e end of the six weeks, and aunt Agnes and
Emilie were quietly settled in their little apartments again. The piano
was a little out of tune, but Emilie expected as much, and now after her
six weeks' holiday, so called, she prepared to begin her life of daily
teaching. Her kindness to Miss Webster was for some time to all
appearance thrown away, but no, that cannot be--kindness and love can
never be wasted. They bless him that gives, if not him that takes the
offering. By and bye, however, a few indications of the working of the
good system appeared. Miss Webster would offer to come and sit and chat
with aunt Agnes when Emilie was teaching or walking; and aunt Agnes in
return taught Miss Webster knitting stitches and crochet work. Miss
Webster would clean Emilie's straw bonnet, and when asked for the bill,
she would say that it came to nothing; and would now and then send up a
little offering of fruit or fish, when she thought her lodgers' table
was not well supplied. Little acts in themselves, but great when we
consider that they were those of an habitually cold and selfish person.
She did not express love; but she showed the softening influence of
affection, and Emilie at least understood and appreciated it.

Fred had perhaps the hardest work of all the actors on this little
stage; he thought so at least. Joe White was an unamiable and, as Fred
expressed it, a sneaking boy. He had never been accustomed to have his
social affections cultivated in childhood, and consequently, he grew up
into boyhood without any heart as it is called. Good Mr. Barton was
quite puzzled with him. He said there was no making any impression on
him, and that Mr. Barton could make none was very evident. Who shall
make it? Even Fred; for he is going to try Emilie's receipt for the cure
of the complaint under which Master White laboured, a kind of moral
ossification of the heart. Will he succeed? We shall see.

Perhaps, had Joe White at this time fallen down and broken his leg, or
demanded in any way a _great_ sacrifice of personal comfort from his
school-fellow, he would have found it easier to return good for his evil,
than in the daily, hourly, calls for the exercise of forgiveness and
forbearance which occurred at school. Oh, how many will do _great_
things in the way of gifts or service, who will not do the little acts
of kindness and self denial which common life demands. Many a person has
built hospitals or alms houses, and has been ready