“But if you go to-night, Miss Lane, we cannot finish Evangeline.”

“Why not, Jennie? You can read aloud to the rest.”

“But I don’t like reading aloud.”

“Neither do I like reading aloud. I do a great many things I don’t like to do.”

“I’ll read it to myself—then the rest can do the same.”

“I don’t like to read aloud a thing that I have read again and again. I don’t like to play games that you little ones like. I don’t care to play for you, when each one can do it for himself.”

Miss Lane looked at Jennie gravely. The little girl’s lip began to quiver, her eyes filled.

“Oh, Miss Lane!” she faltered. “Suppose I were never willing to do anything for your pleasure, Jennie, just because I did not fancy it, wouldn’t you think me a little selfish?”

The tears were rolling over Jennie’s cheeks now, and Miss Lane sat in silence, wishing the child’s sensitiveness were not so exquisite. The gentlest chiding touched the quick—it was almost a cruelty to rebuke, even when rebuke was needed. That word “selfish” had set Jennie’s heart-strings to quivering; and thoughtlessness, as much as anything else, had prompted her first speech; so she sat downcast, bearing her pain in silence, while her teacher was almost as much grieved as she.

“I think it would not be quite kind to sit alone and read to yourself all the evening, when the rest are so anxious to finish the story, and you know but one can have the book at a time.”

There was no answer; but Jennie had forgotten her great repugnance to reading aloud in remembering that only the day before, Miss Lane had left her book for an hour, to tell baby stories and read Mother Goose to Rosie, when she was lying peevish and sick in bed.

“She could not have liked it,” pondered the child, and the first dim consciousness of duty rose in her mind to puzzle her. Sorely troubled was Jennie; she did not fancy giving up her own will in anything. She had an instinctive dislike to law and order, to getting up early, setting things to right, and losing her own pleasure.

A little flash of light seemed let into her soul, and all her daily wrong-doing lay clear before her. She read selfishness on all, or at the best, thoughtlessness for others’ pleasure. Before her like a picture, she saw her dear mother stretched on her patient bed of pain, smiling ever to keep sadness out of the hearts of her little ones, and fading slowly day by day out of their beautiful bright world into what seemed loneliness, chilliness, darkness to Jennie in her fresh youth. Now and then the sweet weak voice had begged her daughter to read the Word of Life to her as she went through the valley of the Shadow of Death; and many times this seemed a wearisome task. How glad the child would have been to remember having volunteered once to cheer her mother’s waiting-time with the words of Jesus! Such anguish as it was then to know that many times the mild request for a Psalm or the lessons of the day had been met by a frowning, fretful compliance. Too late, too late, thought Jennie with anguish and yearning for

And almost the last words that dear mother had uttered were:

“Jennie, be good to the little ones, dear—patient, loving. They will have no mother, and the world is dreary without love, my child; give it to them, all that you can, and fill my place.”

It had been long ago in her child life, when time is counted by hours and days, and we think a year so long, since her mother went to rest, but it was not till that hour that the meaning of her mother’s words came to her. There had never seemed to be much need for the exercise of her care over the little ones; so she thought. It seemed as if there were nothing she could do—at least nothing that she liked to do—teaching the Catechism, reading aloud, telling stories and such things were so disagreeable, and she could not have patience with the little ones.

While Jennie was sitting at the window, looking out on the winter scene and thinking, with the tears drying on her cheek, Miss Lane had gone to the piano, and was playing softly—she was singing too, in a low voice, and the silent darkness was creeping over the lawn under the trees and into the room, gathering shadows on the walls and settling stilly over the fields and sky.

Deep and touching was the voice, as were the words, and a feeling of awe, pain, and strange longing love filled the heart of the child, and her soul went out in prayer to the Saviour who died for her, to keep her in his ways and make her spirit white.

That same evening, after Miss Lane had gone to stay with poor dying Phoebe Birch, Jennie finished the story to her little brother and sisters; played her papa’s favorite songs, and went to bed infinitely rewarded for her sacrifice in the “peace of mind which passeth understanding.”

The dreaded messenger who walks among us unseen at all hours had called for the lonely child in her comfortless home, and Phoebe’s soul was passing to the land of rest, where many saints had gone before.

The morning before, Phoebe had gone down stairs to make the fire and prepare breakfast. It was a chilly morning, and the child’s garments were very thin, but she was very happy. She had a friend. In all the wide world, a few weeks before, there had been no one to greet her pleasantly, no one to care whether she lived or died, and her poor heart was aching, aching all the time for that love which every child claims as its right.

All day long it was toil, and wearying at fault-finding, sometimes weeping at blows from her drunken father or her cruel stepmother, till there seemed neither rest nor brightness for her on earth.

At last, one Sunday, as she stood wistfully watching the children going into Sunday-school, an impulse to follow them seized her. So, trembling and with flushed cheeks, she glided through the door and sat down on the first vacant seat.

How beautiful it all was! The children were singing; and into the sensitive, wounded spirit of the child crept a strange, soothing peace, as if the great world of pain and sin were shut out from her forever.

Heaven must be like that, she thought, and her eyes rested on a fair face near her with a sort of reverent admiration. It was a face patient and calm, with a touch of sadness in it though the eyes looked ever upward, and the lips smiled. The brow was clear and broad and white, the hair bright and smooth, and children’s faces turned lovingly to meet the gentle glances cast upon them from those unclouded blue eyes.

For one moment, this lady with her grace and exceeding refinement, passing her delicate fingers over the organ keys, seemed as far off from the child as the angels in heaven; but when her soft voice had inquired Phoebe’s name, when those lily hands held her own brown hand, some of Phoebe’s awe vanished, and a warm, grateful love sprang up in its place.

And after that the working, suffering days never seemed so long. Somehow, the thought of Sunday brightened all the week, and Phoebe lifted up her heart. Sometimes, indeed many times, Miss Lane came to see her and gave her books. Once or twice the child had spent an hour in her kind friend’s own dainty room. And when at last she became “a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven,” Miss Lane stood near to encourage, and ever since had been pointing out the way in which she should walk.

No one could dream then, how inexpressibly sweet and strong was this tie that bound her to her benefactress. No one knew how the thought of this earnest love warmed and lighted that cold room in the gloomy December morning. And but little could the outer world of those more fortunate than she, guess how exquisitely beautiful were the thoughts and feelings of this poor, untaught child, whose one joy had changed the earth into a Paradise.

So she lighted the fire and sat fanning it into a blaze with her apron, thinking, with a thrill of delight, that to-day Miss Lane was to begin teaching her to knit fancy knitting. She had promised to find sale for any articles that Phoebe might make; and such a bright vision rose before her fancy that she clapped her hands and laughed aloud—such a picture of a winter cloak, a hood, and a little offering to the Sunday School, which it burned her cheek to think she had never been able to give. And on Christmas morning she would go herself to Lyle’s to buy a bouquet for Miss Lane, one made up of delicate, pure flowers like the lady herself, with heliotrope and geranium leaves.

Inside of her Prayer-book was a withered, faded blossom, which Miss Lane had given her weeks ago, and told her it meant, “I love you,” and Phoebe kissed it night and morning, and many times in the day, if hard words brought tears to her eyes or tempted her to lose her trust and hopefulness. It all came back when she touched this talisman, or read, “Let not your heart be troubled.”

She used to think a great many strange thoughts, these lonely days, when sometimes, for many hours, there was no human friend to whom she could speak, and only the wide, blank snow, with the leafless trees waving over it, for her to look out upon.

She liked to look at the sky, and watch the clouds at sunset, for God seemed just beyond them, and her loneliness left her when she remembered that He was her Father, and a beautiful hope was in her heart, that she, the believing child, might save that erring, earthly parent.

So, when the blaze sprang up, Phoebe, under the influence of its warmth, grew drowsy and fell asleep, and dreamed. While she dreamed, the messenger came; slowly the flame crept towards her, and a spark rested on her cotton dress; it glowed and spread and crackled, then burst into a flame and bathed her in a stream of fire. Her father and mother were asleep up stairs, but her dreadful, agonized screams soon reached their ears.

When they burst into the room, the panting, trembling, shrieking child was rolling on the floor, blackened, burnt, a pitiful sight for human eyes. She had wrapped a piece of carpet about her, and so put out the dreadful fire; but the agony of those few seconds who can tell?

She bore it all, the dreadful, sickening dressing of the burns, her faintness, and the coarse words of the step-mother, who reproached her even then; she bore it because Miss Lane held her hand, whispered her words of Jesus, and cooled her brow, praying God to help her bear it. He did help her, and a wonderful patience and sweetness came into her soul, so that heaven seemed to lie not far off.

She could not bear, at first, that her comforter should leave her, but one word on the duty of resignation dried her tears, and she waited in calmness till her dear friend came to her again.

Every moment that she could spare from her duties, Miss Lane devoted to the sufferer. Her soft fingers soothed when none others had the power, and when the pain was torture she sang the young girl into quietness, lifting her soul to God in prayer, and cheering her when the fear of death was strong. So two days passed, and a second night of watching came.