he had
never done before, was more useful at home, and tried to restrain her
inclination to find out all about everything; she said her prayers more
carefully, went to Church more often, and heeded more what she heard;
and altogether she was what her mother called an altered girl. This was
Lent, and a clergyman was staying with Mr. Somers to preach a course of
sermons on the Friday evenings, and it was one of these that had so much
struck these young girls, and had put into their minds for the first
time, with any real force, the full sense that the true Christian must
seek to work for the good of the household of Christ as well as his own
household, and that "bringing forth good fruit" does not simply mean
taking care of oneself, and trying to save one's own soul.

The language had been beautiful and stirring, and there was a burning
desire in more than one heart to be doing something for Christ's sake.
The first thing that Jessie thought of was the Sunday school. She had
read books about it, and her fellow patient was full of ardour about
"training little lambs," as she called it, so that it seemed the most
beautiful and suitable task she could undertake.

Amy Lee, on the other hand, hardly knew how to spend a Sunday without
the school. She had been a scholar there until she had quite outgrown
the first class, and had been more than a year confirmed, and then she
had become a teacher of the little ones. She liked the employment, and
was fond of the children; she would have been sorry to drop the
connection with Miss Manners or with Miss Joy, the mistress, and the
rest of the school staff; she was pleased to work for and with Mr.
Somers and Miss Manners, and she had been trained to be reverent and
attentive; but it had never occurred to her to think of it as more than
a nice and good thing to do, or to look on it as a work undertaken for
Christ's sake.

"Teaching at school, I do that already," she said to herself, when Aunt
Rose's entrance had made her work her machine more and her tongue less.
"I must get something more to do. Oh! I know. There's poor old
half-blind Mrs. Long. She is left to herself terribly, they do say, and
I'll go and tidy her up, and see to her and read to her every day. I
could do it before my work and after. Maybe I might get her to be a
better old woman than she ever has been. Books say that nothing so
softens an old woman as a nice, bright young girl coming in to make much
of her, and I'm s