h
a will, and by degrees took a great deal on her young shoulders.

She still went to Miss Grace Barley to be taught, for the hours
suited them all well, and though her grandmother protested often that
it was too much for Miss Grace to do, and declared that Jessie must
go to the school along with the others, Miss Grace begged to be
allowed to keep her.

"Jessie can repay me by coming and being our maid by and by," she
said laughingly--"that is if she wants to go out into service, and
you can spare her, Mrs. Dawson."

"I shall have to some day," said Mrs. Dawson, with a sigh and a
smile; "she will have to support herself, of course, when she grows
up, and it's our duty to see she has the training."

So it became the dream of Jessie's life to be Miss Barley's maid, to
live in the "White Cottage," and have the joy and honour of keeping
it in the beautiful order in which she had always seen it.

It had been a curious, uncommon education that the child had had, but
the results were certainly satisfactory. She could darn and sew
beautifully, make and mend, knit and patch, and read and write, cook
a little, and do all manner of housework, while she was quite clever
in her knowledge of flowers and their ways.

Every Saturday morning she devoted herself to helping her grandmother
clean the cottage and prepare for Sunday. It was her task to polish
all the knives and forks, to dust the bedrooms and the kitchen.
Her grandmother would not let her do the harder work, such as
scrubbing the floors or tables, though Jessie often longed to try;
but while granny was busy washing the floors, it was Jessie's great
delight to mount on a chair and clean the little lattice windows of
the kitchen and parlour.

When she was about ten years old her other longings were unexpectedly
realized, and the scrubbing fell to her to do too, for one chill
autumn morning Mrs. Dawson found herself too unwell to get up.
She had been ailing for a week or two. "'Tis the damp and cold got
into my bones," she had said, making light of it, "and they'll just
have to get out again, that's all. There is nothing like moving
about for working it off. If I'd sat still as some folks do, I
shouldn't be able to move at all by this time."

But on this morning even she was forced to give in. "I think the
cold has touched my liver," she said feebly, "and I don't feel fit
for nothing. I'll stay in bed for a bit, that's the best way," and
indeed she felt far to