face was calm and happy.

"Oh, mamma!" she whispered, as she was going away, "I have always heard that God was good, but I never really felt it before!"

"We will say nothing about the past, Louisa," said Cousin James that night, as Louisa, with trembling words, began to speak of the cause of Milly's illness. "Let by-gones be by-gones; but let what has happened be a lesson to you all your life. God has kindly spared us our little darling, and saved you especially from a great sorrow. Show by your actions that you are sensible of His goodness."

"Indeed, Cousin James, I hope I shall do so," said Louisa, with tears. "I said this morning that if Milly only lived, I would try never even for a moment to do what I knew to be wrong."

"That is an excellent resolution, Louisa. But you must remember that you can never keep it in your own strength. You must constantly pray for the help of the Holy Spirit, and you must constantly and faithfully watch against the first beginning of temptation. You will no doubt find the bad habit all the harder to break off because you have indulged it so long; but you have every encouragement to persevere, and if you do so, I have no doubt you will, in time, become a useful Christian woman."

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of The school-girls' treasury

THE

SCHOOL-GIRLS'

TREASURY

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE