not on
their work that her gaze was fixed. For her heart was burning within
her, and she could hardly restrain herself from throwing her arms about
their necks and imploring them to seek the face of God. Oh! if she only
knew that Alec and Curly were of the elect! But they only could find
that out. There was no way for her to peer into that mystery. All she
could do was to watch their wants, to have the tool they needed next
ready to their hand, to clear away the spales from before the busy
plane, and to lie in wait for any chance of putting to her little
strength to help. Perhaps they were not of the elect! She would
minister to them therefore--oh, how much the more tenderly!

"What's come ower Annie?" said the one to the other when she had gone.

But there was no answer to be found to the question. Could they have
understood her if she had told them what had come over her?

CHAPTER XXX.

And so the time went on, slow-paced, with its silent destinies Annie
said her prayers, read her Bible, and tried not to forget God. Ah!
could she only have known that God never forgot her, whether she forgot
him or not, giving her sleep in her dreary garret, gladness even in
Murdoch Malison's school-room, and the light of life everywhere! He was
now leading on the blessed season of spring, when the earth would be
almost heaven enough to those who had passed through the fierceness of
the winter. Even now, the winter, old and weary, was halting away
before the sweet approaches of the spring--a symbol of that eternal
spring before whose slow footsteps Death itself, "the winter of our
discontent," shall vanish. Death alone can die everlastingly.

I have been diffuse in my account of Annie's first winter at school,
because what impressed her should impress those who read her history.
It is her reflex of circumstance, in a great measure, which makes that
history. In regard to this portion of her life, I have little more to
say than that by degrees the school became less irksome to her; that
she grew more interested in her work; that some of the reading-books
contained extracts which she could enjoy; and that a taste for reading
began to wake in her. If ever she came to school with her lesson
unprepared, it was because some book of travel or history had had
attractions too strong for her. And all that day she would go about
like a guilty thing, oppressed by a sense of downfall and neglected
duty.

With Alec it was very diff