Norah and her brother were the only children of the half-sister of Ned Franks, Bessy Peele, a woman who, in every important respect, had been an utter contrast to her brother. While Ned's maxim was to do everything in clear daylight, Bessy was one who, if possible, always took an underground way. He considered the straight road always the shortest; she wound and doubled like a fox. He was convinced that honesty is the best policy; she looked upon cunning as wisdom. One of the earliest lessons learned by Mrs. Peele's unfortunate children was that the great thing in life is to pick up money by any safe means; by "safe" being meant whatever would not lead to the prison or the gallows. There was no harm, she said, in telling a lie,—at least a white lie, that hurt no one, and helped one's self on in the world. What need was there to be so very particular about a little slip of the tongue? She was sure, for her part, that God would not notice such trifles as these.

It is said that some Chinese parents are actually so inhuman as to blind their children, that the poor, wretched creatures may earn more money by begging. Mrs. Peele, a fond though a foolish parent, would have been horrified at the idea of inflicting such an injury upon her children, while actually doing them a wrong yet more cruel. For was it not such to blind their consciences, to make them unable to distinguish the wrong from the right, at the risk of their walking, through the darkness of their souls, into everlasting destruction? And this all for the sake of paltry gain, miserable profits of sin, more dearly bought than the alms given to the poor blinded Chinese beggars!

The mischief done to the characters of Bessy Peele's children was very serious as regarded her son, and had Norah long remained under the roof of her mother, the principles of the young girl might, like his, have been utterly ruined. Happily Norah went early into service, and became the attendant of an aged Christian lady, who gave her every opportunity of hearing the gospel faithfully preached, and made her read to her the Bible and other religious books. Under her roof Norah received religious impressions; her young and tender heart turned towards Him of whose love and compassion she heard so much. But, alas! the poison-seeds sown in childhood had left their evil roots in the soil. Norah would one hour be listening in church with tearful eyes to the account of Peter's sin and repentance, and the next hour be falling, without repentance, into a similar sin of untruth! She was fearfully inconsistent,—not because she was insincere, but because she had actually no clear line drawn in her mind as to where innocence ended and guilt began. Norah had been led to fancy that little sins were no sins,—"white lies" no falsehood,—picking not to be classed with stealing. She wished to please a merciful God and go to heaven, but she felt not that the God of Love is the God of Holiness also; that all sin, if unforgiven, must end in death; that the least can be washed out in nothing less precious than the blood of the Saviour, and that for every idle, untruthful word the sinner must give account at the judgment.

The return to England of her maimed uncle, the sailor, at this time proved a great blessing to Norah. She met with one whose standard of right was the Bible standard,—one who spake the truth as a man who serves the God of Truth should speak, and who trampled on deceit as he would have set his heel on a venomous serpent. Norah's eyes were opened to see that religious profession is but a mask if it do not influence the conduct; that to have prayer on the lips at one moment and untruth at another is fearful mockery before God! Norah Peele asked the help of the Holy Spirit to enable her to walk in the path of holiness, which she now found to be so much more narrow than she had before believed it to be. She became watchful over herself,—she set a guard over her tongue; the little bark, with heaven's wind swelling its sails, did "sheer off" from the treacherous iceberg of falsehood.

Mrs. Peele died rather suddenly after a few days' illness, and closed her worse than useless life with little consciousness of sin, and no sincere repentance. She had been a good mother, she said; God was merciful; she was going to a better world. The habit of a life continued to the end; and, having constantly tried to deceive others, poor Bessy deceived herself at the last. She had built her house on the sand; there was no solid foundation for her hope; she had heard the word, and done it not; what could she plead, where would she stand, in the last awful day?

Very different was it with Norah's aged mistress, when, about a year afterwards, she gently sank to rest, in humble trust that He whom she had loved and served would receive her unto himself. By that holy, happy death-bed Norah learned a lesson which she never could forget. She nursed her lady night and day, and, when her gentle spirit was released from earthly suffering, the young servant mourned for her loss with grief most sincere.

Norah would then have gone home to her uncle, Ned Franks, had not Mr. Lowndes, the younger brother of her late mistress, at once offered to take her into the service of his wife. He knew well, he said, the value of such a servant as Norah, a really high-principled girl, who would be found honest in word as well as in deed.

In entering the service of Mrs. Lowndes, Norah had made a great rise in life. Instead of being the general servant of a clergyman's widow, whose narrow life-income barely supplied her need, Norah became the trusted attendant of the only child of wealthy parents, and earned wages which nearly doubled what she had received before. The place was one which offered many other advantages. Mrs. Lowndes was strict, indeed, almost to severity, but never intentionally unjust. She was extremely anxious that her Selina should be kept from all knowledge of evil. The little girl was seldom allowed to mix with other children, lest she should learn any harm from example. Mrs. Lowndes often boasted to her friends, that her Selina was brought up in such a habit of speaking the truth, that to her to utter a lie would be an impossible thing. The lady would not suffer any one to be near her darling in whose scrupulous truthfulness she could not place perfect trust. Truth, she would say, is the very foundation on which a character must rest. She would never overlook or forgive in a servant the smallest attempt to deceive.

Norah had passed several pleasant months in London, in the service of Mrs. Lowndes, with the consciousness that she was faithfully performing her duty and giving satisfaction to her mistress, when an incident occurred, which showed her more clearly than ever the importance of having a character for truthfulness and honesty.

"Why, there's your bell and my bell a-ringing together, and rung so loud, too! What can missus want us both for at once?" exclaimed Martha, the housemaid, to Norah, who was helping her, as usual, to make the bed in the little girl's room. Martha's manner was flurried and frightened.

"We'd better go and answer the bells directly," said Norah. "I hope and trust that nothing's the matter with dear little missy!"

The two maids entered the dining-room together. Mr. Lowndes was seated in his large red arm-chair, with his feet on the fender, and his spectacles on his nose, apparently engaged in studying the Times. Mrs. Lowndes, a large, tall, and rather formidable-looking lady, dressed in a very stiff silk, sat, even more erect than usual, at the breakfast-table, on which she was resting her folded hands. She had a peculiarly deep-toned voice, and the voice sounded deeper, her manners seemed sterner than Norah had ever thought them before, as she addressed the young maid with the question, "Did you enter my room this morning?"

"Yes, ma'am, to put by your comb and brush."

"And when?"

"Just the minute after you had left it."

"Did you see a sovereign on the dressing-table?" asked the lady, with the air of a magistrate questioning a witness.

"No, indeed, ma'am, I did not," said Norah.

"Did you see one when you tidied my room?" Mrs. Lowndes turned her keen gray eyes upon Martha, to whom this last question was addressed.

"No, I never saw a sovereign, nor nothing like it, ma'am; I could take my oath that I did not. I did not so much as enter the room till Norah had been there, and gone out again."

Mrs. Lowndes looked very grave, and somewhat perplexed. "I certainly left a sovereign on that table when I came down to breakfast, and an hour afterwards it as certainly was gone. There are only two individuals who could have entered, and did enter, that room during my absence, and both deny having seen the money. I cannot doubt that one of them is uttering a falsehood, and that she who utters it is also the thief."

The idea of being suspected of such a crime as theft covered the face of Norah with crimson; she attempted to speak, but could not bring out a word.

"O ma'am!" exclaimed Martha, in alarm; "Norah went in first; you heard her own that she went in the first."

"I never saw the sovereign," gasped Norah.

Mr. Lowndes, who had every now and then been glancing up over the Times, which he held in his hand, now laid it down on his knee, and wheeled round on his arm-chair a little, so as to face the two maids.

"I'll be bound that Norah never touched the gold," said the gentleman, who had once been a magistrate. "When I was at B——, about three years ago, my poor sister placed in my hands a bag of money, which had been picked up by Norah, her maid, in the street, and given over into her charge. A bag of sovereigns," repeated Mr. Lowndes, emphatically. "Now, no one in his senses would believe that a girl, who would not take eight sovereigns dropped in the street by a stranger, would rob her mistress, betray her trust, and forfeit her own good character, by stealing one, which was certain to be missed and sought after." And, having thus given his decided opinion, Mr. Lowndes again took up his Times, and wheeled his chair round to the fire.

"And O mamma!" exclaimed little Selina, running forward from a corner of the room in which she had been standing, a deeply interested spectator of all that had passed, "Norah could not have taken the money, because she says that she never saw it. Norah always tells the truth," pleaded the eager little witness, whose presence in the room had been until now forgotten by her mother. "When I broke the tumbler, Martha said, 'Never mind, miss, you need say nothing about it;' but Norah told me never to hide anything from you, for it was always best to speak out the truth boldly: and I did what Norah said, and you were not very angry, mamma."

"I am never very angry except where there is deceit and dishonesty," said the lady, fondly stroking back the light ringlets from the brow of her darling.

"And you are sure that Norah did not take the money, mamma, for she said that she did not even see it."

"I am sure," answered the lady decidedly, "as sure of her innocence as I am of your own." Bending her keen eyes on Martha, she continued, sternly, "You had better do what you can to repair your fault by a frank confession."

"Indeed, indeed, ma'am, but I never saw, or touched, or thought of the sovereign; it's very hard that it should be put upon me," cried Martha, bursting into passionate tears. "I was not the first to enter into that room; I don't see why I am suspected."

"And yet I cannot but feel suspicions so strong," said the lady, "that I cannot retain in my household one in whom my confidence is lost."

"I hope, I hope, ma'am, you are not going to send me away without a character!" sobbed Martha, while Selina's heart was so much touched by her sorrow, that the child could scarcely forbear from crying herself.

"I shall tell the exact truth to any lady who may inquire for your character. I shall mention why I send you away, but I shall add that you were not the first to enter the room, and that I have no proof that you touched the money."

"But, mamma, mamma, if she's sorry, if she will promise never to do it again, won't you try her a little longer?" cried the tender-hearted Selina.

"No, my child," replied Mrs. Lowndes; "had I no other cause for displeasure against her, I would never have any one near you on whose word I could not depend. A girl who would teach my daughter to hide anything from her parent is not likely to be very open when the fault committed is her own."

The maids were then dismissed from the dining-room. How different were the feelings of the two as they quitted it! Norah hurried upstairs to her own little chamber, and, falling on her knees, fervently thanked her heavenly Father for having preserved that character which was to her more precious than life. She remembered the struggle in her own mind about that very same bag of sovereigns to which Mr. Lowndes had referred. She had found it just at the time when her uncle's influence was beginning to tell powerfully upon her, when she was seeking with earnest prayer to give herself wholly to the Lord, and live as a child of God and heir of heaven should live. That had been a turning-point in the life of Norah. She had then by faith resisted the devil, and he had fled. Had she yielded to that temptation, and a very strong one it had been, the whole course of her life would have been altered. Now, against suspicious appearances, her word was trusted at once; her character was spotless in the eyes of her master and mistress, a great danger had safely been passed, and the heart of the young servant-maid overflowed with thanksgiving to God.