now how we can help them. If we should offer to teach
them, they would not be willing to learn."

"Are you sure of it, mamma?"

"Not quite so sure, perhaps, as if I had tried to instruct them; but I
know that they regard a book as a sort of Protestant trap, made on
purpose to catch them, soul and body. It is an evil that we cannot
remedy.--Have you more pain than usual, my dear?" said Mrs. Lee,
appearing a little startled, and bending anxiously over Annie's couch
as she observed an unusual flush on her pale cheek.

"No, mamma; but I was thinking of a plan that I have had for some
weeks, and hoping that you would not object to it."

"Object! You shall have whatever you like, if it can be procured. What
is it, Annie?"

"Oh, dear mamma," said Annie, "I do so long to do some good! I cannot
bear to live such a useless life. Every day, when I feel the goodness
of God and his great love to me, I long to do something for him. And I
think, mamma, that I have planned a way to do good without getting off
my sofa."

"You are always doing good, Annie. Do you suppose that your patience
under suffering is not a lesson to us in our smaller trials? There are
many ways in which you are a blessing to us all; so do not weary
yourself with new schemes. If God had required active service from
you, he would have given you health and strength."

"But I can do something, mamma. Please to hear my plan. I want to tell
you something more about Phelim's sister. She has been Mrs. Green's
servant, and her business was to assist in the nursery. She would have
done nicely, Phelim says, but for her violent temper. Last week one of
the children was cross and provoking, and the girl got angry and
pushed him down-stairs. He was much bruised; and, of course, she was
dismissed at once."

"I should hope so. But your plan, Annie?"

"The poor girl has no place, mamma, and, with such a dreadful temper,
is not likely to get one soon. And they are very poor. I know that
since Jessie left us, you are too closely confined here with me; and
my plan is to have this poor girl to wait on me, and--"

"Why, Annie, what a wild project!" interrupted her mother. "You must
not think of it. She would be throwing you out of the window, or
beating you to a jelly, in her first fit of ill-temper."

"Oh no, she won't, mamma," urged Annie. "She will not be so easily
vexed here, and no one is ever angry with me. Please to try her."

"Are you really in earnest, Annie?"