c an ear for
a little prayer of few words over some trivial worry, given silently in
the busy kitchen, or on the crowded street, as He had for those when she
knelt down at night, and absently asked for her daily bread, and to
forgive as she was forgiven, and then get properly into bed and
refrained from speaking again, lest she spoilt the effect. At any rate,
the first prayer that had ever sprung to her lips, with the suddenness
of utter helplessness, came from them now, as she sat there, trying to
think and battle with hasty conclusions that would spring up:

"Oh God, please don't let me try to think it out alone, because I will
get it all wrong if I do. If it is my fault, make me feel it and know
how to act, and don't let me be so odd, or whatever it is that makes me
feel as I do."

With the earnestness of the request, came a quiet feeling that she felt
to be her answer, and all the time she sat there, which was until the
supper-bell rang, she felt more contented than ever before with her
thoughts. Not that God immediately took away her faults, and left her
placid and quiet, with nothing to battle against, because He does not do
that way; it can never be said to us: "Well done, good and faithful
servant," if we've done nothing; and the battling with our faults and
worries is just as much our work, as the successful doing of some great
deed that may bring both God's pleasure and an earthly halo.

When Mrs. Dering came home on Friday evening, she was quick to note a
change of some kind, not but what every one seemed the same at a quick
observation, but, there was a something. Now don't think that any thing
so unnatural and improbable had happened, as Olive being bereft of all
faults, and suddenly clothed in the guise of a household angel, because
there hadn't, there never does; but she had thought much, and Olive had
a mind capable of more deep reasoning thought than most girls of
fifteen; she stopped fighting herself with weapons solely of her own
make, but sent many a little wordless prayer for a different feeling,
and then she found that it came more easily, and more completely
triumphed over its enemy. To-night she had a little ribbon tied in her
hair, only a small thing, but something unusual for Olive, and Mrs.
Dering noticed that the bow at her throat was just of the same shade,
also something unusual. Now over just this little thing, Olive had stood
in silence, while two feelings within her held an argument: