re now scarcely needed?

So Vinnie lapsed into an unsettled state of mind, common enough to a
certain class of girls of her age, as well as to a larger class of boys,
when the great questions of practical life confront them: "What am I to
be? What shall I do for a living?"

How ardently she wished she had money, so that she could spend two or
three entire years at school! How eagerly she would have used those
advantages for obtaining an education which so many, who have them,
carelessly throw away! But Vinnie had nothing--could expect
nothing--which she did not earn.

At one time she resolved to go to work in a factory; at another, to try
teaching a district school; and again, to learn some trade, like that of
dress-maker or milliner. Often she wished for the freedom to go out into
the world and gain her livelihood like a boy.

In this mood of mind she received two letters. One was from Jack,
describing his accidental visit to her sister's family. The other was
from Caroline herself, who made that visit the occasion of writing a
plaintive letter to her "dear, neglected Lavinia."

Many tears she shed over these letters. The touching picture Jack drew
of the invalid Cecie, and the brave little Lilian, and of the sick
mother and baby, with Caroline's sad confession of distress, and of her
need of sympathy and help, wakened springs of love and pity in the young
girl's heart. She forgot that she had anything to forgive. All her
half-formed schemes for self-help and self-culture were at once
discarded, and she formed a courageous resolution.

"I will go to Illinois," she said, "and take care of my poor sister and
her sick children."

Such a journey, from Western New York, was no small undertaking in those
days. But she did not shrink from it.

"What!" said Mrs. Presbit, when Vinnie's determination was announced to
her, "you will go and work for a sister who has treated you so
shamefully all these years? Only a half-sister, at that! I'm astonished
at you! I thought you had more sperit."

"For anything she may have done wrong, I am sure she is sorry enough
now," Vinnie replied.

"Yes, now she has need of you!" sneered Mrs. Presbit.

"Besides," Vinnie continued, "I ought to go, for the children's sake, if
not for hers. Think of Cecie and the poor baby; and Lilian not ten years
old, trying to do the housework! I can do so much for them!"

"No doubt of that; for I must say you are as handy and willing a girl as
ever