“IT is vexatious, my Dora, very vexatious,” said Miss Clare, in a tone of condolence; “it is trying to you, after all the pains which you have bestowed on your work, to see that work suddenly spoiled. But still take comfort, dear child, in the thought that no labor undertaken for our Master can really be lost.”

Dora sobbed more bitterly than before, for she knew that hers had not been labor undertaken for the Master, and she felt that her time and toil had been worse than lost.

Miss Clare did all that she could to comfort her favorite niece. She showed Dora the beautiful brooch which she herself valued so greatly; she told her that she had brought it as a birthday remembrance; but, much to the lady’s surprise, Dora only shook her head sadly, and sobbed forth, “Not for me—not for me! Oh, that model, I wish that I never had touched it—I wish that I had never set a stitch in one of those curtains!”

“I see that you are distressed, very naturally distressed, by the mishap which has befallen your curtains, fearing that thereby the whole model may be spoilt,” observed Theodora. “You are thinking of the disappointment of your brother and sisters, of the Ragged-school children who are coming to-day, of my friends who are invited to see the model. You think that there is no time to repair the effects of the spilling the scarlet ink; but I think that I see a way to remedy the mischief;” and Miss Clare, as she spoke, placed before the weeping girl her beautiful embroidered scarf. “I had intended to give this to Agnes when I gave you the miniature brooch, but I will now alter my plan. I will try to find out, or purchase, some other remembrance for Agnes; and, with a little alteration, do you not think, my sweet girl, that this work will do nicely for the inner curtains and veil?”

“A thousand times better than mine could have done!” exclaimed Dora, darting a glance of almost fierce dislike at the embroidery, now stained and marred, which she had once surveyed with such proud admiration.

“No, indeed,” said Miss Clare, very kindly; “for though the Indian scarf may be—certainly is in itself more beautiful than your curtains, we cannot see in it the same token of patient perseverance in making what was intended to be a humble offering of love to the Lord.”

“Oh, Aunt Theodora, I can stand this no longer!” exclaimed Dora, almost choking with the violence of her emotion; “you must know all, I can hide it no more; you must hear what a naughty, naughty girl I have been!”

Then, as well as she could through her tears and her sobs, Dora relieved herself of the burden of concealment which had become at last intolerable. She told everything to her aunt—the first fault, the breaking of the fourth commandment; then the falsehood, the deceit which had followed, for when did an unrepented sin ever stand alone! Dora concluded by passionately exclaiming, “You cannot, you must not, give me the brooch—Agnes has deserved it much better; she has been conquering her temper and doing all that she can to please mamma, while I have been only a hypocrite! Please give the brooch to Agnes, and the scarf for the model; I could not bear now to take either—I who have only deserved to be punished!”

Miss Clare was surprised, pained, disappointed by what she now heard; yet there was comfort to her in seeing that now at least her poor niece was heartily repenting.

“I cannot tell you, my child, how thankful I am that this accident has happened to your work, and that you have been led to speak out bravely at last,” said her aunt, putting her arm round Dora, and drawing her tenderly towards her, so that the poor girl could weep on her bosom.

“Then you don’t despise me—you won’t give me up?” murmured Dora, crying still, but much more softly.

“Give you up—never!” cried the aunt, and she pressed a kiss upon Dora’s brow. “It may be a question, indeed, whether I had not better reserve the brooch till next birthday.”

“Oh, I never could take it, never!” cried Dora, excitedly; “let it be given to Agnes.”

“Do you think, Dora, that by giving up the brooch you are winning a claim to forgiveness—that by this sacrifice you are atoning for what you have done wrong?” asked Miss Clare. “If so, I am bound to tell you that you are mistaken.”

“No, aunt,” replied Dora, for the first time raising her eyes, heavy with weeping, and looking her godmother full in the face; “I know that nothing that I can do can atone for my sin—that there is but one Atonement; but I feel as if I could not take the brooch which you meant to give to a good girl, and which I have so little”— Dora could not finish the sentence, tears came again, and she hid her face on the bosom of her aunt.

Miss Clare hesitated no longer. She felt that it would deeply impress on the mind of Dora the painful lesson which she was learning, if she saw the brooch in the possession of her elder twin. What Theodora had heard from Mrs. Temple of the marked improvement in the character of Agnes, convinced her that she was the sister who best deserved to receive the miniature of her mother. Miss Clare made a sacrifice of her own inclination in thus deciding to follow her judgment, but she was in the habit of doing what she thought right, instead of what she thought pleasant.

“I will confess all to mamma, now, just as I have done to you—I won’t be a hypocrite any longer,” murmured Dora, as soon as she had recovered power to speak.

“And there is Another to whom my child must also confess,” said Miss Clare, still with her arm round her niece, still with Dora’s head on her breast; “there is One who is ready freely to forgive every penitent who approaches the Mercy-seat pleading the merits of Christ. We have no power to remove one spot from our souls;” the eyes of Miss Clare chanced to rest, as she spoke, on the embroidery, stained and destroyed; “but there is the Lord’s promise to comfort the broken and contrite heart, ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow—though they be red as crimson, they shall be as wool.’”

Dora and her aunt knelt down together and together prayed, but in silence. When Dora rose from her knees, though she was still very sad and subdued, there was a peace in her heart, a sense of sin forgiven, which she had not experienced for months.