"My dear child, you have improved wonderfully," Mrs. Keith said, as Mildred concluded a much longer and more difficult piece of music than the one with which she had begun.

"She has indeed! I'm quite proud of her performance," echoed Mr. Keith.

"She does make terrible fine music," put in Celestia Ann; "but I wisht she'd stop a bit, or them dishes o' mine 'll never git washed."

"And I must go to the office," said Mr. Keith, looking at his watch, and glancing about in search of his hat.

"And I to my sewing," added Mildred, rising.

The children entreated somewhat clamorously for more, but yielded their wish at once on mother's decision that they must wait till after tea.

"Oh, the books!" cried Mildred, springing toward them with an eager gesture. "But no," turning away with a half sigh, "I must not take time to even look at them now."

"Yes, you may," her mother said smilingly; "glance at the titles, and dip in here and there, just to whet your appetite; read this note from your uncle, too, and then we can talk over your plans for mental culture, while busy with our needles."

"Always the same kind, indulgent mother," Mildred said, with a look of grateful love. "I will do so, then, and try to work fast enough afterwards to make up for lost time."

Half an hour later she joined her mother and sisters, who were all sewing industriously.

"Such a nice note, mother. Shall I read it to you?"

"Yes, if you like. I always enjoy uncle's letters."

"It sounds just like his talk," Mildred said when she had done reading, "saying the kindest things half jestingly, half earnestly. But the idea of his thinking I must have wondered that he gave me no special parting gift!—when he was all the time heaping favors upon me."

"But it was Cousin Horace who gave the piano," said Ada.

"Yes; uncle the books. And now I must strive to show my appreciation of their kindness by making the best possible use of both presents."

"For your own improvement and that of others," added her mother. "I want you to lend them, one at a time, to Effie Prescott and poor Gotobed Lightcap."

"What about him, mother?" Mildred asked, taking up her sewing. "The children told me he had been elected sheriff."

"Yes; I was very glad. He deserves every encouragement, for he is trying hard to educate himself, and I really hope some day may be able to enter one of the learned professions."

"Poor fellow!" Mildred exclaimed feelingly, tears starting to her eyes as memory brought vividly before her the sad scenes connected with the loss of his right hand, "he is welcome to the use of any or all of my books. I will gladly do anything in my power to help him."

"Now, suppose we talk about ourselves and our own affairs," Zillah suggested in her sprightly way. "I'm extremely anxious to learn to play on that lovely piano, but don't see how either you, mother, or Milly is to find time to give me lessons, for you are both busy as bees now from morning to night."

"And I want to learn too," put in Ada imploringly.

"So you shall, dears, both of you, if you continue to be the good, industrious, helpful girls you have been for the past year," the mother said, with her cheery smile. "Milly and I will manage it between us. Almost all our winter clothes are made now, so that we will not need to give so much time to sewing as we have for the past month or more."

Mildred seemed to be thinking. "I believe we can manage it," she said presently. "I hear the recitations from nine to eleven now, you know; we must begin at eight after this, and then from ten to twelve can be spared for the two music lessons."

"And the afternoons and evenings you must reserve for yourself—your exercise, study, reading and recreation," added Mrs. Keith, "while I oversee the practicing and the preparation of lessons for the next day. Two music lessons a week to each will be all sufficient. Yes, I am sure that with system and rigid economy of time—making good use of each golden minute as it flies—we can accomplish all that is necessary, if not all that is desirable."

Again a few moments of thoughtful silence on Mildred's part, then, "Mother," she said, "do you think I ought to take that Sunday-school class? I don't feel fit, and—and besides, it will take a good deal of my time to attend right to it—prepare the lessons, and occasionally visit the children through the week."

"I would have you consider the question carefully and prayerfully, and in the light of God's holy word, which is our only rule of faith and practice, daughter. 'As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men.' 'He that winneth souls is wise.'"

"But, mother, I am not wise."

Mildred's tone was low and humble.

"'If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.' Ask for it and search the Scriptures for it, for we are told, 'The entrance of thy word giveth light; it giveth understanding to the simple.' And while you study it for the benefit of others, you will be cultivating your own soul—a matter of even greater importance than the culture of your intellect."

"And I could not do the first without at the same time doing the last."

"No; that is very true. Also I trust, daughter, that your great motive for improving your mental powers is that you may thus be prepared to do better service to the Master?"

"I hope so, mother; it is, if I know my own heart," Mildred said, looking up with shining eyes. "I know it is said that duties never conflict, yet it does seem sometimes as though they did."

"As, for example?" and her mother's eyes smiled encouragingly and sympathizingly into hers.

"Why, there is the weekly church prayer-meeting to take one whole evening out of the six."

"Only from an hour to an hour and a half," corrected Mrs. Keith.

"But it breaks into the evening so that one can hardly do much with the leavings," Mildred said with a slight laugh. "And then the young girls' prayer-meeting breaks up one afternoon of every week, and besides—O mother! it is a real trial to me to lead in prayer, and I am sure to be called on."

"I hope you will never refuse," Mrs. Keith said gently, and with a tender, loving look. "We should never fear to attempt any duty, looking to God for help, for it shall be given, and a blessing with it."

"It is a great cross to me."

"Greater than that the Master bore for you?"

"Oh no, no! nothing to compare to it, or even to what many a martyr and many a missionary has done and borne for him."

"And is it not a blessed privilege to be permitted to do and bear something for his dear sake?" Mrs. Keith asked with glistening eyes, and in tones trembling with emotion.

"O mother, yes!" And Mildred's head bowed low, a tear fell on her work.

"O my darling, be a whole-hearted Christian!" the mother went on, speaking with intense earnestness, "consecrate yourself and all you have to the Master's service—time, talents, influence, money—everything you possess. He gave himself for us; shall we hold back anything from him?"

"Oh no! But mother—"

"Well, dear?"

"Shall I not do better service by and by, perhaps, by now giving my whole time, energy, and thought to preparation for it?"

"Do you find that you can always do a given amount of mental work in a given space of time?"

"No, mother; sometimes my brain is so active that I can do more in an hour than at some other times I can accomplish in a day."

"And cannot He who made you, and gave you all your mental powers, cause them at any time to be thus active? My child, he never lets us lose by working for him; in some way he will more than make it good to us. 'He that watereth shall be watered also himself.' 'Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.'"

Mildred looked up brightly. "I think—I am sure you are right, mother; and I will take up all those duties, trusting to the dear Master to help me with them and with my studies. My time is his as well as all else that I have."

"'Yes, ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.'"

"Who, mother?" asked little Fan, playing with her doll near by.

"All God's children, my child."

"I want to be one, mother. But who bought them? and what with? what price?"

"Christ bought them, dear, with his own precious blood."

"Mother," said Ada softly, "how good he was! I wish I could do something for him; but I'm not old enough to teach in Sunday-school, or pray in the prayer-meeting."

"No, darling; but you can pray at home, kneeling alone in your own room, and join with your heart in the prayers at family worship and at church; you can pray in your heart at any time and in any place; for yourself and for others. In his great kindness and condescension God listens to our prayers at all times, if they come from the heart, and just as readily to those of a little child as to those of the wisest and mightiest of men."

"O mother, I'm glad of that! but if I could do some work for him I'd love to do it."

"Do you remember, dear, that once when Jesus was on earth the people asked him 'What shall we do that we might work the works of God?' and Jesus answered and said unto them, 'This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.'"

"That was Jesus himself," the child said thoughtfully, staying her needle in mid air, while her eyes sought the floor. "Mother, could you tell me just what is meant by believing on him so as to be saved? It can't mean only believing all the Bible says about him is true, because it tells us 'the devils also believe, and tremble.' I heard father read it from the Bible at worship this morning."

"Yes, my dear child, it does mean much more than that," the mother said, and silently asked help of God to make it clear to the apprehension of all present, even to little Annis, who leant confidingly against her knee, the blue eyes gazing earnestly into her face.

"The devils know the truth, but they don't love it," she said; "God's children do: they are glad that he reigns and rules in all the universe; but the devils gnash their teeth with rage that it is so, and would tear him from his throne if they could."

The two little boys were in the room, Cyril whittling, Don poring over a new book that Mildred had brought him from Philadelphia. The one shut his jack-knife, the other his book, and both drew near to listen.

"Jesus didn't die for them, did he, mother?" asked Cyril.

"No, my son, there is no salvation offered them, and God might justly have left us in the same awful condition; but of his great love and mercy he has provided a wonderful way by which we can be saved. 'For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.'

"Faith is another word that means the same as believing. The Bible tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God; also, that the faith which availeth anything worketh by love. 'Unto you, therefore, which believe, he (that is, Jesus) is precious.' The faith that pleases God and will save from sin and eternal death, loves the Lord Jesus Christ, and trusts for salvation only in what he has done and suffered for us."

"We can't do anything to save ourselves, mother?"

"We can not do anything to earn our salvation; we can have it only as God's free, undeserved gift. We have all broken God's holy law, but Jesus kept it perfectly in our stead. Our sins deserve God's wrath and curse, both in this life and that which is to come, for it is written, 'Cursed is every one who continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them;' but Jesus has borne that curse for all his people. 'Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us.'"

"I should like to have that right kind of faith if I knew just how to get it, mother," said Ada.

"'By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God,'" quoted Mrs. Keith. "Ask for it, my child. Jesus said, 'Every one that asketh, receiveth;' and again, 'If ye shall ask anything in my name I will do it.'"

"You know, my child, that though we cannot see him, he is always near. Go to him in prayer, confess your sins, tell him that you are altogether sinful by nature and by practice, and can do nothing at all to deserve his favor; but that you come in his name, and pleading what he has done and suffered for you, because he has invited you so to come. Ask him to take away your wicked heart and give you a new one full of love to him; accept his offered salvation from sin and hell; give yourself to him and he will take you for his own; for he says, 'Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.' He will give you true faith and true repentance—sorrow for sin because it is displeasing to God; a sorrow that will lead you to hate and forsake it, and to be a follower of God as a dear child, doing him service from the heart, striving to please, honor, and glorify him in all things; not that you may be saved, but because you are saved."

"But what can a little girl like me do for him, mother?"

"Or a boy like me or Cyril?" added Don.

"Christ is our example, and one thing the Bible tells us of him is that when he was a child on earth he was subject to his parents; that is, he obeyed and honored them. You must do the same by yours, if you would be his disciples. There are few, comparatively, whom God calls to do what men consider great things for him, but if we do faithfully each little every-day duty—it may be only to learn a lesson, to sweep or dust a room, to make a bed, go on an errand, or something else quite as simple and easy—because we want to please and honor him; he will accept it as work done for him. Men can judge only from appearances—God sees the heart, the motives; and according as they are good or bad is he pleased or displeased with our acts."

"Mother," cried Ada, looking up with a glad smile, "how nice that is! Any work must be sweet when we think of God watching and being pleased with us for doing it just as well as we can because we love him."

"Yes, daughter, love is a great sweetener of labor of whatever kind it may be."