forced back the smile which usually played round her lips,
while she looked earnestly into her uncle's eyes.

"Will my little puss answer me a question or two?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Tell me then, my dear child, did you not expect to derive a great deal of
_pleasure_ from Madge's gratitude, and love, and obedience to yourself?
Did you not look upon yourself as her benefactor, her teacher, her
superior, and as having a right to claim such conduct from her, as would,
in some degree, pay you for your trouble and kindness? You expected her,
poor thing, to behave like an angel, for your sake. Instead of that, she
has, at times, let her evil nature and her bad habits break out, in a way
to give you trouble and pain, and to cause you to feel disappointment. Are
not these things so, my sweet little puss?"

"Yes, Sir. But--but _ought_ not poor people to be grateful and obedient to
those who help them?" asked Jessie, who, though she began to perceive that
a regard for her own pleasure had been mixed with the kindness to Madge,
was not quite ready to plead guilty to her good uncle's charge.

"They _ought_ certainly, and when they do, it is very right for those who
help them, to take pleasure in their gratitude. But that is a very
different thing, from doing good _for the sake of the pleasure or profit
we expect to derive from the conduct of those we benefit._"

Uncle Morris then went on to show Jessie, that really good people were
kind to the poor and wretched, because it is their duty to be so; that
they seldom found their reward, either in the gratitude of those they
helped, or in the smiles of men; that instead of finding such rewards,
they were often blamed and treated harshly by the public, and ungratefully
by their _proteges_; but that they had a rich reward, nevertheless. They
felt, he said, a very sweet satisfaction in themselves; they were smiled
upon by the Father and Saviour of men; and they would, in the better land,
be more than rewarded with mansions, robes, crowns, and honors, which
selfish people would forever envy but never enjoy.

This talk with her uncle did Jessie good. She afterwards bore Madge's
outbreaks of temper with more patience, and tried to set her such an
example as would make her feel her own faults far more than by scolding or
fretting.

Madge, who was very quick-witted, saw and felt the change in Jessie, and
she, too, tried to overcome herself, that she might not grieve a friend,
who loved her so