efit to yourself, but to the inhabitants of the place;
that is, if you are capable and attentive."

"Indeed! indeed! I will be both. Only permit me to make the trial,"
said the excited Helen.

"That you shall, and have my little Susan to begin with; and the
sooner you do so, the better; but let me beg of you not to be too
sanguine, for fear of disappointment. Let me see, this is Wednesday;
you could not manage to get your room in order by Monday, could you?"

"At any rate," said Helen, "I would take the few who would attend, at
the first, in our little parlour."

Helen, then after thanking Mrs. Sherman for the suggestion, rose to
go; when that lady invited her back to tea, wishing to get more
insight into her plans and capability, before she ventured to
recommend her to others; and she wished that her husband the Doctor,
should see and converse with Helen, for whom she began to feel great
interest, as she had much reliance on his judgment, and penetration
into character. Having gleaned from the early part of her conversation
with Mrs. Sherman, her anxiety about the shirts, which were a new, and
difficult pattern, Helen insisted on taking and doing them at her
leisure, which after repeated refusals, she at length agreed to.

In returning home, she called, agreeably to her promise, on Mrs.
Cameron, who was as much pleased with the result of her visit as
herself.

"See, my dear Miss Willoughby," said she, "how your conduct was
rewarded, as I was sure it would be, for adhering to the right. Had
you sent Nancy for the work, perhaps you would never have got it, and
your qualification as a teacher might never been known. Was there not
my dear Helen, a special providence here? yes indeed there was."

Here, I must beg to digress a little, to urge the advantage of a
thorough education; which can never be too highly appreciated, or too
strongly enforced. Under any reverse of fortune, who can calculate on
the benefits? to say nothing of the gratification it affords in so
many ways. "Knowledge is power," and always secures its possessor, a
degree of influence, that wealth can never command. Oh! would that all
mothers, as well as daughters, could but be duly impressed, with a
sense of its _vital_ importance. Then we should not see girls, day
after day, permitted on any frivolous excuse, to absent themselves
from school: for if time be so truly valuable, as we know it really
is; how doubly, nay trebly, is it, in the period dev