she would have to open the gate for travellers who came to
see the waterfall near the cottage, before she could buy a ribbon like
that.

CHAPTER II.

AT SCHOOL.

At length the children reached the school before the hymn was learned,
and Kitty felt very much ashamed when, after stammering through three
verses, Mrs. Mordaunt gave her back the book, saying, "I would rather
have no lesson from you, Kitty, than one learned so carelessly as
this." However, it was too late to repair the fault, so Kitty resolved
to give her very best attention to the chapter they were going to
read. It was the parable of the sower and the seed, in the thirteenth
of St. Matthew. I cannot tell you all that Mrs. Mordaunt said about
it, but it was something of this kind:--

"The Saviour was sitting on a little strip of level land by the side
of the Sea of Galilee. Behind him were high mountains, towering one
above another to the clouds; before him, the waves came rippling
quietly against the low shore. Around him were crowds of people
gathered together from the villages and towns many miles around to
listen unto him. Had all these people come to Jesus for the same
thing, do you think, Jane Hutton?"

Jane Hutton started at the question. She had been playing with her new
parasol, and her thoughts were very far from the Sea of Galilee. Mrs.
Mordaunt repeated the question in another way. "Do you think all the
people who came to Jesus came because they loved him, and wanted to be
his disciples?"

"No; there were the Pharisees," said Kitty.

"Yes; they came to try to find fault with him."

"And the sick," said Amy timidly, "who came to be healed."

"True," said Mrs. Mordaunt. "And then there were very many, doubtless,
who came from mere curiosity, because they had heard their friends
talk of his wonderful power of healing, or the new, wise, and strange
words of him who seemed to them only the son of a poor carpenter of
Nazareth. But were there any who gathered close around him, and loved
his words for their own sake, not because they were new or
interesting, but because they were _true_ and _God's words_, because
they had sins to be forgiven and Jesus could forgive, and sick souls
which only Jesus could heal?"

"Yes; there were the disciples."

"What do you mean by disciples?"

"Does it not mean those who love Jesus?" asked Amy.

"No; don't you remember it means scholars?" said Kitty, who was
quicker than her sister, and rather