eshold; and here and there, where she detected smouldering aspiration,
or incipient appreciation of learning, she fanned the spark with some
suitable volume from her own library, which, in more than one instance,
became the germ, the spring of "joy for ever." Frequently her father threw
obstacles in her way, sneering all the while at her "sanctimonious freaks."
Sometimes she affected not to notice the impediments, sometimes frankly
acknowledged their magnitude and climbed right over them, on to her work.
Among the factory operatives she found the greatest need of ameliorating
touches of every kind. Improvident, illiterate, in some cases, almost
brutalized, she occasionally found herself puzzled as to the proper plan to
pursue; but her womanly heart, like the hidden jewelled levers of a watch,
guided the womanly hands unerringly.

This evening, as she approached the row of low white-washed houses, a crowd
of children swarmed out, as usual, to stare at her. She rode up to a
doorstep where a boy of some fourteen years sat sunning himself, with an
open book on his knee and a pair of crutches beside him. At sight of her a
bright smile broke over his sickly face and he tried to rise.

"Good evening, Philip; don't get up. How are you to-day?"

"Better, I thank you, ma'am; but very stiff yet."

"The stiffness will pass off gradually, I hope. I see you have not finished
your book yet; how do you like it?"

"Oh! I could bear to be a cripple always, if I had plenty like it to read."

"You need not be a cripple; but there are plenty more, just as good and
better, which you shall have in time. Do you think you could hold my horse
for me a little while? I can't find a suitable place to tie him. He is
gentle enough if you will only hold the reins."

"Certainly, ma'am; I shall be glad to hold him as long as you like."

She dismounted, and passed into the adjoining house. Sick-rooms, where
poverty stands grim and gaunt on the hearth, are rarely enticing, and to
this dreary class belonged the room where Bessie Davis had suffered for
months, watching the sands of life run low, and the shadow of death growing
longer across the threshold day by day. The dust and lint of the
cotton-room had choked the springs of life, and on her hollow cheeks glowed
the autograph of consumption. She stretched out her wasted hand, and said--

"Ah, Miss Irene! I heard your voice outside, and it was pleasant to my ears
as the sound of the bell when work-