e whisper from a mother's tongue of a Saviour's love.

Kate Evans (such was Mrs Foster's maiden name) had had the best
bringing up the neighbourhood could afford; at least, such was the view
of her relatives and friends.

Her parents were plain working-people, who had been obliged to scramble
up into manhood and womanhood with the scantiest amount possible of
book-learning. When married they could neither of them write their name
in the register; and a verse or two of the New Testament laboriously
spelt out was their farthest accomplishment in the way of reading.

Kate was their only child, and they wisely determined that things should
be different with her. The girl was intelligent, and soon snapped up
what many other children of her own age were a long time in acquiring.
She was bright and attractive-looking, with keen eyes and dark flowing
hair, and won the affection of her teachers and companions by her open-
heartedness and generosity of disposition.

Naturally enough, the master and mistress of the large school which she
attended were proud of her as being one of their best scholars, and were
determined to make the most of her abilities for their own sake as much
as hers. And Kate herself and her parents were nothing loath. So books
were her constant companions and occupation in all her waking hours.
The needle was very seldom in her fingers at the school, and the house-
broom and the scrubbing-brush still less often at home.

The poor mother sighed a weary sigh sometimes when, worn out with
toiling, she looked towards her child, who was deep in some scientific
book by the fireside; and now and then she just hinted to her husband
that she could not quite see the use of so much book-learning for a girl
in their daughter's position; but she was soon silenced by the remark
that "Our Kate had a head-piece such as didn't fall to the lot of many,
and it were a sin and a shame not to give her all the knowledge possible
while she were young and able to get it."

So the head was cultivated, and the hands that should have been busy
were neglected; and thus it was that, at the age of sixteen, Kate Evans
could not sweep a room decently, nor darn a stocking, nor mend her own
clothes, nor make nor bake a loaf of bread creditably. But then, was
she not the very rejoicing of her master and mistress's hearts, and the
head girl of the school? And did not the government inspector always
give her a specially pleasant smile