ason, and she
folded up her work while Miss Manners had a little talk with Mrs.
Cuthbert, on the mingled pain and sweetness of the giving up her only
son to be one of those sent forth "to sow beside all waters."

"I am so glad he should have seen you, ma'am, before he leaves us," said
his mother, the tears rising in her quiet eyes. "I only wish he could
have seen Miss Edith--Mrs. Howard; for indeed, ma'am, I always feel that
whatever good my children have learnt at home, was owing to the way I
was brought up and the way Miss Edith used to talk to us."

"Nothing will make my sister so happy as to hear it, Amy," said Miss
Manners. "Somehow it seems to chime in with what I had ventured to bring
as a little remembrance of your old home for your son. I had prepared it
to send the St. Augustine's scholar, before I knew I should see him."

She gave him a beautiful little _Christian Year_ and _Lyra Innocentium_
in a case together, and as the book-marker was the illuminated text--

"In the morning sow thy seed,
And in the evening withhold not thine hand,
For thou knowest not which shall prosper."

Ambrose Cuthbert thanked the lady in a very nice way, telling her that
he should value her gift much, and that he hoped to make the poems his
companions and often his guides in his work.

So with a warm pressure of the hands of both mother and son, Miss
Manners walked away with Jessie.

"I think," she presently said, "some of your bread on the waters is
coming back to you, Jessie. They say that little Mary Smithers has been
such a comfort to her little brother, by repeating to him what she
learns on Sundays, and that she has been so much more good and attentive
to him of late."

"I am sure, ma'am," said Jessie, "I never thought Mary Smithers seemed
to understand anything."

"We can never judge where the seed we sow will prosper," said Miss Dora,
thinking within herself of the different results with Amy and Jessie.

The little boy had been carried up to the bedroom. Old Mrs. Rowe was
there, and his mother, who was trying to help him to lie more easily,
while he moved feebly, but restlessly, and still looked at little
Polly, who was repeating over and over some verse in which "Shepherd"
was the only word that Miss Manners, well as she knew the children's
tones, could make out. Jessie, however, knew it directly, and repeated--

"Gracious Saviour, gentle Shepherd,
Little o