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diff --git a/32200.txt b/32200.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9c8982e --- /dev/null +++ b/32200.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3407 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Sowing and Sewing, by Charlotte Mary Yonge + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Sowing and Sewing + A Sexagesima Story + + +Author: Charlotte Mary Yonge + + + +Release Date: May 2, 2010 [eBook #32200] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOWING AND SEWING*** + + +E-text prepared by Emmy, Juliet Sutherland, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +SOWING AND SEWING. + +A Sexagesima Story. + +by + +CHARLOTTE M. YONGE. + + + + + + + +New York: +E. P. Dutton and Co., +39, West Twenty-Third Street. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +PERHAPS some may read allusions to a sacred Parable underlying this +little story. If so, I hope they will not think it an irreverent mode of +applying the lesson. + + C. M. YONGE. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER I. PAGE + THE SERMON 1 + + CHAPTER II. + THE SUNDAY SCHOOL 13 + + CHAPTER III. + THE WORKING PARTY 28 + + CHAPTER IV. + TEACHER AMY 49 + + CHAPTER V. + THE TROUSSEAU 64 + + CHAPTER VI. + STITCH, STITCH, STITCH 79 + + CHAPTER VII. + WANDERING EYES 101 + + CHAPTER VIII. + AMY'S VISITS 115 + + CHAPTER IX. + AWKWARD MEETINGS 127 + + CHAPTER X. + THE RECKONING 150 + + CHAPTER XI. + WHICH SHALL PROSPER? 159 + + + + +SOWING AND SEWING. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE SERMON. + + +FOUR girls were together in a pleasant cottage room with a large window, +over which fluttered some dry sticks, which would in due time bear +clematis and Virginia creeper leaves. + +Three of them were Miss Lee's apprentices, and this room had been built +out at the back of the baker's shop for them. The place was the property +of the Lee family themselves, and nobody in Langley was more respected +than they were. Ambrose Lee, whose name was over the baker's shop, and +who kept a horse and cart, was always called Mr. Lee. + +He had married a pretty, delicate young girl, who had soon fallen into +such hopeless ill-health, that his sister Charlotte was obliged to live +at home to attend to her and to the shop. And when young Mrs. Lee died, +leaving three small children, another sister, Rose, gave up her place to +help in the care of her old father and the little ones. + +Rose Lee had been a sewing maid, and, being clever, had become a very +fair dressmaker; so she took in needlework from the first, and when good +old master Lee died, and the children had grown old enough to be more +off her hands, she became the dressmaker and sempstress of the place, +since there was no doubt that all she took in hand would be thoroughly +well turned out of hand, from a child's under garment up to Mrs. and +Miss Manners's dresses. "For," as her sister Charlotte proudly said of +her, "the ladies had everything made down here, except one or two +dresses from London for the fashion." Her nephews were both from home, +one as a pupil-teacher, the other at a baker's with a superior business, +and her niece, Amy, the only girl of the family, had begun as a +pupil-teacher, but she had such bad headaches at the end of her first +year that her father was afraid to let her go on studying for +examinations, and cancelled her engagement, and thus she became an +assistant to her aunt. Then Jessie Hollis, from the shop, came home from +her aunt's, unwilling to go to service, and begged Miss Lee to take her +and teach her dressmaking; and, having thus begun, she consented, rather +less willingly, to take likewise Florence Cray from the Manners Arms, +chiefly because she had known her mother all her life, and believed her +to be careful of the girl; besides which, it was a very respectable +house. + +As plain work, as well as dressmaking, was done, there was quite enough +employment for all the hands, as well as for the sewing machine, at +which Amy, a fair, delicate-looking girl, was whirring away, while +Jessie was making the button-holes of a long _princesse_ dress, and +Florence tacking in some lining; or rather each was pausing a little in +her work to answer Grace Hollis, Jessie's sister, a businesslike-looking +young person, dressed in her town-going hat and jacket, who had stepped +in, on her way to meet the Minsterham omnibus, to ask whether Miss Lee +wanted to have anything done for her, and likewise how many yards of +narrow black velvet would be wanted for the trimming of her own and +Jessie's spring dresses. + +Miss Lee was gone up to the house for a grand measuring of all the +children for their new frocks; but Amy began to calculate and ask +questions about the width and number of rows, and Jessie presently +said-- + +"After all, I think mine will look very well without any round the +skirt." + +"Why, Jessie, I thought you said the dress you saw looked so genteel +with the three rows----" + +"Yes," said Jessie; "but I have thought since--" and she hesitated and +blushed. + +Amy got up from the machine, came towards her, and, laying her hand on +her, said, gently-- + +"I know, Jessie." + +"And I know, though you wanted to keep it a secret!" cried Florence. "I +was at church too last night!" + +"Oh, yes, I saw you, Florence; and wasn't it beautiful?" said Amy, +earnestly. + +"Most lovely! It is worth something to have a stranger here sometimes to +get a fresh hint from!" said Florence. + +"I call that more than a hint," said Jessie, in a low voice. "I am so +glad you felt it as I did, Flossy." + +"Felt it! You don't mean that you got hold of it? Then you can tell +whether it was cut on the bias, and how the little puffs were put on!" + +"Why, what are you thinking of, Flossy?" exclaimed Amy. "Bias--puffs! +One would think you were talking of a dress!" + +"Well, of course I was. Of that lovely self-trimming on that cashmere +dress of the lady that came with Miss Manners. What--what are you +laughing at, Grace?" + +"Oh! Florence," said Amy, in a disappointed tone; "we thought you meant +the sermon." + +"The sermon?" said Florence, half annoyed, half puzzled; "well, it was +a very good one; but----" + +"It did make one feel--oh, I don't know how!" said Jessie, much too +eager to share her feelings with the other girls, even to perceive that +Florence wanted to go off to the trimming. + +"Wasn't it beautiful--most beautiful--when he said it was not enough +only just not to be weeds, or to be only flowers, gay and lovely to the +eye?" said Amy. + +"Yes," went on Jessie; "he said that we might see there were some +flowers just for beauty, all double, and with no fruit or good at all in +them, but dying off into a foul mass of decay." + +"Ay," said Grace; "I thought of your dahlias, that, what with the rain +and the frost, were--pah!--the nastiest mess at last." + +"Then he said," proceeded Jessie, "that there were some fair and comely, +some not, but only bringing forth just their own seeds, not doing any +real good, like people that keep themselves to themselves, and think it +is enough to be out of mischief and do good to themselves and their +families." + +"And didn't you like it," broke in Amy, "when he said that was not what +God asked of us? He wanted us to be like the wheat, or the vine, or the +apple, or the strawberry, some plain in blossom, some fair and lovely to +look at, but valued for the fruit they bring forth, not selfishly, just +to keep up their own stock, but for the support and joy and blessing of +all!" + +"One's heart just burnt within one," continued Jessie, "when he bade us +each one to go home and think what we could do to bring forth fruit for +the Master, some thirty, some sixty, some an hundredfold. Not only just +keeping oneself straight, but doing something for Christ through His +members." + +"Only think of its being for Christ Himself," said Amy softly. + +"Well," said Grace, "I thought we might take turns to go to Miss +Manners's missionary working parties. I never gave in to them before, +but I shall not be comfortable now unless I do something. And was that +what you meant about the velvet trimming, Jessie? It will save--" + +"Fifteen pence," said Jessie. + +"Very well--or you may say threepence more. So we can put that into the +box, if you like. I must be going now, and look sharp if I'm to catch +the bus. So good-bye, all of you." + +"Oh! but won't you have the self-trimming," broke in Florence. "Perhaps +she'll be there on Friday night, and then we might amongst us make out +how it is done." + +"Florence Cray, for shame!" said Grace. "I do believe you minded nothing +but that dress all through that sermon." + +"Well," said Florence, who was a good-humoured girl, "there was no +helping it, when there it was just opposite in the aisle, and I'd never +seen one like it; and as to the sermon, you've just given it to me over +again, you've got it so pat; and I'll go to the missionary work meeting +too, Grace, and very like the young lady will be there, and I can see +her trimming." + +"If you go for that, I would go to a fashion-book at once," said Grace; +"but I must really be off now, I've not another minute to stop." + +"Oh dear, I forgot," cried Florence, jumping up, "I was to ask you to +call for our best tea-pot at Bilson's. And my mother wants a dozen--" +and there her voice was lost as she followed Grace out of the room +through the shop, and even along the road, discoursing on her +commissions. + +Amy and Jessie were left together, and Amy stood up and said: + +"Dear, I am so glad you felt it as I did!" + +"One could not help it, if one listened at all," said Jessie. "Amy, I +must be doing something for His sake. I can't rest now without it. You +teach at the Sunday school. Don't you think I might?" + +Amy meditated a little. + +"I think they would make up a class for you. When Miss Pemberton's niece +goes away, the class she takes has to be joined to her aunt's, and that +makes a large one." + +"Then will you speak to Miss Manners for me?" asked Jessie. "Are they +little girls or big ones?" + +"Oh, that's the second class. They would be sure not to give you that," +said Amy, as if she thought the aspiration very high, not to say +presumptuous. "Perhaps Margaret Roller, the pupil-teacher, you know, may +take that. Then I should have hers and you mine. They are dear little +girls, some of them, only Susan Bray always wants a tight hand over her, +Polly Smithers is so stupid, and Fanny Morris is so sly, one always has +to be on the watch." + +"Here she comes," said Florence, who was the nearest to the window, and +the entrance of Aunt Rose, a brisk, fair little woman, young looking for +her age, recalled all her "young ladies," as Florence and Jessie, and +perhaps Amy likewise, preferred being called, to recollect that +stitching was, at that moment at least, the first thing to be attended +to. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE SUNDAY SCHOOL. + + +PERHAPS Amy's business-like tone about the school classes fell a little +flat upon Jessie's ear. She had not been to a Sunday school in her +childhood. Her father had been a prosperous upholsterer's foreman in +Minsterham, and Grace and Jessie had gone to an "academy" till, when +they were sixteen and fourteen years old, their father died of a fever, +and their mother, who had a cottage of her own at Langley, resolved on +coming back and setting up a small shop there for all sorts of wares, +with Clementina Hollis over the door. + +Jessie was about eighteen, two years younger than her sister. She had +always been a bright, quick, lively girl, but never very thoughtful, and +much too inquisitive, till her curiosity had brought on her a terrible +accident, which had kept her laid up in a hospital for many weeks. She +had come home quite well at last, and much improved. A fellow patient, +and likewise a lady who had visited her and lent her books, had both +made much impression on her. She cared about right and wrong as she had +never done before, was more useful at home, and tried to restrain her +inclination to find out all about everything; she said her prayers more +carefully, went to Church more often, and heeded more what she heard; +and altogether she was what her mother called an altered girl. This was +Lent, and a clergyman was staying with Mr. Somers to preach a course of +sermons on the Friday evenings, and it was one of these that had so much +struck these young girls, and had put into their minds for the first +time, with any real force, the full sense that the true Christian must +seek to work for the good of the household of Christ as well as his own +household, and that "bringing forth good fruit" does not simply mean +taking care of oneself, and trying to save one's own soul. + +The language had been beautiful and stirring, and there was a burning +desire in more than one heart to be doing something for Christ's sake. +The first thing that Jessie thought of was the Sunday school. She had +read books about it, and her fellow patient was full of ardour about +"training little lambs," as she called it, so that it seemed the most +beautiful and suitable task she could undertake. + +Amy Lee, on the other hand, hardly knew how to spend a Sunday without +the school. She had been a scholar there until she had quite outgrown +the first class, and had been more than a year confirmed, and then she +had become a teacher of the little ones. She liked the employment, and +was fond of the children; she would have been sorry to drop the +connection with Miss Manners or with Miss Joy, the mistress, and the +rest of the school staff; she was pleased to work for and with Mr. +Somers and Miss Manners, and she had been trained to be reverent and +attentive; but it had never occurred to her to think of it as more than +a nice and good thing to do, or to look on it as a work undertaken for +Christ's sake. + +"Teaching at school, I do that already," she said to herself, when Aunt +Rose's entrance had made her work her machine more and her tongue less. +"I must get something more to do. Oh! I know. There's poor old +half-blind Mrs. Long. She is left to herself terribly, they do say, and +I'll go and tidy her up, and see to her and read to her every day. I +could do it before my work and after. Maybe I might get her to be a +better old woman than she ever has been. Books say that nothing so +softens an old woman as a nice, bright young girl coming in to make much +of her, and I'm sure I'm nice and bright--not so much in myself, but +compared with the whole lot of Longs." + +So Amy told her plan to her aunts, as soon as Florence and Jessie had +gone home to dinner. + +The two aunts looked at one another, and Aunt Charlotte said, "Did the +sermon make you think of that?" in rather a doubtful tone. + +"Yes," said Amy. "One seemed to long to be doing some good, not be only +an empty flower, as he said." + +"Mrs. Long," said Aunt Rose; "she ain't a very nice person to fix +upon." + +"But no one wants it so much, aunt," said Amy. + +"That's true," said Aunt Charlotte. "Well, Amy, we must think about it, +and speak to your father. Run out now, and gather a bit of parsley for +his cheese." + +Amy knew it was to get her out of the way, and felt rather disappointed +that the proposal was not seized upon at once, and applauded. + +"She's a good girl," said Aunt Rose. + +"Well, so she is, and I don't like to stand in her way," said Aunt +Charlotte. + +"But to pitch on old Sally Long of all folk in the world!" said Rose. + +"There's no doubt but she does want something done for her; but I +misdoubt me if she will choose our Amy to do it. Besides, I don't like +her tongue. That's what daunts me most." + +"Yes. If she took it kind of the girl, she would never be satisfied +without talking to her of all the old backbiting tales that ever was! +And we that have kept our girl up from hearing of all evil just like a +lady--" + +"What is it?" said Ambrose Lee, himself coming in, after putting up his +cart. + +"Why, that sermon last night has worked upon our Amy, so that she wants +to do something extra," said Aunt Rose. + +"A right down good sermon it was," said the father; "a bit flowery, to +suit the maidens, I suppose." + +"And she said it all off to me, quite beautiful," said Rose, who had +stayed at home. + +"And what does the child want to be doing? I won't have her go back to +her books again, to worry her head into aching." + +"No, that's not what she wants. Her notion is to run in and out and see +to old Widow Long." + +"Widow Long!" exclaimed the baker. "Why, she's got as slandering a +tongue as any in the parish! Give the poor old soul a loaf or a sup of +broth if you like, but I'll not have my girl running in and out to hear +all the gossip of the place, and worse." + +"I knew you would say so, Ambrose," returned Charlotte. "All the same, +the child's thought shames me that I've never done anything for the poor +old thing; and she won't harm me." + +Ambrose chuckled a little. "I don't know but aunt likes a spice of +gossip as much as her niece. 'Tis she tells us all the news." + +"Well, I can get plenty of that in the shop, without going to Dame Long +for it," said Charlotte, laughing. "I like the real article, genuine and +unadulterated." + +They were laughing at Aunt Charlotte's wit when Amy came in, and she +looked from one to the other, afraid they were laughing at her project, +and ready to be offended or hurt. She did not like it when her father +said, "Look here, my girl, Aunt Charlotte says Dame Long's dish of +tongue is too spicy for you, and she must have it for herself." + +"I don't know what you mean, father," said Amy, nearly crying, "I didn't +want it for that." + +"No, you didn't, child," said Charlotte; "but come along here, I want +you to help me dish up." + +Amy came with the tears standing in her eyes into the back kitchen, +vexed, angered, and ready to be cross. Her aunt set her to prepare the +dish for the Irish stew, while she said, "Father was at his jokes with +me, Amy. He don't like you to be running in and out to old Sally Long by +yourself; no more does your Aunt Rosy nor I; but the poor old body +didn't ought to be neglected, and the sermon was just as much for me as +for you, so I've made up my mind to look after her a bit, and you may +come in with me sometimes if you like." + +"That was not what I meant," said Amy, rather fretfully. + +"I dare say not. There, mind what you are about, or you'll have that +dish down. Where's the flour? Come, now, Amy, don't be daunted, if you +can't do good quite in your own way; why shouldn't you ask Miss Dora +now?" + +Amy muttered and pouted. "I'm not such a child now!" + +"Ain't you then, to be making such a pout at not getting just your own +way." + +Down came the dish with a bounce on the table, and away ran Amy up the +stairs, where she cried and choked, and thought how hard it was that she +should be hindered, and laughed at, and scolded, when she wanted to do +good, and bring forth the fruit of good works. + +She heard Aunt Rose ask where she was, and her Aunt Charlotte answer, +"Oh! she will be down in a minute." + +She felt it kind that no one said that she was in the sulks. The relief +did her good; she could not bear that any one should guess what was +amiss. So she washed her face in haste, tidied her hair and collar, and +hoped that she looked as if she had gone up for nothing else. + +Perhaps her father had had a hint, and she was his great pet, so he took +care that the apprentices should not suspect that Amy had been "upset." +So he began to tell what had made him late at home. He had overtaken +poor Widow Smithers in much trouble, for she had had a note from the +hospital to say that her little boy, Edwin, must be discharged as +incurable. It was a hip complaint, and he could not walk, and she had +not been able to find any way of getting him home. + +It so happened that all the gentlefolks were out for the day, and she +did not get her letter in time before the market people set off. She was +indeed too poor to hire a conveyance, and was going in, fearing that she +might have to carry this nine-year-old boy herself five miles unless she +could get a lift. So Mr. Lee had driven her into the town, and after +doing his work there, had come up to the hospital, and had taken her in +with poor little Edwin, who was laid on a shawl in the cart, but cried a +good deal at the jolting. The doctors said that they could do no more +for the poor little fellow, and she would have to take him home and do +the best she could for him. + +It fell very hard upon her, poor woman, for she was obliged to go out to +work every day, since she had four children, and only Harry, the one who +was older then Edwin, earned anything--and indeed he only got three +shillings a week for minding some cows on the common. The two girls +_must_ go to school, and indeed they were too young to be of much use +and the boy would have to be left alone all day, except for the dinner +hour, as he had been before the hospital had been tried for him. + +"There, Amy," said Aunt Charlotte, as they were clearing away the dinner +things after the menfolk had gone out, "there's something you could do. +It would be a real kindness to go in and see after that poor little +man." + +"Yes," added Rose; "you might run in at dinner time, and I'd spare you a +little time then, and you might read to him, and cheer him up--yes, and +teach him a bit too." + +"Edwin Smithers was always a very tiresome, stupid little boy," said +Amy, rather crossly, from her infant school recollections. + +"Then he will want help all the more," said Aunt Rose, and it sounded +almost like mimicry of what Amy had said of old Mrs. Long. + +She did not like it at all. It is the devices of our own heart that we +prefer to follow, whether for good or harm, and specially when we think +them good. And yet we specially pray that we may do all such good works +as our Lord hath _prepared for us to walk in_, as if we were to rejoice +in having our opportunities set out before us, yet the teaching a dull +little boy of whom she had had experience in the infant school, did not +seem to her half such interesting work as converting an old woman of +whom strange things were said. + +However, Amy was on the whole a good girl, though she had her little +tempers, and did not guard against them as she ought, thinking that what +was soon over did not signify. + +By and by, Jessie came back radiant with gladness, and found a moment +to say, before Florence Cray came in, that her mother was quite +agreeable to her teaching in the Sunday school, if Miss Manners liked +it. She had gone there herself for some years when she and Miss Manners +were both young, and she was well pleased that her daughter should be +helpful there. + +Amy, who was fond of Jessie, was delighted to think of having her +company all the way to school, and her little fit of displeasure melted +quite away. But when Florence was heard coming in, both girls were +silent on their plans, knowing that she would only laugh at their +wishing to do anything so dull. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE WORKING PARTY. + + +"ARE these fruits of the sermon on Friday night?" said Miss Manners to +Mr. Somers, as they finished winding up their parish accounts on Monday +morning. "Not only, as you know, here is Grace Hollis wanting to join +Mrs. Somers's Tuesday working parties, Jessie begging to help at the +Sunday school; but I find that good little Amy Lee went and sat with +poor Edwin Smithers for half an hour on Sunday after church, showing him +pictures, and she has promised his mother to come and look in on him +every day. It is very nice of the Lees to have thought of it, and to +spare her." + +"Yes," said Mrs. Somers, "the Lees are always anxious to do right." + +"I had a talk with Charlotte just now. She came to get some flannel for +Mrs. Long. She says she will make it up for her, if the old woman can +have it out of the club. Well, she says it is quite striking how all +those girls have been moved by Mr. Soulsby's sermon on Friday evening. +Amy came home and nearly said it all off to her Aunt Rose, and the girls +were all talking about it in the workroom in the morning, full of +earnestness to make some effort." + +"I saw they were looking very attentive," said Mr. Somers. "Shall you +accept Jessie Hollis's help?" + +"I think I can make a class up for her." + +"I suppose it would be a pity to check her, but do you imagine that she +knows anything?" + +"I don't know; but she is not at all a stupid girl, and she cannot go +far wrong with the questions on the Catechism and Gospels that I shall +give her. Indeed I had thought of asking her and Margaret Roller, and, +perhaps, Amy Lee, to come and prepare the lessons here on Friday +evenings after church." + +"A good plan," said Mr. Somers, "if it be not giving you too much to +do." + +"Not a bit, especially at this time of year, when nobody wants me in the +evenings. My only doubt is whether it is not keeping the girls out too +late, but I will see whether it can be managed. The children might be +better taught, and the teachers might learn something themselves in this +indirect way." + +Perhaps this was Miss Dora's way of acting on the sermon, but she could +not begin that week, as a friend was coming to spend the Friday with +her. + +Meantime Grace Hollis had joined the working party that met every +Tuesday afternoon for an hour to make clothes for a very poor district +in London. She had been sometimes known to say that it was all waste of +time to make things and send them away to thriftless, shiftless folk; +but she had heard something of the love of our neighbour, and our +membership with the rest of our Lord's Body, which had touched her +heart. So she brought her thimble and needle, to join the working party +who sat round the Rectory dining-table. Mrs. Somers and Miss Manners +shook hands, made her welcome, and found her a seat and some work. Grace +looked about her to be sure who the party were. Mrs. Nowell, the +gardener's wife, sat next to her. Then came little Miss Agnes from the +Hall, sewing hard away, and Lucy Drew from Chalk-pit Farm, who was about +her age, next to her, and old Miss Pemberton knitting. + +"A mixed lot," said Grace to herself, and then her eye lit upon deformed +Naomi Norris, of whom she did not approve at all. Did not the girl come +of a low dissenting family, and had not her father the presumption to +keep a little shop in Hazel Lane which took away half the custom, +especially as they pretended to make toffee? Meanwhile here was Miss +Wenlock, the governess at the squire's, and Miss Dora reading aloud to +the party in turn. It was the history of some mission work in London, +and Miss Lee, who was there, listened with great pleasure, as did many +of the others. Indeed she well might, for her eldest sister's son hoped +one day to be a missionary. But Grace was not used to being read to, +and, as she said, "it fidgeted her sadly," and she was wondering all the +time what mistakes mother would make in the shop without her, and she +began to be haunted with a doubt whether she had put out a parcel of +raisins that Farmer Drew's man was to call for. The worry about it +prevented her from attending to a word that was read; indeed she could +hardly keep herself from jumping up, making up an excuse, and rushing +home to see about the raisins! + +Then she greatly disapproved of the shape of the bedgown she had been +set to make, and did not believe it would sit properly. It was ladies' +cutting towards which she felt contemptuous, and yet she would have +thought it impolite to interfere. Besides, it might make the whole +sitting go on longer, and Grace was burning to get home. At last the +reading ended, but oh! my patience, that creature Naomi was actually +putting herself forward to ask some nonsensical question, where some +place was, and Miss Agnes must needs get a map, and every one go and +look at it--Grace too, not to be behindhand or uncivil to the young +ladies; but had not she had enough of maps and such useless stupid +things long ago when she left school at Miss Perkins's? + +When at last this was over, Mrs. Somers came and spoke to her while she +was putting on her hat, and thanked her pleasantly, saying that she was +afraid that beginning in the middle of a book made it less interesting, +but that one day more would finish it. Then she added "I don't like the +pattern of that bedgown, do you?" + +"No, Mrs. Somers, not at all," replied Grace. "It quite went against me +to put good work into it." + +"I wonder whether you could help us to a better shape next time," said +Mrs. Somers. "We should be very much obliged to you. This pattern came +out of a needlework book, and I am not satisfied about it." + +Grace promised, and went away in better humour, but more because she had +been made important than because she cared for what she had been doing. +She was glad no one could say she had been behindhand with her service, +but it was a burthen to her, and she did not open her mind to enter into +it so as to make it otherwise. + +Indeed, her mind was more full of her accounts and the bad debts, and of +the cheapest way of getting in her groceries than of anything else. As +she walked back through the village she wondered whether Mrs. Somers and +Miss Manners would send to her mother's for their brown sugar this +summer. That would make it worth while to go to a better but more +expensive place, and have in a larger stock; and Grace went on reckoning +the risk all the time, and wondering whether the going to the working +parties would secure the ladies' custom. In that case the time would not +be wasted. It did not come into Grace's head whether what she had +thought of for the service of God she might be turning to the service of +Mammon, if she only just endured it for the sake of standing well with +the gentry. But then, was it not her duty to consider her shop and her +mother's interest? + +She was quite vexed and angry when she saw Jessie go and fetch the big +Family Bible that evening, turning off the whole pile of lesson-books to +which it formed the base. + +"Now what can you be doing that for?" she said sharply. + +"I want to prepare my lesson for to-morrow," said Jessie. + +"And is not a little Bible good enough for you, without upsetting the +whole table?" + +"My Bible has got no references," said Jessie. + +"And what do little children like that want of references? If you are to +be turning the house upside down and wasting time like that over +preparing as you call it, I don't know as ma will let you undertake +it." + +"I have ironed all the collars and cuffs, Grace," said Jessie; "yes, and +looked over the stockings." + +Grace had no more to say; she knew Jessie had wonderful eyes for a +ladder or a hole; but it worried her and gave her a sense of disrespect +that the pyramid which surmounted the big Bible should be interfered +with, or that the Book itself should have its repose interfered with +"for a pack of dirty children," when it had never been opened before +except to register christenings, or to be spread out and read when some +near relation died, as part of the mourning ceremony. + +It really made her feel as if something unfortunate had happened to see +the large print pages on the little round table, and her sister peering +into the references and looking them out in her own little Bible, then +diligently marking them. + +Her mother, too, asked what Jessie was about, and though she did not +say anything against her employment, their looking on, and the +expression on Grace's face, worried Jessie so much that she could not +think, and only put a slip of paper into her own book at each she found. +The chapter she had chosen was the Parable of the Sower, on which she +had once heard a sermon. She was amazed to find how many parallel +passages there were, and how beautifully they explained one another when +she made time for comparing them on Sunday morning. She saw herself +beforehand expounding them to the children, and winning their hearts, as +her friend in the hospital had described, and she was quite ready in her +neat black silk and fur jacket, with a little blue velvet hat, when Amy +Lee came to call for her, in her grey merino, black cloth coat, and +little hat to match. + +They met Miss Manners at the school door, and were pleasantly greeted, +and taken into the large cheerful room, all hung round with maps and +pictures, where the classes were assembling, and one or two of the other +teachers had come. + +The bell was heard ringing, and while the children trooped in, Miss +Manners showed Jessie a chair with some books laid open upon it, the +class register on the top, and said: + +"I am sorry there has not been time to talk over your work this week; +but I have laid out the books for you, and if you are in any difficulty +come and ask me." + +By this time the children had come in and taken their places, and Jessie +was pleased to see that her class was of children of eight or nine years +old--not such little ones as Amy had threatened her with. Miss Manners +went to the harmonium and gave out a Sunday morning hymn, which was very +sweetly sung, and then she read prayers, everybody kneeling, and making +the responses, so that Jessie enjoyed it greatly, and felt quite +refreshed by the prayer for a blessing on the teachers and the taught. +Then Miss Manners told the eight little girls who stood in a row that +Miss Hollis would teach them, and she hoped they would be very good and +steady and obedient, and say their lessons perfectly. + +Jessie knew all but two who came from the other end of the parish, and +were not customers of her mother--at least she knew what families they +belonged to, and had only to learn their Christian names from her list. + +"Collect, please teacher," said the first girl, Susan Bray, very much in +the voice in which she would have said "Candles, please miss," in the +shop. + +The Prayer-book was uppermost, and Jessie found she had to hear the +Collect for the day repeated by five perfectly, by two rather badly, and +one broke down altogether. The question-book lay open under it. Some of +the questions were very easy, but of others Jessie was not sure that the +children were right when they replied to some quite glibly, and she was +not sure how to help them in others. + +Then followed the opening of books again. Jessie was longing to give out +all she had to say about the Sower, and began bidding them turn to it in +St. Matthew, but Susan Bray stopped her most decisively. "Oh! please +teacher, we've done that ever so long ago. We always reads the Gospel +for the day, and here's the question-book, and it's got answers." And +she thrust it right under the nose of Jessie, who by this time did not +quite love Miss Susan Bray. She had plainly been sharp enough to see +when her teacher was at fault. + +The children read the Gospel for the day. It was Refreshing Sunday, so +it was not a difficult one; the children were ready with the answers +till the application came, and then Jessie had again to help them, which +she did by reading the printed answers and making them repeat them after +her, word for word. While she was doing this with Mary Smithers, who +certainly was dulness itself, at one end of the class, there was a +whispering at the other, and she saw two children trying on each other's +gloves, and she quickly put an end to that, and went on with another +question and answer. The moment her eye was off Susan Bray and Lily +Bell, however, they began comparing some gay cards. Jessie turned on +them: "You are playing with those things. Give them to me." + +Lily Bell began to cry, and Susan pertly said, "It's our markers, +teacher." + +"I don't care. I won't have you idle. Give them to me, this instant." + +Just then the church bell began to ring, and there was a general +moving; but Jessie would not be beaten, and caused the two cards to be +given up to her. The girls both cried with all their might while she was +marking the class down, and, as they no doubt intended, Miss Manners +came to see what was the matter. + +"Please, ma'am, teacher has taken away our markers, and we shan't know +where our Psalms is." + +"They were playing with them," said Jessie. + +"We wasn't. We was finding our Psalms," said Susan. + +"You should not have done so while Miss Hollis was teaching," said Miss +Manners. "I hope, if she is good enough to give them back to you, that +you will attend better in the afternoon." + +Jessie felt it all a little flat and disappointing, all the more so that +Amy Lee joined her, and talked all the way to church about the +children, who had all passed through her hands when she was a pupil +teacher, telling all their little tiresome ways. It seemed to rub off +all the gloss, and to change her scheme of feeding the young lambs for +the Great Shepherd's sake into a mere struggle with tiresome, fidgety +children. + +Still her hopes and her spirits rose again at church. She had her +expounding of the Sower on her mind, and hoped yet to deliver it when +she went to afternoon school; but there proved to be the Catechism and a +whole set of hymns to be said, and questions to be asked about them. +These questions did not come very readily to such an unpractised tongue +as hers, and she thought she could lead off into the discourse she had +thought out over the Bible. But she had hardly gone through twenty words +before she saw a squabble going on between Lily Bell and Mary Smithers, +and she had no sooner separated them, and taken up the thread of her +discourse about grace being sown and watered in our hearts, than Susan +Bray popped up up with "Please, teacher, it's time to read to us--Its +_Miss Angelina_," pointing to a little gay story-book. + +"You should not be rude, and interrupt," said Jessie; whereupon Susan +pouted, the two idlest began to play with each other's fingers, and, as +soon as she paused to take breath, Lily Bell jumped up, and brought her +the book open. + +She had to give up the point, and begin to read something that did not +seem to her nearly so improving as her own discourse, as it was all +about a doll left behind upon a heath; but the children listened to it +eagerly. + +Was this all the good she was to do by sacrificing all her time on +Sunday? Like Grace, she felt much inclined to give it up, and all the +more when Florence Cray came into the work-room the next morning, +laughing and saying-- + +"Well, the impudence of some folk! There was that there little Bray! I +hear that she should say that Miss Hollis was put to teach her, and she +warn't agoing to care for one as wasn't a lady." + +"I can make her mind me fast enough," said Amy. + +"O, you are bred to be a teacher," said Florence; "that doesn't count. +Nobody else should trouble themselves with the tiresome little +ungrateful things. I'm sure I wouldn't; but then I don't set up for +goodness, nor want to be thought better than other folk." + +Jessie had known that something of this kind would be said, and was +prepared for it; but the child's speech vexed her sorely. However, she +said-- + +"I'm not going to be beat by a chit like that," and at that moment Miss +Lee came in, and that kind of chatter ceased. + +But Jessie's cheeks burned over her work, and she thought how foolish +she had been to let her fancy for doing good, and trying to live up to +the sermon, lead her where she was allowed to do nothing, but get +herself teased and insulted, right and left. + +Should she give up? That would look so silly. Yes, but would it not +serve Miss Manners right for giving her such stupid, unspiritual kind of +teaching to do, and also serve the children right for their pertness and +ingratitude? + +No, she could not give up in this way. She had begun, and she must go +on, at least till she had some reason for giving up respectably and +civilly--only she wished she had known how unlike it was to what she had +expected before she had undertaken it! + +Then she was sensible of a certain odd, uppish, self-asserting feeling +within her. She used to have it in old times, but she had learnt to +distrust it, and to know that it generally came when she was in a bad +way. + +Was she thinking of pleasing herself, or of offering a little work to +please God, and try to let the good seed turn to good fruit? Ah! but was +it all a mistake? Was becoming a mark for Susan Bray to worry, doing any +good at all? + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +TEACHER AMY. + + +IT was a pleasant sight for Amy when poor little Edwin Smithers's pale +face brightened up, as she opened his door. + +He was not like the rough little monkey she had known at the infant +school, who had only seemed to want to learn as little, and to play as +many tricks, as he could. In the hospital, the attention kind people had +paid him had quickened up his understanding, and mended his manners. He +had been petted and amused there, and the being left alone in the dull +cottage was a sad trial to him. His mother had regular work, and so had +his elder brother, but this kept them out all day from eight till five, +except that Mrs. Smithers kept Friday to do her own washing in. She was +obliged to be away even at dinner time, as her work lay far from home, +and she gave her next-door neighbour, Mrs. Rowe, a shilling a week to +keep up the fire, look in on the sick boy, and give him his dinner. + +She was unlucky in her neighbour. Many women would have gladly given far +more kind service for no pay at all, but they were too far off, and Mrs. +Rowe made it a rule to "do nothing for nothing." + +His brother and sisters came in for a little while at twelve, their +dinner time, but they wanted to go out to play, and had no notion of +amusing him; indeed he was glad when they went away; Charlie clumped +about so, and made such a noise, and little Jenny would take away his +picture books or the toys that had been given him in the hospital. + +Then Polly would call her a naughty girl, and snatch them from her, and +so his little wooden horse lost its head, and his railway train was +uncoupled, and one wheel pulled off; and when old Mrs. Rowe found him +crying, all she said was, "Dear! dear! don't ye fret now, don't ye!" and +when that did not make him stop crying, she said he was a bad boy to +make such a work about nothing. When she was a girl, nobody had frail +trade like that, all painted and gaudy, to play with; a bit of an +oyster-shell or a crab's claw was enow for them. He had got into such a +caddle as never was too! + +So she began to shake up his couch, not in the least guessing how she +was hurting and jarring his poor hip; and when he cried out and tried to +drive her away, she thought it was all naughtiness, and declared that he +was such a bad boy that she should go away and leave him to himself. + +The Lees dined at one, and work did not begin till two; so Amy had a +good half-hour to spend on the little boy before she was wanted again. + +"Going to see Ted, be ye?" said Mrs. Rowe, as she stood at her door, +while Amy opened the wicket. "A proper fractious little to-ad he be, +upon my word an' honour! They do spile children in them hospitals, so as +one can't do nothing with 'em." + +Amy looked at Mrs. Rowe, a very clean woman, but with a face and fists +that looked as if they had been cut out of the toughest part of an old +pollard ash, and a mouth that shut up like the snap of a gin. "Poor +little fellow!" said Amy, and in she went. + +She was on her knees at once by the poor little boy, coaxing him and +comforting him, and feeding him with some of the stew that Aunt +Charlotte had kept warm for him. Then he told how Polly had taken away +his horse and his train and broken them. Amy looked about, and +presently found the wheel. A little hooking together was all the repair +the train wanted, and Edwin was soon happy with it; while, as to the +horse, he was past Amy's present mending, but she would take it home, +and next time father had out the glue-pot she would put on the head. + +Then Amy brought out a little book with the early Bible history in +pictures. She showed Edwin one every day when she came, and told him +about it whenever he did not know the story before, or helped him to +enter a little more into it. She was surprised sometimes to find that he +had carried notions away from school even when she had thought him only +dull and giddy. Then he was pleased to say over the hymns he had learnt +in the infant school, and to talk a little about it. Amy was quite +surprised to find how his mind had grown since he had been ill, and how +pleased he was to be taught a little verse of prayer to say when he was +in pain. + +She made him quite comfortable, filled up his mug of water, which the +other children had upset, put some primroses in a cup where he could +look at them, wrote a copy on his slate, and ruled some lines, caught +the cat and put her before him, found the place in his easy story-book, +and left him with a kiss, promising to come again to-morrow. + +It was very pleasant to be the bright spot in that poor little life; and +Amy that afternoon stitched into little Miss Hilda's tucks, to the whirr +of her machine, a whole pensive castle in the air about the dear little +fellow who was not long for this world, and whose pillow was cheered and +his soul trained for Paradise by his dear teacher, who came day by day +to lead him in the path to Heaven. The tears came into her eyes at the +thought of how beautiful and touching it would all be--how she would +lay a wreath of white roses on his coffin, and---- + +"What are you winking about, Amy? Go nearer the window if you want more +light," said Aunt Rose, in a brisk, business-like voice, not at all like +her dreams. + +Amy was glad to move, feeling a little ashamed of being detected in +crying beforehand about her own good works; and as she approached the +window, she looked out over the lemon-plant and exclaimed--"There's Miss +Manners!" + +Miss Manners was really coming into the shop, and her little Skye +terrier was already running on into the work-room, for he was great +friends with Amy; he sniffed about, sat up, and gave his paw, and let +her show off his tricks while his mistress was talking to Aunt +Charlotte. + +Then she came on, nodded kindly a little greeting to each as they all +rose, and said that she had been thinking that it would be a good thing +for all the teachers to meet for half an hour before evensong on Fridays +and look over their Sunday work together, so as to make it chime +together. She said she found it was done at Ellerby, and was very +helpful to all; and perhaps, when he had time, Mr. Somers would come in +and help them. If they looked over the subjects beforehand, they could +note the difficulties, and then she could refer to books, or ask Mr. +Somers. + +Amy and Jessie both uttered some thanks, and Aunt Rose observed that it +was very kind in Miss Dora, and that it would be very nice for the +girls. Florence did not speak, but they saw her face and the gesture of +her foot, and when Miss Lee walked out with the lady through the garden, +Florence broke out-- + +"Well, how fond some folks are of being put to school, to be sure!" + +"'Tisn't school," said Amy, "it is reading with Miss Manners in her +drawing-room." + +"O yes; she makes you think yourselves ladies just to keep on grinding +you at the teaching for ever; but I likes my fun when my work's done. I +don't wonder at Amy Lee--she knows nothing better than sitting poked up +and prim in Miss Manners's room; but for you, Jessie Hollis, who have +seen a bit of the world, I should have thought you'd have more spirit +than not even to be let to teach half a dozen dirty children without +having your instructions." + +Here Miss Lee returned, and Florence applied herself to tacking in the +lining again, while Jessie muttered to herself, "If I'm to teach them at +all, I'd rather do it properly." + +Jessie really wished it. Perhaps the notion of seeing the inside of Miss +Manners's drawing-room made it doubly pleasant, for Jessie had eyes that +really could not help taking note of everything, though there was no +harm in that when she kept them in due control. She had been in the +dining-room before, and she hoped much that the class would be in the +other room, though she was half ashamed of caring. + +Grace came home better satisfied on Tuesday, because her patterns had +been much appreciated, though she still said the reading worrited her, +and Naomi Norris gave herself airs. + +Jessie and Amy, however, went together on Friday, and found Margaret +Roller, the pupil teacher, and Miss Pemberton, an elderly farmer's +daughter, who always taught the little ones on Sunday, were ready there, +and in the drawing-room. + +How pretty it was, with fresh delicate soft pink and white cretonne +covers, and curtains worked with--was it really a series of old nursery +tales? And coloured tiles, with Aesop's fables round the fireplace, +pictures, books, and pretty things that all looked as if they had a +history. Jessie's bright eyes took note of all in a flash, and then she +tried to command them. Miss Manners gave them all their greeting, +settled them all comfortably, and then began by reading to them a short +paper in a little book upon the spirit of the whole Sunday, asking them +in turn to look out and read the texts referred to, which Margaret and +Amy did with a rapidity that astonished Jessie. + +Once she lost the thread in wondering what was looking out of a +half-opened basket; but she caught herself up, and found that there was +infinitely more connection and meaning in the passages appointed for the +Sunday than she had ever guessed. + +Then Miss Manners asked whether they had any questions to ask; Margaret +had one or two, which sounded very hard to Jessie, and she would never +have thought of. It was the Fifth Sunday in Lent for which they were +preparing, and they were respecting the unusually long and difficult +Gospel for the day. Margaret wanted to know whether the words "By whom +do your sons cast them out?" really meant that devils were actually cast +out by the Jews. Miss Manners thought they were, and she looked out, and +showed Margaret, a very curious account of the seal and sacred words of +exorcism which were supposed to come from Solomon; but she advised the +teachers not to dwell much on this branch of the subject, but to draw +out most the portion about the strong man armed, and the warning against +the return of Satan to the soul whence he had been once driven out. + +Then Jessie observed that she had not thought such things happened in +these days, and Miss Manners had to explain to her how the possession +then permitted was here treated as an allegory to all times, of the +evil once cast off returning again if not resolutely excluded by prayer +and a strong purpose blessed by the grace of God. + +It soon became plain to Jessie that she was ignorant of much which the +others knew quite well, and when the Church bell began to chime, and all +rose to go, she obtained a moment in which to say, with something like a +tear in her eye-- + +"Indeed, Miss Manners, I ought not to have undertaken it. I see I am not +fit to teach." + +"I do not think you can tell without a longer trial," was the answer, +kindly given. + +"But I am so ignorant!" said Jessie. "There is so much in these things +that I never thought of, and the others seem to know all about it." + +"It has been their regular Sunday school round for years," said Miss +Manners, "so it would be strange if they did not. But perhaps you will +do all the better for coming to it fresh; and I am sure you are willing +to take pains and prepare." + +"Yes," said Jessie, slowly, "if----You'll excuse me, Miss Manners, +but----" + +"Please say it, Jessie," said the lady; "or shall I say it for you? This +asking idle children very simple questions does not seem to you to be +spiritual enough to be doing much good?" + +"Yes, ma'am, if you will excuse me. I thought there was to be more +expounding of Scripture." + +"We must do what we can to get the children to attend to," said Miss +Manners. "Even if we could get them to sit still while we expounded, I +am afraid they would not attend or take in what we said. Nothing is of +use with such young things but keeping them on the alert with +questions, and trying to keep up their attention by being alive with +them ourselves. We must try to put into them the sense of God's love to +them, of their own duty, and so on; but rather by the tone of our +questions about the lessons they learn than by discoursing long to them. +You can only fill a little narrow-mouthed pitcher with a few drops at a +time put right in. If you pour a great stream over it, most will splash +over, and very little go in. I am afraid the children were tiresome last +Sunday. It is their nature always to try their strength with a new +teacher; but if you are firm and gentle, and show them that you _will_ +be minded, and keep them interested, they will soon be manageable. Then, +Jessie, there is good hope that you may be sowing good seed, though you +and I may not always see the fruit here, and it is nearly sure to be +long before we can even trace the green blade." + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE TROUSSEAU. + + +MISS MANNERS'S words stayed with Jessie. She had plenty of sense and +spirit, as well as a real wish to do right, and a yearning to spread the +great Light round her. To be sure, the going to some mission in a +dreadfully ignorant and wicked place would have seemed more like a good +work than just taking a class who would be taught and cared for even +without her help. + +But she could see that if she could not keep these tidy little trained +children in order, she would not have much chance with the street Arabs +she had read of. + +She got on much better the next Sunday. She kept the children interested +almost all the time, all except the two lowest, who were determined to +chatter till she made one stand on each side of her, and then one of +them, Emma Lott, chose to howl till Miss Manners came to see what was +the matter; but she did not get much by that, for she was only told that +she was very naughty not to mind Miss Hollis, and desired to stop crying +directly, which she did; and then Miss Manners asked Miss Hollis to be +so kind as not to take away her ticket, if she would try to behave well +for the rest of the day. + +Once more Lily Bell was so kind as to inform "teacher" that Susan said +"she didn't care, not for she." To which Jessie coolly answered that she +hoped Susan would soon learn to care for being a good girl, taking care +not to look the least mortified, so that the information fell very +flat. After that she had no more trouble with sauciness from the +children; she began to find that Susan was clever and bright, and that +Kate May and Lucy Elwood were very nice little maidens, who seemed to +care to be good. They brought her flowers, told her funny little bits of +news about baby beginning to walk, and mother going to Ellerby, and she +found the time spent at school a very pleasant part of her Sunday; while +as to the hours of preparation with Miss Manners, she enjoyed them so +much that it was quite a blank if that lady had any engagement to +prevent her from receiving her little party of teachers. + +Jessie found herself learning much more than she taught. Her quick +nature could not but look into everything thoroughly, and when she had +been once shown how to throw all her mind as well as her soul into the +study of the Bible and Prayer-book, she found ever new delight in them. +She began to find it helped her to pray with her understanding, as well +as with her spirit at Church; to care more for her prayers at home, and +to feel more on the times of the Holy Communion. She made her last +year's hat serve again with a fresh tulle trimming, that she might buy +herself a "Teacher's Bible," and not worry her mother and Grace any more +by disturbing the big one, since they thought it honouring such a Bible +to let it alone. + +Mrs. Hollis did read the Psalms and one Lesson every day. She said she +had once promised Amy Lee, aunt to the present Amy, and she had hardly +ever missed doing so. + +But Grace had not time. Just after Whitsuntide the daughter of a very +rich farmer in the neighbourhood was engaged to be married, and wanted a +quantity of fine work to be done for her, making underlinen and +embroidering marks to handkerchiefs. + +She came with her mother to offer the work to Miss Lee, giving six weeks +for it, but it was more than Aunt Rose thought right to undertake in the +time. She said she could not get it done without disappointing several +persons, and that she was very sorry, but that she could only undertake +two sets of the things in the time. + +Mrs. Robson, the mother, was vexed and half angry. She said she hated +common shop-work, and ready-made things, and she had taken a fancy to +what she had seen of Miss Lee's work. She even offered to increase the +payment, but Rose Lee stood firm. She said there was no one at hand whom +she could hire and entrust with such work, and that she could not feel +it right to undertake it, as it would only lead to breaking her +engagements. + +"O, very well; I see you don't care to oblige me," said the lady, +twirling off with her very tight skirts, and whisking up a train like a +fish's tail. "No, I will not break the set. I am not accustomed to +refusals." + +And off the two ladies drove, and Jessie told the story at home with a +great deal of spirit. + +"Now that's just like Rose Lee," said Grace. "She won't make a bit of +exertion for her own good!" + +"Well," said Jessie, "you know we should have to work awfully hard if +she took it in hand." + +"I suppose she would have paid you for extra hours," said Grace sharply. + +"Miss Rose said it was the way to ruin a girl's health to set her to do +such a lot of work," said Jessie. + +"And quite right too," put in her mother. "I knew a girl who was +apprenticed to a dressmaker, and sat up five nights when they had two +black jobs one after the other, and that girl's eyes never was the same +again!" + +"Besides," added Jessie, "there's so much in hand." + +"Well, it might not do to offend Mrs. or Miss Manners, but--" + +"O, it is not that! The children's things were sent home yesterday. I +wish you could have seen them, they were loves; and Miss Manners has got +a new dress from London. She let Miss Lee see it, and take the pattern +of the trimming. No, but Mrs. Drew has sent her Swiss cambric to be made +up for Miss Alice, and Miss Pemberton has a new carmelite to be +finished, and there are some dresses for the maids at the hall, all +promised by Midsummer day." + +"Pooh! Customers like that can wait." + +"I don't see that it is a bit more right to disappoint them than any one +else," said Jessie sturdily. + +"Old Miss Pemberton, to be compared with a lady like that!" exclaimed +Grace. + +"It doesn't make much odds as to right or wrong," said Jessie, "but I +don't think Mrs. Robson is much of a lady, to judge by the way she gave +her orders and flounced off in a huff." + +"A lady," said Mrs. Hollis, contemptuously, "I should think not. Why, +her father kept the 'White Feathers' at Ellerby; and Robson, he rose up +just by speculations, as they call them; but I've seen him a little +greengrocer's errand-boy, with a face like a dirty potato." + +"They can pay, any way," said Grace. "Folks say Robson could buy out our +squire, ay, and my lord himself, if he chose." + +"And I'm sure," said Jessie, "she and her daughter had clothes on that +must cost forty or fifty pounds apiece. Such a fur cloak, lined with +ermine; and the young lady's jacket was sealskin, trimmed ever so deep +with sable, and a hummingbird in her hat. They say little Miss Hilda saw +her and cried for pity of the poor dear little bird." + +"Well, I'll tell you what," said Grace, "I'll set off this minute to +Newcome Park, and see if I can't get the work, or at least some of it. +You and I can do plain work as well any day as Rose Lee, Jessie." + +"Yes," said Jessie, "but I have my time at Miss Lee's all the same." + +"Of course, child; but there are the evenings, and I can sit to it while +mother minds the shop." + +"Don't undertake more than you can manage, Grace," said Mrs. Hollis. + +"Trust me for that, mother. You can wash up, Jessie; I can get there +before they go to dress for dinner. It is a capital thing! It will just +make up for that bad debt of Long's, and help us to get in a real +genteel stock of summer goods." + +Grace managed the house, and her mother, who durst not say a word when +she was set on a thing; and as to Jessie, her sister always treated her +as a rather naughty, idle child. + +The girl had struggled hotly against this, but it had always ended in +getting into such a temper, and saying such fierce and violent things, +that she had been much grieved and ashamed of herself, and now felt it +better to let Grace have her way than to get into a dispute which was +sure to make her do wrong. + +But when Grace, as neat as a new pin, had tripped out of the house, Mrs. +Hollis and Jessie looked at one another, as if they had a pretty severe +task set them. + +"Well, I think we could have managed without," said Mrs. Hollis, "but to +be sure it is as well to be on the safe side; though I'd rather be +without the money than be at all the trouble and hurry this work will +be!" + +"I am sure I had," said Jessie. "I wish I had said nothing about it. +Grace can't bear to hear of anything going that she has not got." + +"Any way," said Mrs. Hollis, "you shall not be put upon, Jessie, after +all your work at Miss Lee's. You shall not be made to sit at your needle +all the evening. It is not good for your health, and so I shall tell +Grace." + +Jessie thanked her mother, but had little hope that she would be able to +hold out against one so determined as her sister. Neither mother nor +daughter would have broken her heart if Grace's application had come too +late, but no such thing! It had been dark about an hour when she was +driven up to the door in a dog-cart, out of which huge rolls of linen +were lifted, enough, as it seemed, to stock the shop. Grace shook hands +with the smart groom who had driven her, thanked him, and came in in +high spirits. + +Mrs. Robson had been most gracious! She said she had feared being +obliged to put up with mere warehouse work, and that she could not bear; +but country people were so lazy and disobliging. It was not what she was +used to. + +Grace had been taken up into the young lady's own room, and oh! what she +had to tell about tall cheval glasses, and ivory-backed brushes, and +rose-coloured curtains, and marble-topped washhand-stands, and a bed and +wardrobe of inlaid wood, with beautiful birds and flowers, and +gold-topped bottles and boxes, and downy chairs! The description was +enough to last a week, and indeed it did, for fresh details came out +continually. It almost made Jessie jealous for Miss Manners. Once when +she had been caught in a sudden shower and arrived wet through she had +been taken up to Miss Manners's bed-room to take off her boots and put +on slippers. + +And there was only a plain little iron bed, uncurtained, and the floor +was bare except for rugs at the hearth and bed-side, and the furniture +was nothing but white dimity. The chimney ornaments and the +washhand-stand looked like those in a nursery--as indeed they well +might, for they had belonged to Miss Dora nearly all her life; they all +had stories belonging to them, were keepsakes from dear friends, and she +would not have given one, no, not the shell cat with an ear off, nor the +little picture made of coloured sand, for Miss Robson's finest gilded +box, unless indeed that had come in the same way. + +And there were two prints on the walls, very grave and beautiful, which +made one feel like being in Church, and so did the illuminated texts, +though all were not equally well done, some being painted by her little +nieces. Jessie had a feeling in her mind that there was something finer +and nobler in not making one's own nest so very splendid and luxurious, +but she knew Grace would laugh at the notion, so she said nothing of +the difference, while her mother said, "Dear, dear!" and "Think of +that!" at each new bit of magnificence she heard of. + +Grace had her patterns and materials, and the fineness of them, and +beauty of the lace provided for the trimming, were quite delightful to +look at. + +The payment was to be very handsome, and Grace felt secure of carrying +through the work in time, with the help of her mother and sister. + +"You shall have your share, Jessie," she said. "See, here are some sweet +French cambric handkerchiefs to be marked in embroidery. 'I have a +sister who can embroider beautifully,' says I, and they just jumped at +it. 'Nina' is the name to be worked in the corners." + +"Oh, I like embroidery," cried Jessie. "Thank you, Grace." + +"There's six dozen," said Grace, "and you'll be able to do one a day. +Four pence a letter. Why it will be quite a little fortune to you," said +Grace, overpowered with her own generosity; and Jessie on her side +thought of the many things 4_l._ 16_s._ would do for her. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +STITCH, STITCH, STITCH. + + +IT must be confessed that Mrs. Hollis and Jessie had a hard time of it +while those wedding clothes were being made! + +There was no time for anything, certainly not for cooking. They ate the +cold Sunday joint as long as it lasted, and lived the rest of the week +on bread and cheese, and Australian meat now and then. + +Grace got up before four every morning, and there was not much peace in +bed for any one after that. + +Of course the shop had to be minded, and that Mrs. Hollis did, but she +was expected to be at her needle at every spare moment; and for the +needful cleaning and rougher work, Grace got a woman for a couple of +hours who came cheap, because she did not bear a very good character. +Mrs. Hollis did not much like having her about, but, as Grace said, one +or other of them always had an eye upon her, and she was only there for +a couple of hours in the morning. + +It was lucky kettles could boil themselves, or there might not even have +been tea, and as to going to Mrs. Somers's working parties, Grace +declared it to be impossible. + +"I've got something else to do," she said, decidedly. "The lady can't +expect me to stand in my own light." + +And when she saw Jessie on Friday evening put away her work and fetch +her hat and books, she cried out against such idling, and said it must +be given up. + +"No," said Jessie. "I can't give up my Church and my preparation with +Miss Manners." + +"Nonsense! You see I've given up my working party." + +"Yes; but I can't give up mine," said Jessie. "Oh, Grace, we thought so +much about trying to do what we could." + +"And so I am!" said Grace. "No one can say I am not doing my duty to my +family, and that's better than throwing away my time on a lot of +beggarly folk that don't deserve nothing. And you ought to know better, +Jessie." + +"I must have my lesson prepared," said she in return. + +"As if you couldn't teach that there Bell girl without going to read +with Miss Manners first! You'll never have those handkerchiefs done!" + +"I did two letters extra this morning," said Jessie. + +"Ah, that's very fine, but if you get one of your headaches----" + +The sound of that word alarmed Mrs. Hollis. Jessie had had a bad illness +about a year ago, and the mother could not part with her anxiety about +her. In she came, with the tea-cup she was washing in her hand. + +"Has Jessie got a headache?" she inquired. + +"Oh no, mother, thank you. Grace is only putting a case." + +"Yes; I am asking her what she thinks will become of the work if she is +to go and take her pleasure whenever she likes. She talks of working +extra; but supposing she had a headache, she'd be sorry she had thrown +away her time." + +"Dear, dear," said Mrs. Hollis; "'tis the very way to make her have a +headache to keep her poor nose to the grindstone. The doctor, he says to +me, 'She've had a shock, and she'll require care, and not to be +overstrained.' And I tell you, Grace, I won't have Jessie put upon, and +kept muzzing over her needle like a blackamoor slave, without a taste of +fresh air. So run away, Jessie, and get your walk." + +"Thank you, mother." + +And Jessie, who did not feel bound to obey her sister, ran lightly off, +hoping poor mother would not be very fiercely talked at by Grace. She +herself was clear that work undertaken for God's sake should not be +dropped when one's own gain began to clash with it; while Grace, who had +always been held up as the model, helpful good daughter, plainly +thought, "working for one's family," and securing something extra, was +such a reason as to make it a sort of duty to throw over all she had +taken up under the spur of that sermon in the spring. Jessie had no +headache, but she was weary, vexed, and teased, and + + "Stitch, stitch, stitch, + Seam and gusset and band," + +rang in her ears, so that she specially felt rested and soothed by the +calm and quiet of Miss Manners's pretty room, with the open windows and +the scent of flowers coming in from the garden. + +The subject was next Sunday's Gospel, about the Great Supper and the +excuse-making guests. Miss Manners read out part of Archbishop Trench's +comment on the Parable before she talked to the teachers about what they +were to say to their classes; and Jessie felt deeply that to let herself +be engrossed by this undertaking, so as to allow no time for her +religious duties, would be only too like the guests who went "one to his +farm, and another to his merchandise." She was advised to make it a +lesson to her class against false or insufficient excuses, such as +saying they were late at school because mother wanted them to take a +message, when they had dawdled all the way instead of hastening to +school. Miss Manners lent the volume of Miss Edgeworth's _Rosamond_ to +Jessie, to read the chapter on Excuses to her girls, so as to bring home +the lesson, though she was to carry it higher, and put them in mind that +if they put their duties aside for these little things now, they would +be learning to forget their Heavenly Master for earthly matters, and +would never taste of His supper. + +It made Jessie doubly and trebly determined that she would not take a +lie-a-bed on Sunday morning to make up for loss of rest before, and thus +miss the early Celebration on her monthly Sunday. Indeed, she felt drawn +to come oftener, if it would not be presuming. + +She came home from Church in the summer twilight, when even Grace could +not work, and was standing a moment at the door before lighting the +lamp. + +"Well, miss, I hope you have wasted enough daylight," she said. + +"I hope it wasn't quite wasted," said Jessie, cheerfully. "I shall work +ever so much quicker for the rest I have had." + +And she was as good as her word, and spent an hour in her pleasant +embroidery of the pretty white letters of the name which she really +delighted in doing, only she would have liked a fresh pattern instead of +making all the seventy-two Ninas exactly alike. + +She was at work before half-past six the next day, and had three more +letters done before it was time to go to Miss Lee's, where it was a busy +day of finishing work; and when at three o'clock the last stitch was put +to the dress that had been made out of Mrs. Drew's cambric, Miss Lee +asked Jessie to carry it home, suspecting that the walk would be good +for her. + +It was rather hot, but Jessie did enjoy the lanes, with their flowery +banks, and the sweet smells of the hay, and she felt much brightened +and refreshed. When she came near the house, she saw some one sitting in +a basket-chair in the porch, and knew that it was Miss Needwood, a poor, +sickly orphan relation of Mrs. Drew's, who was always trying situations +as nursery governess, or reader, or the like, and leaving them because +her health would not serve; and then she had no home to go to but +Chalk-pit Farm. She was not so much above the Hollises as the farmer's +own family, and was always friendly with them. She came to meet Jessie, +shook hands with her, and explained that Mrs. Drew had been summoned to +speak about some poultry, but would return in a moment if Miss Hollis +would sit down. + +"Are you stopping here for long?" asked Jessie. + +"I don't know," said the poor girl, sadly; "I hoped I was settled in a +nice situation; but my asthma was bad there, and the lady found it out, +and it made her nervous, so here I am again. Mr. Drew, he is kind, and +says I may make myself useful with teaching the children; but oh, dear! +I don't know enough for that." + +"I thought you had gone out for a nursery governess." + +"Yes"--the tears came in her eyes;--"but I'll never try again. The elder +young ladies made game of my French, and said I didn't spell as well as +the little nursery girl. And it was true, Miss Hollis. I tried being a +sewing-maid last, though Mrs. Drew didn't want folk to know it; but, you +see, I hadn't health for that. They are very good here, and will keep +me; but I am nothing but a burthen. If I could but hear of something to +do--if only to keep me in clothes. I can do fancy-work, if I could get +any." + +"Can you embroider?" asked Jessie. + +Miss Needwood took out her pocket-handkerchief, where her initials, H. +N., were beautifully worked. Jessie had admired her own work, but this +was much better. It was just such an N as she wanted, and she +exclaimed-- + +"If you would be so kind as to lend me one of those for a pattern, I +should be so much obliged." + +"Do you embroider?" asked Miss Needwood. "I wish you could tell me if +there is any shop at Ellerby or Carchester that would employ me; I +should be so much happier." + +Here Mrs. Drew came back, and looked over the dress which was to be sent +to her daughter at her boarding-school, and thanked Jessie, and gave her +the money for Miss Lee. + +Miss Needwood had fetched the handkerchief, and Jessie took leave and +walked home, thinking over what shops might possibly employ the poor +girl. What a pity she had not those handkerchiefs to do, and why should +she not do some of them? + +Oh, Grace would never consent. Besides, Jessie had spent her 4_l._ +16_s._ in fancy already on the Offertory, savings bank, a present for +mother, a pair of spectacles for old Dame Wall, a pretty new dress and +hat for herself. Oh no, she must work on; it was such pretty work, and +Grace would scorn her so if she gave up any part of it. + +Jessie came home to find Mrs. Hollis in all the hard work and worry of a +Saturday evening, alone in the shop, with people waiting and getting +cross. She had to hasten behind the counter and help as fast as she +could. It was well that the Lees had given her a cup of tea when she +brought in the money, for there was no quiet for more than an hour, and +then the fire was found to have gone out while Grace was putting in +gathers. Moreover, Jessie saw, with dismay, that the beefsteak-pie, +which was to serve for the morrow, was not even made. + +"Oh, I'll do that to-morrow morning," said Grace. + +And when Jessie proceeded to tack in her clean collar and cuffs, Grace +called out, raising her hot face from her work, that they might be +pinned in on Sunday morning; it was only waste of time to do so now. + +"I don't think that is using Sunday quite well," said Jessie. + +"Well, I never heard there was any harm in sticking in a pin of a +Sunday! Come, sit down, do, and don't keep fiddling about. You'll be +behind with those handkerchiefs. Here, mother, you can finish this seam +before dark." + +"The place is in such a caddle," said poor Mrs. Hollis, looking ruefully +round at her kitchen, which certainly did not wear at all its usual +Saturday evening's aspect. "That Jenny Simkins, she do so stabble in +and out, she only wants some one to clean after her." + +"Oh, well, I'll see to that," said Grace, "when it gets too dark for +work. One must put up with a little for such a chance as this." + +Jessie felt that her poor mother was putting up with more than a little, +as she saw her sit down with a sigh and try to thread her needle by the +window. Jessie went across and did it for her, and put back the muslin +blind so as to let in more light; then sat down to finish the "na" of +her sixth Nina, rather wearily, and with an uncomfortable thought that +Miss Needwood's satin-stitch looked better than her own. + +Little "n" was done before the twilight tidying, which did not amount to +much, for Grace soon lighted the lamp; but Jessie, in putting up the +shop shutters, made the arm, which had once been crushed, tremble so +much that she could not work without pricking her finger, and Mrs. +Hollis really could not see. So Grace let them both go to bed, and +Jessie half waked to hear her bustling about, and coming up herself just +after the clock struck twelve. She would not have set a stitch on any +account after that! + +Jessie was up early enough to light the fire, and set out the breakfast +things, and put on the kettle, while both her mother and Grace were +still in bed. She had a peaceful, happy time then, but otherwise she had +never known such an uncomfortable Sunday. + +Mrs. Hollis was down when she came back, but was fretting over the very +large bit that had gone out of the cheese. Jessie thought they had eaten +it for want of meat; her mother suspected Jenny Simkins. Then she had +not been allowed time to copy out her accounts into the book, and there +had been a great puzzle between a three and a five on the slate last +night, which seemed to have been worrying her all night in her dreams; +and the uncleaned look of the house vexed her. She was tired and not +like herself, and Jessie only left her for school and church on hearing +Grace's step on the stairs. + +At school she could forget all about it in the interest of teaching, but +the worry returned when her mother's place was empty at the beginning of +the service; and when Mrs. Hollis did come posting in at the end of the +_Venite_, she was so hot and panting that she had to sit down and fan +herself with her pocket-handkerchief all through the Psalms, and Jessie +even feared she might be going to faint. + +"Oh dear," Mrs. Hollis mourned, when they came out of church, "she had +never been so upset before, but she had been so put about to get off, +with none of her things ready, and she was _that_ tired and sleepy she +had not heard a word of the sermon. Grace really had undertaken too +much. The house was in such a mess there was no sitting down quiet and +respectable, and there was threepence in the till that would not be +accounted for, and she was sure that the cheese was going too fast." She +fretted all the way home, and Jessie could not comfort her, by promising +to look over the accounts the first thing on Monday. + +However, on coming home they found the whole house tidied, dinner laid, +the pie made and just ready to come out of the Dutch oven, and the +accounts balanced and written out fairly. Grace was just finishing the +arraying herself in full Sunday trim outside, but how was it with the +inner Sunday raiment of her heart? + +She did nothing but talk about "seam and gusset and band," and how fast +she was getting on, and how good the linen was, and what sort was the +best, till Jessie thought she might almost as well have been sewing all +day as with her thoughts running on nothing else. + +When Jessie went to afternoon school, both Mrs. Hollis and Grace were so +tired that the one went to sleep in her chair, and the other on her bed; +and thus Jessie found them on her return. + +Poor mother! how weary and worn her face looked after this week of +worry. The sight of it settled Jessie's mind. She went up softly to take +off her things, and as she was doing so, Grace awoke. Jessie went up to +her and showed her Miss Needwood's cipher. + +"Bless me! whose is that? It is real genteel," said Grace. + +"It is Miss Needwood's at Chalk-pit Farm." + +"What! that poor helpless thing that never can keep a situation! Did you +get it for a pattern, Jessie?" + +"Yes," said Jessie; "she lent it to me." + +"It is beautiful," said Grace, examining it minutely. "You ought to work +like that, Jessie." + +"I would if I could," said Jessie, "and I mean to try; but, Grace, I +shall only finish this first dozen. I shall send the other five dozen to +Bessie Needwood. She is in great want of work, and will do them much +better than I." + +"Well I never!" cried Grace. "I never thought you'd turn lazy, and give +up what you had undertaken--when I had asked for the handkerchiefs on +purpose for you, because I thought a little pocket money would come in +convenient!" + +"So it would. It was very kind of you, Grace; but Miss Needwood will do +them better than I." + +"Not than you if you chose to take the pains and trouble." + +"No," said Jessie, "if I don't hurry them too quick to try to do those +finest stitches, I sha'n't have time to do them at all, in these after +hours of mine." + +"Well, that you should choose to confess yourself not able to do as well +as a poor dozing thing like that! It's all laziness." + +"No, that it is not," said Jessie, rather hotly. "I thought if those +were off my hands I could help you, and then mother need not have any of +this work to do, or be so driven and put about." + +"You don't expect to be paid for any part of mother's work," said Grace, +with some sharpness. "I've got my own use for that in the business." + +"No, I don't!" and Jessie went suddenly off in a little bit of temper +for which she was sorry afterwards, wishing she had said that her real +reason--besides the helping Miss Needwood--was the hope to save her +mother from being over driven, and not to have another Sunday so +cumbered with worldly matters. + +Grace came down to tea grumbling, and appealing to her mother about +Jessie's laziness; and Mrs. Hollis, for whose sake the girl had resigned +five-sixths of her hoped-for gain, was inclined to be vexed at any of +the work going out of the family, or her Jessie allowing herself to be +beaten. + +It was very vexatious, and Jessie was glad when Uncle Andrew dropped in +to tea, and to change the current of their thoughts. + +She was to stay at home to guard the house while the others went to +evensong, and this gave her the quiet opportunity of packing up five +dozen handkerchiefs, and writing a note to send with them to Bessie +Needwood the first thing in the morning, by any child who came early to +the shop. + +Then she felt much more at ease, and was able to have a comfortable +study of her next Sunday's Gospel and its references, in case she should +be too busy on the week days; and so she was peaceful and refreshed, and +able to enjoy a quiet little wander in the twilight garden with her +hymn-book. This lasted till the others came home, brim full of reports +they had picked up about the splendour of the coming wedding. The +gentleman, Mr. Holdaway, was staying at Newcorn Park, and, what was +more, he had sent his horses and grooms down to the Manners Arms, +because the stables at the Chequers were not well kept. + +The head groom had actually been at Church, and looked quite the +gentleman, though to be sure he did stare about wonderfully. + +Mrs. Hollis shook her head, and said no good came of that sort of folk. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +WANDERING EYES. + + +"I ASSURE you he said he had never seen a place with more pretty young +ladies in it." + +"Who?" said Jessie, coming suddenly into the light closet of the +work-room, where Florence Cray was taking off her hat, and Amy Lee +seemed to be helping her. + +"Why, Mr. Wingfield, Mr. Holdaway's head groom, who has come over with +another man and a boy, and three of the loveliest horses you ever did +see." + +"Oh, yes, I heard," said Jessie; "and how he stared about at Church! He +ought to be ashamed of himself." + +"Oh! that's what Grace says, of course," said Florence; "and she's a +regular old maid. She needn't fear that he'll stare at her." + +Wherewith both Florence and Amy giggled, and before Jessie's hot answer +was out of her mouth, one of the aunts called out-- + +"Girls, girls, what are you doing? No gossiping there." + +Florence came out looking cross, and observing in a marked manner that +Miss Fuller, at Ellerby, always spoke of her young ladies. + +"I like using right names," said Aunt Rose in her decided voice. + +Florence was silenced for the time, but at the dinner hour she contrived +to get Amy alone. Jessie was in haste to get home to see if there were +an answer from Miss Needwood, and also to try to get enough sewing done +to pacify Grace, and purchase a little leisure for her mother. And +Florence, instead of going home, stood with Amy, who had sauntered into +the garden to refresh herself and gather some parsley. + +"I assure you, Amy, he was quite struck. He said yours was such a style +that he would hardly believe me when I said you belonged to Mr. Lee, the +baker. It was the refinement, he said." + +"Nonsense, Florence; don't," said Amy, blushing as crimson as the rose +she tried to gather. + +"I'm not talking nonsense; I never did see a poor man so smitten." + +"Now, Florence, you shouldn't say such things; father and aunts would +not like it. I shall go in." + +"Fathers and aunts are all alike; they never do like such things. +But----" + +However, Amy was safe indoors by this time, all in a glow, very much +ashamed that such things should have been said to her, and yet not a +little fluttered and pleased. She had been most carefully brought up +and watched over, and she had come to the age of sixteen without hearing +more about herself than that a young lady, who once came into the school +with Miss Agnes Manners, said something that sounded like lovely, and +was speedily hushed up and silenced. + +All the other girls thought the young lady meant Henrietta Coles, who +was tall, with bright dark eyes, red cheeks, and black hair, under a +round comb; but Amy had always been sure that the speaker's eyes were +upon her, though she had been ashamed of the belief, and indeed had +nearly forgotten all about it, till it was stirred up by Florence's +talk. + +She went up to her room to smooth her hair before dinner. Yes, it was +very nice light-brown hair, with a golden shine; and her eyes were very +clear and blue, and her skin very white, with a rosy flush; and her +nose was straight, and the shape was a pretty delicate one. Amy really +did think Mr. Wingfield was right, and had better taste than the people +who thought her a poor washy, peaky thing, as she had more than once +heard herself called. + +She put her head on one side, smirked a little, half shut her eyes, and +studied herself in different positions, till she heard one of her aunts +on the stairs; and then, in a desperate fright lest she should be +caught, she darted out so fast as to run against Aunt Charlotte coming +up stairs with a basket of clean linen from the wash. There were three +pairs of stockings rolled up on the top, and these tumbled out, and one +pair went hop, hop, from step to step all the way down stairs, just as +Father was coming in, and he caught it up and threw it like a ball +straight up at his sister. + +The confusion drove the nonsense out of Amy's head for the present. She +ate her dinner, and then went off as usual for her visit to little Edwin +Smithers, carrying him only a few strawberries, as she knew he always +had soup from the Hall on a Monday. + +For Edwin had not died. He had rather grown better than worse, and if +the truth must be told, Amy had begun to get a little tired of him. He +was not a quick child, and in this hot weather he often failed to do the +sums or learn the verses that Amy set him. + +To-day he was nursing a great piece of stick-liquorice with which he had +painted a dirty spot on the central face in the picture of the number of +the _Chatterbox_ which she had lent him. She scolded him for it, and he +turned sulky, and would not try to repeat his hymn, nor answer any +questions, and looked at his book as if he had never seen one before. + +Amy grew angry, told him he was a naughty boy, and she should not stay +with him nor give him any strawberries; and off she went, carrying away +the injured _Chatterbox_, and never bethinking herself that the hot day +and the weariness of the dull untidy room might not be the cause of the +naughty fit, and whether it would not have been kinder and better to try +to soothe him out of it. + +But instead of this she paused to hear Mrs. Rowe declare he was a bad +'un, with a nasty sulky temper that no one could do nothing with, and +just then she saw Florence Cray crossing the village green. + +"I've just been to get a little red pepper at Hollis's," she said, as +she put her arm fondly into Amy's. "Mr. Wingfield do like something +tasty for his breakfast, and ma is going to do him some devilled kidneys +to-morrow morning. He is quite the gentleman in all his tastes, you +see! I wanted Jessie to walk back with me, but they are all so terrible +busy over that there wedding order, that she could not come till the +last minute." + +"Working all through the dinner hour!" said Amy. "What a shame!" + +"So I say. But that Grace Hollis is a one! I wouldn't have her for my +sister. Here, come in, Amy, I must just give mother the pepper." + +"No, I can't do that," said Amy, uneasily, for she knew her father would +be displeased if she went into a public-house; though as Florence said, +"Gracious! You needn't go near the bar. It's only the back door! As if I +would ask you to do anything you ought not! But I suppose our house +ain't good enough for you." + +"Oh! don't be angry, Florence dear, I'll come some day when I've got +leave." + +"Leave indeed, at your age; but you're a poor-spirited thing, Amy, to +be so kept down by a couple of old aunts." + +Amy was flurried at the displeasure, and wanted to make it up. "Oh! +don't be offended, Florence. Look here." + +"Strawberries! oh my! already! Thank you," and Florence had soon +swallowed up poor little Edwin's strawberries. + +"Wait here one moment then," she said, "and I'll be back with you in an +instant." + +Amy stood under her parasol, trying to make the most of the small +shelter afforded by Mr. Cray's garden hedge, and recollecting rather +uncomfortably something she had once been told about the loitering of +the disobedient Prophet being what brought him into temptation. But, +having promised to wait, she could not move away, though she had to stay +longer than she liked, especially as the children were going by to +afternoon school, and some of her own class began to stare at her. + +However, at last Florence came out, quite excited. "Oh, Amy, if you'll +only wait a minute, you'll see him come out." + +"I can't! I can't! Let us go," cried Amy, quite shocked and shy. + +"Nonsense! Poor man, he need never see you. He is just going to take the +horses up for his master to ride out with Miss Robson. Such sweet +horses! Mr. Holdaway gave 120 guineas for his. Think of that, Amy! Here +now, come round the corner of the hedge, and he'll never see you." + +So Amy followed and peeped, very shy and frightened, like a guilty +thing, and she did see two horses, much more beautiful than she knew, +one ridden by a common-looking groom, the other by a very smart, well +set-up person, with a belt round his waist. That was all she saw, for +they were gone in a flash, and she was too uncomfortable to see much, or +to do more than hurriedly answer Florence's exclamation-- + +"Ain't he quite the gentleman? Bain't his horses real darlings?" before +Jessie's voice was heard-- + +"Why, whatever are you two doing here?" + +The two girls both giggled, and each pushed the other to make her tell, +and Florence laughed out-- + +"Oh, 'twas Amy wanted to see Mr. Wingfield pass by." + +"No, 'twasn't. 'Twas you," said Amy. + +"I don't see why you should get into a corner about it," said Jessie, +rather gravely. "I've just met him straight upon the road, horses and +all." + +"O yes, _you_!" said Florence. + +"Well, why not me?" + +"O, you know, you'll soon be an old maid like your sister." + +Jessie had not grown so wise as not to be nettled at this silly +impertinent speech, but she was much more vexed to see that Florence was +teaching Amy her own follies--Amy, who had always seemed like a pure +little innocent wild rose-bud in its modest green leaves. So she +answered, rather shortly-- + +"If you mean that I don't want to be right down ridiculous, I hope I am +an old maid." + +This seemed to be very funny, for Florence went off in fits of laughing, +and kept shouldering Amy to make her see the joke, but Amy had by this +time grown ashamed and frightened and only answered, "Don't." + +So the three girls went in together, and no one took any special notice +of Amy's hot face and uncomfortable gestures. It was the first time +since she had been a very little child that she had shrunk from her +aunts' eyes, or feared that they should ask her questions; and the +sense that she had been undeserving of the trust they placed in her made +her very ill at ease, though the silly girl did not do the only thing +that would have set her right again, and made her safer for the future. + +Jessie meanwhile had forgotten the little vexation. She had something to +brighten her up in Miss Needwood's little note. + +It was written on pink paper, edged with blue, as if nothing could be +too good for Jessie; and it said no words could tell how glad she was, +and what a comfort it was to have this real work to do. "It is really +like a ray of hope in the darkness," said poor Bessie, in her little +thin weak writing, with a very hard steel pen. + +But that note warmed up Jessie's heart, although her finger was getting +severely ploughed up with the stitching she had been doing to save her +mother's eyes. + +"There was not to be an inch of machine work," Mrs. Robson had said, and +the Hollises were people who fulfilled all they undertook. + +But Jessie's hour at home had helped and freshened her mother, who +looked much less worn and worried than she had done the day before. +Jessie felt she had done well to send away the handkerchiefs, and lessen +the burthen Grace had taken upon the family. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +AMY'S VISITS. + + +NOBODY could say any great harm of Florence Cray, or she would not have +been bound to Miss Lee. + +But she was one of those silly, vulgar-minded girls who think life is +nothing without continually chattering either to young men or about +them. She was in no hurry to be married, for then she knew she must give +up all her lively pastime with the lads around her. Not that she +frequented the bar, or had anything to do with the customers--her mother +kept her carefully from that; but she had plenty of acquaintance, and to +her mind nothing else was so amusing. She was not pretty, and knew it +well enough, but she was very good-natured, and free from jealousy, and +next to diverting herself with some youth, she liked nothing so well as +teasing other girls about them. + +She considered Amy Lee quite old enough and pretty enough to have a +young man, and to begin to have some fun, and she thought all the care +taken of the girl by her father and aunts only so much stupid old fidget +and jealousy, which it was fun to baffle and elude. Thus she was a very +dangerous companion for Amy, perhaps more so than a really worse person, +who would have been more shocking and startling to Amy's sense of +modesty and propriety. It was such a new sensation altogether to be +always popping about and peeping to admire the handsome stranger and his +fine horses, and then to whisk giggling out of the way, in terror lest +they had been seen. + +It was more amusing than sitting by a fretful boy, trying to make him +read and say hymns, and though conscience was half awake, it was easily +satisfied. And then there was the pleasure of being told that she was +admired--though Amy would not have liked it as well if she had guessed +that Florence used to amuse herself on the other hand by telling Mr. +Wingfield how a certain young lady admired him, and teasing him by +declaring that, "Oh no! she could not tell him who, she should be +nameless. Did he like best fair or dark?" + +So time went on, and the needlework with it. Grace Hollis's whole brain +seemed to be turning into thread and cotton, for she was able to think +of nothing else except what she should do with the money, when she got +it; but she did not scold Jessie, as she had been inclined to do at +first, for giving up the handkerchiefs, for she had begun to find that +without her sister's help there would have been no chance of finishing, +without overworking her mother, and neglecting the business of the shop. + +Indeed, as it was, when the last week came there was so much still to be +done that she was obliged to ask Miss Needwood to come and help, which +she was very glad to do, when she had finished the handkerchiefs most +delicately and beautifully. + +Jessie gave all the time she could. She was glad to have something to +think about, for Miss Manners was from home, so there were no readings +before the Sundays; and her sharp eyes could not help seeing that there +was something underhand going on between Amy and Florence--where she did +not know whether to interfere or not. + +She had seen Amy and Florence come hastily round the corner of the lane, +which had a stile into a large shady path field at the back of Mrs. +Smithers's cottage, and Mr. Wingfield hovering about. It did not look +well--and indeed what she would have thought nothing of in such a girl +as Florence was a very different thing in Amy. Then stories that she +disliked were afloat about the man. He was said to be teaching the young +men at the Manners Arms new gambling games, and to be putting them up to +bet on race-horses; and once she heard a very unpleasant laugh about +very good, closely-kept girls being as ready to carry on as other folk. + +Once when she asked Amy after little Edwin Smithers, the answer was +rather cross. "Oh! just as usual. He is the most tiresome fractious +child I ever saw!" + +"Children are often like that when they are going to be worse," said +Jessie. + +"Well," returned Amy, "I've always heard that children are most fretty +and fussy when they are getting better." + +"Then I hope he is better." + +"O dear yes, of course he is, or he would not be here now," said Amy, +impatiently, and getting very red. + +"How does he get on with his reading?" + +"There never was such a one for questions as you, Jessie!" cried Amy, +getting quite cross. + +And as Jessie knew curiosity to be her failing, and was really trying to +break herself of it, she was silenced. + +No doubt Amy was angered because her conscience was very far from being +easy, though she never failed to pop into the Smithers's cottage every +day, sometimes to bring the little dainties her aunts provided, +sometimes to say a few words and begin a lesson with Edwin; but her +heart was not in it, the boy would seldom attend, and often turned away +his face and said "No," or began to cry; whereupon Amy told him he was +very naughty, and marched off, excusing herself by the fact that the +girl Polly was generally in the house, and seemed to be attending to him +much better than she used to do. + +No wonder Amy was in a hurry, for Florence was waiting for her outside; +and by and by not only Florence. + +It began one windy day when Amy's sunshade flew out of her hand. She ran +after it, as it went dancing along on its spokes over the village green, +jumping up just as she neared it, and whisking off just as if it had +been alive, or like one of those gay butterflies and birds in allegories +that lure the little pilgrims out of the narrow path. Alas! it was only +too much like such a deluder. + +For some one came round the corner, caught the wild sunshade, and +restored it to the owner. She was tittering and breathless, she blushed +all over, and never raised her eyes while Mr. Wingfield hoped, in +elegant language, that she had not fatigued herself, and paid a +flattering compliment to the lovely colour with which exercise had +suffused her complexion. This made her giggle and blush all the more. +She did not know whether she liked it or not, poor silly child! + +She often "wished he would not;" she was in a dreadful fright whenever +it happened, and yet the day seemed flat and tiresome and not worth +having when he had not joined her and Florence, and walked down the path +below Hornbeam Wood, behind Mrs. Smithers's cottage, with them. + +He never said or did anything to startle her. He saw she was a modest, +well-behaved girl, and he knew how to treat such a one. He talked +chiefly about the preparations for the wedding, or made the two simple +country girls stare by wonderful stories of the horses he had ridden and +driven, or by descriptions of the parks and the theatre. Now and then +he was complimentary, but Florence told Amy much more of his admiration +than she ever heard herself. As to letting her father or aunts know of +the acquaintance, Amy was half afraid, half ashamed. One day she heard a +talk between her father and Mr. Nowell, the gardener at the Hall, who +was vexed about an under gardener. + +"I shall have to speak to the Squire about him, I am afraid," said Mr. +Nowell; "he don't do his work with half a heart, and instead of spending +his evenings at the club, or at cricket--wholesome and hearty like--he +is always down at Cray's." + +"I hear," said Mr. Lee, "the club was never so badly attended." + +"They say it is all along of that there smart groom, Wingfield, as they +call him, who is all for gambling games, and putting up our young lads +to betting tricks and the like." + +"Ay, ay," said Mr. Lee, "one of them idle, good-for-nothing servants +loafing about at a public will do more harm in a place than you can undo +in a day." + +"That's true," added Aunt Rose; "I can't bear the sight of the fellow +lounging about with his little stick, as if he was saying to all the +place, 'Here I am; it's just improvement to you all to see how I switch +my legs.'" + +"And he stares so!" added Aunt Charlotte. "Last time Amy and I met him +on the road, I really thought he would have stared the poor child out of +countenance. I had a great mind to have spoken to him, and told him to +mind his manners." + +"You are too young and too good-looking to do that sort of thing, +Charlotte," said her brother, laughing. "May be 'twas your aunt he +looked at, so you needn't go as red as a turkey-cock, Amy girl." + +"Me, indeed!" said Charlotte, in hot indignation. "I should hope I was +_past_ being stared at by a whipper-snapper monkey like that." + +The elders all laughed heartily, and Mr. Nowell said something about +Miss Charlotte being a fine woman of her time of life, which made her +still more angry, and set her brother and sister laughing the more. + +Amy squeezed out a weak little giggle, but she was both angered and +frightened. She could never tell her aunts now. What would they say? The +time of the wedding was drawing on; Mr. Wingfield would be going. Little +flutters moved her breast. Would he say any more before he went, or did +she wish it? Florence said he was dying for her. Florence thought he was +a gentleman in disguise, like one she had read about in a novel; but +Amy, though she liked to dream of something sweet and grand years +hence, did not want to be startled by love-making now, or to have the +dreadful disturbance at home there would be if this were more than a +summer acquaintance. How would the aunts look, when they found she had +concealed all this--she who had never hidden anything from them before? + +And yet she took the stolen pleasure in trembling every day, and tried +to believe Florence when she said there was no harm in it, that every +one did so, and that young people must be young! + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +AWKWARD MEETINGS. + + +"WELL, to be sure, who would have thought of such a treat! This is a +pleasure indeed! Rose, Rose, whom do you think we have here?" + +"How natural it all do look to be sure. There, Ambrose, there's the very +rose tree I have so often told you of." + +"Why, mother has described it all so well, I could have found my way +blindfold." + +The speaker was a tall, fair-faced young man, looking, in Charlotte +Lee's eyes, like one of the young gentlemen from the university, but +with something grave and deep about his face, and by him stood his +little mother in the neatest of black silk dresses, with something +sweet and childlike about her face still, though there were some +middle-aged lines in it. She had once been the Amy Lee of Langley. She +had married a schoolmaster, Mr. Cuthbert, and this was their only son. +He had distinguished himself in all his examinations, and at the same +time had shown so deep an interest in missions to the heathen, and had +done so much to make the boys of the school care for them, that when +there was a question of choosing a lad as a missionary student, whose +expenses would be paid by subscriptions of the clergy in the diocese, at +the great college of St. Augustine's at Canterbury, the vicar of his +parish had three years ago proposed Ambrose Cuthbert as the fittest +youth he knew. He had just finished his terms at the college, and was on +his way home before going out to Rupertsland, having met his mother at +the house of his father's brother in London. They had found out that an +excursion train would enable them to run down to Langley and spend a few +hours there; and Mrs. Cuthbert, who had always said her son must not +leave England without having seen her old home, her brother and sisters, +was delighted with the opportunity, and here they were, the brother and +the three sisters all together, hardly knowing what they said in their +eager joy. + +"And my little Amy, where is she? You have not seen your namesake, Amy," +said the father, who had come in bare armed and floury. + +"She is not come back yet from poor little Teddy's," said Aunt Rose. +"The child goes to teach, and see to, a poor little sick lad in a +cottage every day, Amy. We like her to do such things," she added, +pleased that her sister should see that their child was likewise +something superior in goodness. "Ah! is it you, Jessie? This is Clemmy +Fielding's daughter, Amy. Did you see our Amy as you came along, +Jessie?" + +"I will run back and call her," said Jessie, who had seen the top of +Amy's sunshade over the hedge, and in good-natured sympathy wanted to +spare all the shock of discovery. + +"No, no," said Miss Rose, "thank you all the same, Jessie, but if you +would not mind sitting down to the machine, I would walk out that way +with my sister, just while my brother is finishing his batch of bread, +and you are getting ready a bit of something to eat, Charlotte. I know, +Amy, you would like just to look round the hill, and see where the +squire's new cottages lie. Wouldn't you?" + +Jessie saw there was no help for it. Mrs. Cuthbert was delighted to go +and to show her son her old haunts; but first she spoke very kindly to +Jessie, and inquired for her mother, saying she remembered her well; and +on her side Jessie recollected that her mother always said she owed +more to Mrs. Cuthbert's kindness when she was a little girl than to any +one else. + +So off set the two elder sisters and the pleasant looking young man +together. Amy always was late, and Jessie felt one hope, that they might +meet the two girls coming in together. Yet, as she whirred her machine, +she reflected that after all it might be best for Amy in the end that +all this folly and concealment should be put a stop to. + +Out they went, talking; Mrs. Cuthbert asking questions, and pointing +everything out to her son, and Aunt Rose delighted to answer. + +"We do not hurry the maid," said Aunt Rose, as they drew near. "You see +it is such a blessing to that poor little afflicted child to have her +with him." + +Perhaps Rose Lee, who had had her dreams and fancies like other people, +was thinking of the tales where some one looks in at the window and +sees the good young person bending over the sufferer's couch, and +reading good books to him; but it was certainly not Amy whom she saw as +the door stood open. There was the little boy on the old couch under the +window, moaning a little, but it was his sister who was standing by him +with a cup of something, coaxing him with "Now Teddy, do be a good boy, +and drink it, do'ee now." + +"Why, Polly," said Aunt Rose, "are you here?" + +"Please, Miss Lee," said Polly, in a high squeaky voice of self-defence, +"Our Ted is so bad, I couldn't go to school, not this afternoon." + +"And where's Miss Amy? Not gone for the doctor?" asked Rose, seeing +indeed that the poor child looked very ill. + +"No, miss," said Polly. "Teacher Amy don't come now for more than a +minute." + +"Where is she then?" asked Rose, to whom the world seemed whirling +round; while Ambrose Cuthbert stood at the door, and his mother was +feeling the poor child's hands, and looking with dismay at the grease +gathering on the half cold broth with which his sister had been trying +to feed him. + +But Polly's answer was quite ready--"Down the mead along with that there +Wingfield and Cray's gal." + +"Who?" asked Rose, severely, for the girl's tone had that sort of pert +simplicity, or simple pertness, that children can put on when they know +they are giving unpleasant information, but will not seem to understand +it. + +"With Mr. Wingfield, the gentleman's groom up at the Arms," said she. +"He be her young man." + +Ambrose Cuthbert turned his head outwards to hide a smile. Rose said +hotly, "Hold your tongue, child! don't be saucy! Come, Amy, here is +some mistake." + +"Stay, Rose," said Mrs. Cuthbert, "the child is really very ill. Has he +a mother? Something ought to be done." + +Rose did not feel as if she could care for the boy at such a moment, and +just then old Mrs. Rowe, brought by the sound of voices, came in by the +back door. + +"Ay! Rose Lee," she said. "If you wants to know where your fine niece +is, just look here. I never knew no good come of bringing up young folks +to be better than their neighbours, going about a visiting as if they +was ladies." + +Rose had reached the back garden, and over the broken-down little gate +she saw--in the path shaded by the coppice--three figures whom she knew +only too well, sauntering towards the stile leading into the lane. + +She felt quite giddy, as she called out sharply, "Amy Lee!" + +There was a great start. The three stood still, and looked about as if +to see where the voice came from. Rose, recollecting the old woman's +malicious eyes, got over the stile and came towards them. They had seen +her by this time; she perceived that they were whispering; then the man +retreated, and Florence and Amy came towards her, Florence holding Amy's +hand, and pushing to the front. + +"Miss Lee," she said, "we weren't doing no harm. Only taking a walk +before coming in." + +"Florence Cray," returned Miss Lee, "I don't want to have anything to +say to you. If you have been teaching Amy to deceive her father and me, +so much the worse. You need not come to work this afternoon. My sister, +Mrs. Cuthbert, is come to see us, so I shall not require you. Come here, +Amy." + +"You'll not be hard on her, Miss Lee," entreated good-natured Florence, +feeling Amy's fingers cling to her. "I do assure you there's been +nothing no one could except against. It's been all most prudent and +proper all along." + +"I said I don't wish to hear nothing from you," said Rose. "If you call +it prudent and proper to be walking with young men, when she is trusted +to read to a sick child, I don't know what I shall hear next. Come here, +Amy; come home with me." + +"Indeed, aunt," sobbed Amy, "I've been in every day to see him." + +"Come home now, Amy," said her aunt; "I can't talk to you now! No, don't +cry--don't speak! I won't have you making yourself a show to the whole +place any more than you have done already. That you should have deceived +us so!" she sighed to herself. She was taking Amy in, not by the garden, +but round the corner of the lane, to give a little more time for her to +recover herself, and also to avoid facing Mrs. Rowe's eager eyes. + +"Please don't tell father," once sighed Amy. + +"Do you think I am going to be as deceitful as yourself?" was all the +answer she got. + +Amy's was a meek nature, and she knew she had been doing very wrong, so +she uttered no more entreaties; indeed, she was in such a trembling, +choking state, that her aunt had to wait, and walk slowly, while the +girl tried to control herself enough to appear respectably--in a little +lurking hope that perhaps Aunt Rose would be better than her word, and +at least not tell Aunt Amy, her godmother, or Cousin Ambrose. She, who +had been always reckoned so good a girl, and had never been in disgrace +before! That it should have happened at such a time! + +And when the garden gate was opened, there was a further shock. More +people were in the house! Miss Manners, who had come home the night +before, had come to inquire for little Edwin, and there was a buzz of +voices, as she and Mrs. Cuthbert had most joyfully greeted one another. + +Miss Manners was delighted to see the young missionary, and the only +drawback was that poor little Edwin was evidently so much worse. He had +been gradually growing worse and weaker for the last ten days or a +fortnight, Polly and Mrs. Rowe said, and his mother had sad nights with +him; but the parish doctor had said it was only feverishness caused by +the heat, when he saw the boy last week, and did not seem to think it of +consequence. The family depended on the mother's work, and in hay-making +time she could not stay at home. Mr. Somers was gone from home, so was +Miss Manners, and no one had thought much about the poor child; but he +had become so much worse in the course of the morning, that it was plain +that his mother and the doctor must both be sent for without loss of +time. + +Miss Manners came out into the garden with Mrs. Cuthbert, and as the +aunt and niece came up, said she would find the messenger. + +"Had not you thought him so well, Amy?" she asked. + +"Oh, ma'am!" exclaimed Aunt Rose, always an outspoken person, "that's +the worst trouble of all! Who would have thought this sly deceitful +child could have made as if she was sitting all the time with that poor +boy, while she was just walking all the time with that good-for-nothing +groom up at the Arms. How I shall tell her poor father, I don't know. It +will be enough to break his heart!" + +"It was all Florence Cray!" sobbed Amy. + +"Well," said Miss Manners, "of course her father must know about it; but +since Amy the elder is only to be here three or four hours, don't you +think it would be better not to spoil her visit for him? You can have it +out in the evening, you know; but it would be a great pity to give him +such a shock at once. Don't you think so, Amy?" + +"Indeed I do, ma'am," said Mrs. Cuthbert; "I am afraid the poor girl may +have been to blame, but it will not be the worse for her to wait a +little while, and my brother would be so much taken up with the matter, +that I am afraid my Ambrose would never know his uncle as I should +like." + +"I'm sure it will all be spoilt to me, any way," said poor Aunt Rose, +half choked. + +"But you will bear the burthen alone, for your brother's sake and +Charlotte's," said Miss Manners, cheerfully; "besides, you have your +own dear old Amy to help you to bear it, and that is like old times." + +This comforted Rose a good deal. Miss Dora--as she and her sister Amy +still called her--said she would not say good-bye, she would look in +before the Cuthberts went, and say how the child was. + +The younger Amy was glad at first of the respite, but altogether it was +the most dreadful day she ever spent. There was her father in his Sunday +best coming out to meet them, wondering what had made them stay so long. +Mrs. Cuthbert answered, to save Aunt Rose, that they had found the child +much worse, and that Miss Manners had come in. This satisfied him, and +they went in to the meal Aunt Charlotte had prepared--a very late +luncheon, or early and solid tea, whichever it might be called--in the +parlour, with the best china, and everything as nice as possible. + +Really Amy felt as if it would have been less dreadful to have been +locked up in her room, or sitting sewing with Jessie in the workroom, +than sitting up in the parlour with the rest, and hearing her father +show his pride in her, making her fetch her prize for the religious +examination, and talking of her almost as if he wanted to compare her +with Aunt Amy's missionary son. + +And then when Ambrose Cuthbert was questioned about his plans, and told +in a very modest quiet way where he was to go, and the work he was to do +under a missionary to the Red Indians, Amy saw more and more how foolish +she had been. What was that conceited groom whose boast was of the +horses he had ridden, and the bets laid on them, compared with this +young man? Which was the gentleman of the two? And this was her own +first cousin, and she had forfeited the respect and esteem which he +might have carried out with him! He would only--in those far +countries--think of his cousin, Amy Lee, as a giddy, deceitful, +hypocritical girl, who had carried on a flirtation under cover of a good +work. + +Amy burnt to tell all the excuses she thought she had, and how she had +been led on, and that it was not so bad as no doubt Aunt Rose thought; +but she must keep all back. Only at last her father remarked that his +darling was very silent--shy, he thought, with her grand scholarly +cousin. He said he should like them to hear what a pretty voice she had, +and told her to sing one of her hymns, such as "Abide with us;" but Amy +could not do that. She put her face in her hands, choked, and began to +cry. + +"Ah!" said Aunt Charlotte; "poor dear, it has been a great shock to her, +the poor little boy being taken so much worse." + +It was a comfort to every one that at that moment Miss Manners came in +through the shop, asking for Jessie Hollis. + +"The poor little boy is very ill," she said. "The only thing that seems +to soothe him is a bit of a verse that his sister Mary says her teacher +taught her. That was you--is it not, Jessie? Mary can only say half, and +we can't make it out; but she says, 'If teacher was but here.'" + +Of course Miss Lee was ready to spare Jessie for such a reason, and she +folded up her work while Miss Manners had a little talk with Mrs. +Cuthbert, on the mingled pain and sweetness of the giving up her only +son to be one of those sent forth "to sow beside all waters." + +"I am so glad he should have seen you, ma'am, before he leaves us," said +his mother, the tears rising in her quiet eyes. "I only wish he could +have seen Miss Edith--Mrs. Howard; for indeed, ma'am, I always feel that +whatever good my children have learnt at home, was owing to the way I +was brought up and the way Miss Edith used to talk to us." + +"Nothing will make my sister so happy as to hear it, Amy," said Miss +Manners. "Somehow it seems to chime in with what I had ventured to bring +as a little remembrance of your old home for your son. I had prepared it +to send the St. Augustine's scholar, before I knew I should see him." + +She gave him a beautiful little _Christian Year_ and _Lyra Innocentium_ +in a case together, and as the book-marker was the illuminated text-- + + "In the morning sow thy seed, + And in the evening withhold not thine hand, + For thou knowest not which shall prosper." + +Ambrose Cuthbert thanked the lady in a very nice way, telling her that +he should value her gift much, and that he hoped to make the poems his +companions and often his guides in his work. + +So with a warm pressure of the hands of both mother and son, Miss +Manners walked away with Jessie. + +"I think," she presently said, "some of your bread on the waters is +coming back to you, Jessie. They say that little Mary Smithers has been +such a comfort to her little brother, by repeating to him what she +learns on Sundays, and that she has been so much more good and attentive +to him of late." + +"I am sure, ma'am," said Jessie, "I never thought Mary Smithers seemed +to understand anything." + +"We can never judge where the seed we sow will prosper," said Miss Dora, +thinking within herself of the different results with Amy and Jessie. + +The little boy had been carried up to the bedroom. Old Mrs. Rowe was +there, and his mother, who was trying to help him to lie more easily, +while he moved feebly, but restlessly, and still looked at little +Polly, who was repeating over and over some verse in which "Shepherd" +was the only word that Miss Manners, well as she knew the children's +tones, could make out. Jessie, however, knew it directly, and repeated-- + + "Gracious Saviour, gentle Shepherd, + Little ones are dear to Thee, + Gathered in Thine Arms and carried, + In Thy Bosom may we be + Sweetly, fondly, gently tended, + From all want and danger free." + +She could say the whole hymn, but the child grew restless as soon as she +had passed beyond the first verse. She returned to it, once, twice, and +then Polly got back what she had partly forgotten and went on with it, +which was evidently what quieted the boy best. He seemed too far gone to +attend to anything else; the sense of other words did not reach his +ears, but these evidently gave him pleasure. The doctor had said he was +dying, and the women thought he would sleep himself away. There seemed +no more to be done. Polly had her verse to say to him, and no help +seemed needed; so Miss Manners and Jessie went down the stairs again, +and out into the garden, Jessie shedding many tears, but very far from +sad ones. When she could speak, she said that the young woman in the +hospital to whom she owed so much knew the hymn, and had so often +repeated it, that Jessie had learnt it. She had used the first verse one +Sunday when teaching the children about the Good Shepherd, and, having a +little more time than usual, had tried to teach it to them--little +thinking how she should thus meet it--but using it because she had grown +fond of it for the sake of her friend, and of the new and higher +feelings that were linked with the first learning of it. + +There was a great peace and thankfulness in her heart at having thus +tasted a sort of first-fruits of her little attempt at sowing. It was +soothing a death-bed! Might not she well rejoice that she had +persevered, in spite of the temptation of gain, in not letting her head +and heart be carried away with the fever of work, but giving the best +part of herself to the task she had undertaken? + +Not that Jessie saw or thought that this had been the case. Yet if she +had let herself be swept away with Grace's vehement desire to engross +all the needlework, she must have given up her preparation; she would +have been wearied, hurried, and very likely fretful and impatient. At +any rate, there would not have been that kindness and earnestness which +leads others to be good far more than the actual words of teaching. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +THE RECKONING. + + +"IT is a right punishment for our sinful pride in her," said Aunt Rose, +as she had a few last words alone with her elder sister. + +"Well, Rose," said Mrs. Cuthbert, "I would not be so very hard on the +poor child. I've been watching her, and I think, though no doubt she has +done very wrong, it was in a childish sort of way, and that you won't +find there's been any real love-making or nonsense of that sort." + +"I'm sure, now I find the child could deceive us so, and act such a +part, there's nothing I could not believe," said poor Aunt Rose. + +"That is sad enough, but I think you'll find it the worst, and that she +was led into it by others." + +"That Florence Cray!" exclaimed Rose; "and what to do about her? How +hinder her from spoiling our child, when she's bound apprentice to me? I +wish I'd never listened to her father!" + +Here came Amy herself, sent up to say that the trap was ready, and her +aunt must not be late for the train. She felt as if the last protection +was gone when she saw her aunt and cousin driven away in the conveyance +they had hired at Ellerby. + +Girls bred up like Florence Cray would have thought it all a great fuss +about nothing. First and last Florence had seen nothing but fun in Amy's +cheating her strait-laced aunts and getting a little diversion, while +they wanted to shut her up with a cross child; but Amy had been bred up +to a very different way of looking at things, and the whole afternoon +had only been setting more fully before her how she had fallen from what +she had imagined of herself last Lent! + +After all, the delay had made it better for her. Aunt Rose did not tell +the story quite so hotly and violently as it would have come out in the +first shock of wrath, but it was dreadful enough to hear her father +say-- + +"Amy, child, what is this? I never thought you would go for to do such a +thing." + +"You that we had trusted from a baby," added Aunt Rose. + +Aunt Charlotte said nothing, but her looks were the worst of all to +bear, they were so gentle and so sorrowful. And when Amy had sobbed out +her story they told her that she had been so sly that they did not know +how to believe her word. + +"Oh, father! you may believe me. I never told a story--no, I never did!" + +"And yet you could make as if you were going day by day to sit with that +poor little chap, only that you might be tramping about the lanes with +that there scamp!" + +It was what he took as the hypocrisy of the thing that chiefly wounded +Mr. Lee, and when Amy declared she had always gone into the cottage and +spoken to the boy, she was told, "Much she could have attended to him, +since she had never seen that the poor child was dying." + +The fact was that Florence had hurried her a good deal, because Mr. +Wingfield was to show them the rosettes the horses were to wear on the +wedding-day. + +After all, Amy had to go up to her room only half believed and +unforgiven. Her father had a great mind to have gone to have had it out +with Florence Cray that night, but as some holiday people were there, +he doubted whether he could see her alone, and waited till the morning. +Then he called her into the parlour and said: + +"Florence Cray, what have you been doing with my girl?" + +"No harm, Mr. Lee," said Florence, frightened, but therefore pert, and +resolved to stand up for her friend. "You may trust me for that! I know +what is proper." + +Mr. Lee made an odd sort of noise, and said: "You do, eh! Proper to +deceive her friends--" + +"Oh! now, Mr. Lee," said Florence, looking up in the droll, saucy way +that served her instead of beauty, "it was only two old aunts. One +always reckons it fair play by an old aunt." + +"Have done with nonsense like that," said Mr. Lee. "Now, Florence Cray, +mine is a girl with no mother. My sisters, and I have done our best to +keep her a good, innocent girl, and we can't but feel it a hard thing +that you should come leading her to keep company, without our knowledge, +with a fellow that you must know is not such as we would approve." + +"I'm sure I meant no harm," said Florence, beginning to cry; "I only +thought it was dull for her, and took her for a walk. And you needn't be +afraid, Mr. Lee, I never left them alone not one minute, nor he never +said one word; nor did more than just shake hands. You may trust me, Mr. +Lee." + +On the whole the Lees were satisfied that the mischief had not gone as +far as such imprudence might have led. Mr. Wingfield would be gone in a +few days, for the wedding was coming on, and Amy was certainly not in +love with him. When she compared him with Ambrose Cuthbert, she felt +sick of having been flattered for a moment by his attentions, and +looked on the whole with the bitterest shame, as having led her away +from all her good resolutions, and made her thus deceive and disobey her +father and aunts. And when the knell rang for poor little Edwin Smithers +she cried more than ever, feeling almost guilty of his death. + +She never wished for a moment to accept the invitation for which she had +once been so eager, to see Miss Robson's wedding clothes and wedding +presents. Grace Hollis went and took Jessie, and Florence Cray went too. + +These were a sight! Such gilt clocks! Such extraordinary contrivances +for ink-stands, toilette apparatus, dinner services, and every service +that could be thought of! Such girdles, chatelaines, rings and +bracelets! Such silks and satins! such garments for morning, noon, and +night, and even afternoon tea! And oh! such dressing-gowns! + +They sent Florence Cray home thinking over all the novels she had ever +seen, where a girl at an inn married a rich man, and also thinking how +to alter her best hat. + +They sent Grace Hollis home deep in plans how to get another order for +plain work. + +And they sent home, Jessie very happy indeed, for a lady's-maid had +asked whether a dozen more handkerchiefs could be marked with "Maude" in +the same style as the Nina. + +Miss Needwood was really getting quite prosperous. + +The next day, almost every one, who could, went to see as much as +possible of the wedding; so Aunt Rose had not yet to endure the presence +of Florence, and to keep watch that she did not chatter to Amy, who was +drooping and shame-stricken enough. + +That morning came a letter from Mrs. Cuthbert. She said she should be +lonesome without Ambrose; and would her brother lend her his Amy for a +few weeks, when she would do her best for the child, and not let her +forget her needlework? This made things much easier to all; but Amy knew +it was a very different going from home from what it might have been. + +Before she came back, Florence Cray had found what she called "working +at Old Lee's" so dull, that she had teased her parents into requesting +the return of part of her premium, and binding her to the chief milliner +in Ellerby. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +WHICH SHALL PROSPER? + + +MR. SOMERS had come home from his six weeks' holiday, and was talking +over the village news with Miss Manners. + +She told him of little Edwin Smithers's death, of the summons to Jessie +Hollis, and of the visit of Mrs. Cuthbert. + +"Of course it is wrong to judge," she said, "but do you remember that +Lenten sermon, and the impression I told you it made?" + +"I remember well. It was on the seed, and on bringing forth fruit." + +"Well, when we had the Parable of the Sower the other day, I could not +help thinking how it had worked out. There were some, like that Cray +girl, who never seemed to take it in at all, but left it as something +outside of them. Then three distinctly were moved to undertake +something, the two Hollises and Amy Lee. Well, Grace dropped her +missionary needlework as soon as that wedding order come in her way----" + +"Don't be hard on her, Dora." + +"No; but I'm afraid I can't help seeing that she does not seem to keep +up her Sunday ways as she used. Then there's a sharp, worn, fretted way. +I am very much afraid she is getting choked with the thorns." + +"I don't know Miss Hollis well," he said, thoughtfully, "but I am afraid +she does not look much beyond her shop." + +"And my poor little Amy Lee responding so readily--seeming all that +could be wished, and then showing herself so little able to stand +temptation from that silly girl." + +"I hope there was no more than silliness." + +"I don't think there was; but still, after all the care Rose and +Charlotte have taken to bring up that girl really refined, it was very +disappointing to find her ready to be led away in an instant by foolish, +vulgar admiration; above all, when it led her to neglect the good work +she was supposed to be doing, it showed such shallowness." + +"It is a comfort that often trials, and even falls, do deepen the soil, +so that the roots may have a better hold another time," said Mr. Somers. +"I think there is good hope that so it will be with poor little Amy. And +I think you have some good soil to tell me of." + +"Indeed I have. I am sure Jessie Hollis has shown herself good soil, and +her work upon that very unpromising Mary Smithers showed itself +remarkably. But that was not all I was thinking of. It seems to me that +we have had a glimpse of what the hundredfold produce may be. Think of +my dear sister Edith, working away at her class when there was much less +help than now, and see what some of them have grown up, especially Amy +Cuthbert. I know she had a good home, and other helps; but still I heard +what she said of Edith's teaching and training. It has helped her to +make that young Ambrose Cuthbert what he is,--and what may not be his +harvest!" + +"As though a man should cast seed into the field," said Mr. Somers, +thoughtfully. "First the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn +in the ear." + +"Ah! I am leaping on too fast. We only see a little of the +first-fruits," said Miss Manners, "and take it for an earnest of the +rest." And then she repeated Bishop Heber's hymn, which she had often +taught the children:-- + + "O God, by Whom the seed is given, + By Whom the harvest blest, + Whose Word, like manna showers from heaven, + Is planted in our breast. + + "Preserve it from the passing feet, + From plunderers of the air, + The sultry sun's intenser heat, + And weeds of worldly care. + + "Though buried deep or thinly strewn, + Do Thou Thy grace supply: + The hope in earthly furrows strewn + Shall ripen in the sky." + + +THE END. + + + + + LONDON: + + R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, + + BREAD STREET HILL. + + + + +BOOKS FOR PRESENTS. + + + ABBEYCHURCH; OR, SELF-CONTROL AND SELF-CONCEIT, + AND THE MYSTERY OF THE CAVERN. Second Edition. By + CHARLOTTE M. YONGE. Fcap. 8vo. With Frontispiece. + Cloth. 4_s._ 6_d._ + + A LAND AND SEA STORY. By ELLEN E. 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