THE EMPTY BOX.

So the chair was bought and Marty tried to think she was perfectly satisfied, but it was strange how little she cared for it after all. She showed her purchase to her mother, who said it was quite pretty, but not very substantial; that she feared it would not last long.

Marty put it in her dolls' house and played with it, trying hard to enjoy it, but her conscience was so ill at ease that she soon began to hate the sight of the chair, and by Friday evening she had pushed it away back on the shelf behind everything. The sight of the red box, too, was more than she could stand, it seemed to look so reproachfully at her; even after she had laid one of her white aprons over it she disliked to open the drawer.

There was a special meeting of the band that Saturday, as they were getting ready for their anniversary. No contributions were expected, so that it did not matter about Marty having no money; but she was feeling so low-spirited and ashamed that she simply could not go among the others nor take part in missionary exercises.

“Are you going for Edith this afternoon or is she coming for you?” inquired Mrs. Ashford.

“I'm not going to the meeting,” replied Marty in a low voice. “I told Edith I wasn't going.”

“Not going!” exclaimed Mrs. Ashford in surprise. “Why, you are not tired of it already, are you?”

“No, ma'am,” Marty answered, “but I don't want to go to-day.”

Mrs. Ashford thought perhaps Marty and Edith had had a little falling out, though it must be said they very seldom quarreled; or that Marty was beginning to tire a little of her new enterprise, for she was rather in the habit of taking things up with great energy and soon becoming weary of them. Mrs. Ashford had not expected her missionary enthusiasm to last very long; and as she herself was not at that time much interested in such matters, she was not prepared to keep up Marty's zeal, but was inclined to allow her to go on with the work or give it up, just as she chose, as she did in matters of less importance.

However, Mrs. Ashford knew that, whatever the trouble was, it would all come out sooner or later, for Marty always told her everything. So she merely said,

“Well, as it is so bleak to-day and you have a cold, perhaps it would be just as well for you not to go out.”

Marty, disinclined to play, took one of her “Bessie Books” and sat down by the window. Though so cheerless out-doors, with the wind whistling among the leafless trees and blowing the dust about, that sitting room was certainly very cosey and pleasant.

Marty's “pretty mamma,” as she often called her, in her becoming afternoon gown of soft, dark red stuff, sat in a low rocker in front of the bright fire busy with her embroidery and softly singing as she worked. Freddie, on the rug at her feet, played quietly with a string of buttons. The only sounds in the room were Mrs. Ashford's murmured song and an occasional chirp from the canary. But all at once this cheerful quietness was broken by loud sobbing.

Poor Marty had been so unhappy the last two days, and now added to what she felt to be the meanness of appropriating that missionary penny, was the disappointment of not being at the meeting, for she was longing to be there, though not feeling fit to go. Besides, it was a great load on her mind that she had not told her mamma how she got the chair, nor what was the reason she did not want to go to the meeting. And now she could endure her wretchedness no longer.

“What's the matter, Marty?” exclaimed Mrs. Ashford, much startled. “Are you ill? Is your throat sore? Come here and tell me what ails you?”

“Oh, mamma, I'm very, very wicked,” sobbed Marty, and running to her mother's arms she tried to tell her troubles, but cried so that she could not be understood.

“Never mind, never mind,” said her mother soothingly. “Wait until you can stop crying and then tell me all about it.”

Freddie was dreadfully distressed to see his sister in such a state and did all he could to comfort her, bringing her his horse-reins and a whole lapful of building-blocks, and was rather surprised that they did not have the desired effect.

When Marty became quieter she told the whole story of the dolls' chair and the missionary penny. “That's the reason I didn't want to go to the meeting,” she said. “I don't feel fit to 'sociate with good missionary children. I'm so sorry and so ashamed. I wish I had let the penny stay in the box and the chair stay in the store.”

“We cannot undo what is done,” said her mother gravely. “We can only make all possible amends and try to do better in future. You can replace the penny this evening, and this lesson you have had may teach you to be more self-denying. You know you cannot spend all your money for trifles and yet have some to give away. If you want to give you must learn to do without some things. But, Marty, if it is going to be so difficult to devote some of your money to missions, you had better just give up the attempt and go back to your old way of doing.”

“Oh, no, no!” exclaimed Marty earnestly. “Please let me try again. I know I'll do better now, and I do want to help in missionary work.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Ashford, “just as you wish. I don't like to see you beginning things and giving them up so soon, but at the same time I don't think you need feel obliged to give to these things whether you want to or not.”

“Oh, but I do want to ever so much,” Marty protested.

She felt better after telling her mother all about the matter, and now was quite ready to brighten up and start afresh. The next morning besides dropping in two pennies for tenths she put in another, which she said was a “sorry” offering, but did not know the Bible name for it. She would have liked to make amends by putting in the whole ten cents, but her mother would not allow it.

“Things would soon be as bad as ever,” were her warning words, “if that's the way you are going to do. The next thing you will want to take some of it out, as you did the penny for the chair.”

“No, no, mamma! I don't b'lieve I ever could be so mean again,” Marty declared.

“I don't believe either that you would do it again. But you will certainly save yourself a great deal of worry, and will be likely to do more good in the work you have begun, by following Mrs. Howell's advice of having a plan of giving and keeping to it.”

“Well, I'm going to try that way in real earnest now,” said Marty; “but I wish it was as easy for me to be steady about things as it is for Edith. She never seems to get into trouble over her tenths.”

A few days after this, when she was spending the afternoon with Edith, Marty told Mrs. Howell what a time she had had, and added,

“Doesn't it seem strange that I can't give my money regularly?”

“Perhaps,” suggested Mrs. Howell, “you have not asked God to help you in your new enterprise.”

“Why, no, I haven't,” replied Marty. “I never thought of it.”

“My dear child, we are nothing in our own strength. We should always ask God to help us, in what we attempt, and ask for his blessing. Unless he blesses our work, it cannot prosper.”

“But I don't know how to ask him,” said Marty, speaking softly. “The prayers I say every night are 'Our Father,' and 'Now I lay me,' and there's nothing in them about mission work. I should have to say another prayer, shouldn't I?”

“If you more fully understood the Lord's Prayer, you would know that exactly what you want is included in it. But why cannot you ask for what you desire in your own words? Just go to God as trustingly as you would to your mother, when you want something you know she will let you have, if it is good for you to have it. And that would be really praying, for, Marty, don't you know there's a great difference between saying prayers and praying? You may say a dozen prayers and not pray at all.”

“Don't I pray when I kneel beside the bed and say those two prayers?”

“You do if you make the petitions your own, and really desire what you ask for, and if you ask in the right spirit. But if you just say the words over without thinking what you are saying, or whom you are speaking to, it is not praying at all. It is mocking God.”

“I'm sure I wouldn't do that,” said Marty, looking frightened.

“I know you would not willfully, my dear, but I just want to show you that saying over certain words is not praying. We don't realize what a blessed privilege it is to pray. God's ear is open night and day to any of us, even the smallest child. He is as ready to hear anything you may have to say as he is to hear Dr. Edgar when he gets up in his pulpit and prays.”

“Then it wouldn't be wrong to ask God to help me give missionary money regularly, would it?”

“It would be very right.”

That night when Marty knelt beside her bed she really prayed. She felt that God was listening to her, and when she came to the words, “Now I lay me down to sleep,” she realized that she was committing herself to his care, and was sure that in that care she was safe. After her usual prayers she paused a moment and then added, “And, O Lord, please help me to be steady in giving missionary money.”

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