ot well."

"Nor ever will be, I fear," said the woman.

"What! do you apprehend any danger in the case?"

"Sir, she is very poorly indeed, and I think is in a decline. She wants
to see you, sir; but is afraid you would not come to see such a poor
young child as she is."

"Not go where poverty and sickness may call me? How can she imagine so?
At which house does she live?"

"Sir, it is a poor place, and she is ashamed to ask you to come there.
Her near neighbours are noisy wicked people, and her own father and
mother are strange folks. They all make game at poor Jenny because she
reads her Bible so much."

"Do not tell me about poor places and wicked people: that is the very
situation where a minister of the gospel is called to do the most good. I
shall go to see her; you may let her know my intention."

"I will, sir; I go in most days to speak to her, and it does one's heart
good to hear her talk."

"Indeed!" said I, "what does she talk about?"

"Talk about, poor thing! why, nothing but good things, such as the Bible,
and Jesus Christ, and life, and death, and her soul, and heaven, and
hell, and your discourses, and the books you used to teach her, sir. Her
father says he'll have no such godly things in his house; and her own
mother scoffs at her, and says she supposes Jenny counts herself better
than other folks. But she does not mind all that. She will read her
books, and then talk so pretty to her mother, and beg that she would
think about her soul."

"The Lord forgive me," thought I, "for not being more attentive to this
poor child's case!" I seemed to feel the importance of infantine
instruction more than ever I had done before, and felt a rising hope that
this girl might prove a kind of first-fruits of my labours.

I now recollected her quiet, orderly, diligent attendance on our little
weekly meetings; and her marked approbation of the epitaph, as related in
my last paper, rushed into my thoughts. "I hope, I really hope," said I,
"this dear child will prove a true child of God. And if so, what a mercy
to her, and what a mercy for me!"

{Little Jane's Cottage: p137.jpg}

The next morning I went to see the child. Her dwelling was of the
humblest kind. It stood against a high bank of earth, which formed a
sort of garden behind it. It was so steep, that but little would grow in
it; yet that little served to show not only, on the one hand, the poverty
of its owners, but also to illustrate t