acher; for Mrs. Mordaunt loved flowers and would
sometimes take the lesson for the day from them. And she loved better
still the affectionate remembrances of her children.

Kitty, meanwhile, was walking very soberly along, reading her
hymn-book. Perhaps from this you may think that Kitty was the more
industrious and thoughtful of the two; but it was not so. Amy had
risen early that morning, and got her lessons all ready, and so she
could enjoy the pleasant walk freely; for you know, or if you do not
know I hope you will learn, that it is always those who are busiest at
their work that can be merriest in their hours of leisure. Nothing
gives us such an appetite for enjoyment as hearty work. So Amy tripped
on, humming a cheerful hymn, while poor Kitty kept on saying over and
over again the words of her hymn, and vainly trying to stop her ears
from hearing and her eyes from seeing all the pleasant sights and
sounds around her. But the birds were so busy singing, and the fish
kept springing up from the stream, and every now and then a bright
butterfly would flit across, or a little bird perch on a spray close
to her, and everything around seemed trying so mischievously to take
her attention from her book, so that they had reached the gate at the
end of the wood before Kitty had learned two verses of her hymn.

You see, these two little girls were not quite like each other,
although they had the same home, and the same lessons, and the same
plays. If you sow two seeds of the same plant in the same soil, you
know they will grow up exactly like each other. The flowers will be of
the same colour, the same smell, the same shape; the roots will suck
up the same nourishment from the soil, and the little vessels of the
stems and leaves will cook it into the very same sweet, or sour, or
bitter juices. But with little children it is quite different. You may
often see two children of one family, with the same friends, the same
teaching, the same means of improvement, as different in temper and
character from each other as if they had been brought up on opposite
sides of the world. Indeed, it is as strange for children of one
family to be alike, as for flowers to be unlike. Why is this? Among
other reasons one great one is, that God has given to children a
_will_--a power of choosing good or evil. Flowers have no will; they
cannot help being beautiful, and being what God meant them to be. The
earth feeds them, and the rains water them