r's for their brown sugar this
summer. That would make it worth while to go to a better but more
expensive place, and have in a larger stock; and Grace went on reckoning
the risk all the time, and wondering whether the going to the working
parties would secure the ladies' custom. In that case the time would not
be wasted. It did not come into Grace's head whether what she had
thought of for the service of God she might be turning to the service of
Mammon, if she only just endured it for the sake of standing well with
the gentry. But then, was it not her duty to consider her shop and her
mother's interest?

She was quite vexed and angry when she saw Jessie go and fetch the big
Family Bible that evening, turning off the whole pile of lesson-books to
which it formed the base.

"Now what can you be doing that for?" she said sharply.

"I want to prepare my lesson for to-morrow," said Jessie.

"And is not a little Bible good enough for you, without upsetting the
whole table?"

"My Bible has got no references," said Jessie.

"And what do little children like that want of references? If you are to
be turning the house upside down and wasting time like that over
preparing as you call it, I don't know as ma will let you undertake
it."

"I have ironed all the collars and cuffs, Grace," said Jessie; "yes, and
looked over the stockings."

Grace had no more to say; she knew Jessie had wonderful eyes for a
ladder or a hole; but it worried her and gave her a sense of disrespect
that the pyramid which surmounted the big Bible should be interfered
with, or that the Book itself should have its repose interfered with
"for a pack of dirty children," when it had never been opened before
except to register christenings, or to be spread out and read when some
near relation died, as part of the mourning ceremony.

It really made her feel as if something unfortunate had happened to see
the large print pages on the little round table, and her sister peering
into the references and looking them out in her own little Bible, then
diligently marking them.

Her mother, too, asked what Jessie was about, and though she did not
say anything against her employment, their looking on, and the
expression on Grace's face, worried Jessie so much that she could not
think, and only put a slip of paper into her own book at each she found.
The chapter she had chosen was the Parable of the Sower, on which she
had once heard a sermon. She was amazed to