n finishings
of her cousin's morning-robe. "But then--Well, Abbie, do you think it
is wicked to like nice things?"

"No," Abbie answered very gently; "but I think it is wrong to school
ourselves into believing that we do not care for any thing of the
kind; when, in reality, it is a higher, better motive which deters us
from having many things. Forgive me, Ester, but I think you are unjust
sometimes to your better self in this very way."

Ester gave a little start, and realized for the first time in her
life that, truth-loving girl though she was, she had been practicing
a pretty little deception of this kind, and actually palming it off on
herself. In a moment, however, she returned to the charge.

"But, Abbie, did Aunt Helen really want you to have that pearl velvet
we saw at Stewart's?"

"She really did."

"And you refused it?"

"And I refused it."

"Well, is that to be set down as a matter of religion, too?" This
question was asked with very much of Ester's old sharpness of tone.

Abbie answered her with a look of amazement. "I think we don't
understand each other," she said at length, with the gentlest of
tones. "That dress, Ester, with all its belongings could not have cost
less than seven hundred dollars. Could I, a follower of the meek
and lowly Jesus, living in a world where so many of his poor are
suffering, have been guilty of wearing such a dress as that? My dear,
I don't think you sustain the charge against me thus far. I see
now how these pretty little collar (and, by the way, Ester, you are
crushing one of them against that green box) suggested the thought;
but you surely do not consider it strange, when I have such an array
of collars already, that I did not pay thirty dollars for that bit of
a cobweb which we saw yesterday?"

"But Aunt Helen wanted you to."

A sad and troubled look stole over Abbie's face as she answered: "My
mother, remember, dear Ester, does not realize that she is not her
own, but has been bought with a price. You and I know and feel that we
must give an account of our stewardship. Ester, do you see how people
who ask God to help them in every little thing which they have to
decide--in the least expenditure of money--can after that deliberately
fritter it away?"

"Do you ask God's help in these matters?"

"Why, certainly--" with the wondering look in her eyes, which Ester
had learned to know and dislike--"'Whatsoever therefore ye do'--you
know."

"But, Abbie, going