After breakfast the next morning, Jessie sat down to her work with a resolute will. Her impulse, was to spend the hours playing with Madge. But her purpose to act by rule was strong, and it conquered. Guy went out for the brown worsted, which her meeting with Madge, kept her from buying the previous evening. So giving her protÉgÉ a seat on a cricket by her side, she worked merrily, and with nimble fingers, on her uncle’s slippers. The tongues of the two girls, you may be sure, were as nimble as Jessie’s fingers.

While they were thus happily employed, Uncle Morris was out, looking after the young outcast’s mother.

Jessie had not been seated more than an hour before her brother Hugh, with his friend, Walter Sherwood and his sister Carrie, came in, each armed with a pair of skates, and well wrapped up, as was fitting they should be, on a cold day in November. Carrie bounded into the room like a fawn, and kissing her friend, exclaimed:

“O Jessie! this is a capital morning for skating! Walter has found a nice safe place, and we have come to take you with us.”

This was a strong temptation. Perhaps a stronger could not have been offered, to incline her to break her purpose, and drop her work. There had been no day since her skates had been given her, in which there had been ice enough to try them. It was a new amusement, too, and her heart was set upon it. Hence, an impulse came over her, to pitch the slipper into the basket, seize her skates, and hurry away to the desired spot. In fact, she half rose from the chair, and words of consent were rising to her lips, when she thought of the little wizard, and reseating herself, replied:

“I would like to go ever so much, Carrie, but I must stay in until dinner-time, and work on uncle’s slippers.”

“Bother the slippers! Who cares about them! Uncle don’t need them, and why should you be fussing over them,” said Hugh.

“It’s very pleasant to work for your good old uncle, I dare say, Miss Jessie, but you can do that in the afternoon. We very much wish you to join our party this morning,” observed Walter.

“I know I could,” replied Jessie; “but mother wishes me to sew or study every morning until dinner-time, and I have resolved to do it. I have broken my purpose a great many times, but I must keep it now, much as I want to go out skating. Can’t you put off your party until the afternoon?”

“Not a bit of it!” said Hugh. “Come Walt, come Carrie, let us be off.”

“I think I will stay with Jessie this morning,” replied Carrie; “and I invite you, young gentlemen, to beau us to the skating-ground, this afternoon!”

“If you won’t go now, you may beau yourselves for all we,” retorted Hugh in his usual ungracious way, when treating with his sister.

“Don’t say so, Hugh,” responded Walter. “It’s hardly polite. ’Spose you and I go without the girls this morning, and with them this afternoon? Eh?”

“As you please!” growled Hugh, swinging his skates; “only let us be off quick.”

The boys now left, promising to go with the girls at half-past two in the afternoon. Carrie laid aside her hood and cloak, which Jessie took, and laid in a heap upon the table.

“My dear!” observed Mrs. Carlton, who looked into the room just at that moment; “is that the place for Carrie’s things?”

A blush tinged Jessie’s cheek. As I have said before, a want of regard for order, was a fault which grew out of her impulsive nature. She did most things in a hurry, and usually with some other object before her mind at the same time. While her uncle had been trying to cure her of the habit of yielding to her impulses, her mother had also been endeavoring to stimulate her to cultivate a love of order. No wonder, then, that she blushed as she went to hang her friend’s hood and cloak on the stand in the hall.

All this time, poor Madge had sat almost unnoticed. So taken up were they all with their skating party, that they had overlooked the quiet maiden, sitting so demurely on her cricket. But now the boys were gone, and the two friends took their seats, Jessie’s thoughts came back to the young outcast, and turning to Carrie, she said:

“Carrie, let me introduce you to Madge Clifton.”

“How do you do, miss?” said Carrie, bowing.

Poor Madge did not know much about introductions, and was unused to company. So she only blushed, hung down her head, and replied:

“Pretty well, thank ye.”

Jessie now took Carrie aside, and in whispers told her poor Madge’s story, after which they resumed their seats. Carrie’s warm heart soon melted away the poor outcast’s fears; and while the two young ladies were merrily prattling away, Madge listened with wonder if not with delight. In fact, her life since last evening seemed more like a dream than a reality to her. She was still in fairy-land.

Presently the postman came to the house bringing a letter addressed to “Miss Jessie Carlton.” The servant took it to Jessie on a small salver.

“Is it for me?” cried Jessie, taking it up and examining the address.

“Whom can it be from?” asked Carrie, leaning over to her friend’s side to see the handwriting.

“Oh, I know!” exclaimed Jessie. “It’s from cousin Emily.”

The letter was opened, and Jessie read aloud as follows:

“What a beautiful letter!” said Carrie. Jessie was silent. She was thinking. She was secretly rejoicing, too. Such a joy was in her young heart as had never welled up in it before. She had done Emily good. As Guy had led Richard Duncan into right paths, so she had led Emily. Happy, happy Jessie!

Just then she heard Uncle Morris’s night-key lifting the latch of the hall door. Away she bounded from her seat, almost overturning poor Madge in her hurry. Rushing to her uncle as he was closing the door, she seized his arm with one hand while she held up Emily’s letter in the other, and in a loud, earnest whisper, said:

“O Uncle! Cousin Emily is trying to be good. She says so in her letter.”

Uncle Morris stooped to imprint a kiss on the upturned lips of the eager child. Then patting her head gently, he said:

“It is not every sower of good seed that finds his harvest sheaf so quickly as you have done. Perhaps the Great Husbandman has given my Jessie hers to encourage her to sow, and sow, and sow again—but Jessie, I have found your Madge’s mother.”

“Have you, truly?” asked Jessie, feeling her interest suddenly revived in her protÉgÉ.

“Yes. Come with me to your mother’s room and I will tell you all about it.”

This “mother’s room” was up-stairs, and up they went. Finding Mrs. Carlton there with her seamstress, they sat down, and Uncle Morris told his story. Said he:

“I have seen Mrs. Clifton. She is sober this morning, and is quite a well-bred, intelligent woman. She has been respectable; was well married to a reputable man. But foolishly forsaking their quiet country home, they went to the city in the hope of acquiring property. There her husband, failing to get work, took to drinking and died. Mrs. Clifton buried him, and, dreading to go back to her old home because of poverty, tried to support herself by needle-work. In an evil hour she took to drinking; first as a stimulant to labor, and then as a cordial to soothe her griefs. Of course she soon sank very low, and made poor Madge go out to beg. At last, stung with remorse, she resolved to quit the city, and, seeking work in the country, become a sober woman again. Filled with this purpose she travelled as far as Duncanville with her child, when her appetite for drink came upon her. Leaving Madge at the Four Corners she sought the tavern. The rest you know. We found the child, and she spent the night in the lock-up.”

“Poor thing!” exclaimed Mrs. Carlton.

“Poor little Madge!” cried Jessie, who very naturally felt more for the unfortunate child, than for the unhappy, but guilty mother.

“Yes,” said Mr. Morris, “but pity alone won’t do them much good. The question is, what shall be done with them?”

“True,” rejoined Mrs. Carlton, “but are you sure the woman’s story is true?”

“It agrees with the account Madge gave of herself, so far as the affair of last evening is concerned. Being true in one thing, I hope it is in all. She has, however, given me references to her old friends in the country, and professes to be very anxious to live a reformed life. I will write to her friends, but, meanwhile, what shall we do with her?”

“Let her come here, and stay with Madge?” suggested Jessie.

Mrs. Carlton looked at her brother, and read in his eyes an approval of her daughter’s suggestion.

“Be it so,” said she, “if you think best. I can keep her busy with her needle, until we hear from her friends, and something offers. Perhaps a few days spent in our quiet home, will confirm her in her feeble purposes to reenter the way of sobriety.”

“Spoken just like yourself!” said Mr. Morris, with an expression which showed how greatly he loved and admired his sister. “I will go after the poor creature directly.”

“Oh, I’m so glad Madge’s mother is coming here to live!” cried Jessie, clapping her hands, and running down-stairs to tell the good news to her protÉgÉ.

The outcast child looked a gratitude she did not know how to express, after hearing what Jessie had to say. She fixed her large, black eyes, swimming in tears, upon her friendly hostess, and silently watched her every motion.

“I think it’s very kind of your mother, to take a stranger into her house so,” whispered Carrie.

“So it is,” replied Jessie, who was now busy with her embroidery on the slipper. “So it is, but my Uncle Morris says that it is godlike to be kind, and that if we are kind and loving to poor people, the great God will honor us, and care for us.”

Carrie looked at the sweet face of Jessie with admiration for some time, without saying a word. At last, to break the silence, she said:

“Won’t we have a good time, skating this afternoon?”

“I hope so,” said Jessie; “and we will take Madge with us, shall we?”

“Can you skate, Madge?” asked Carrie.

Madge shook her head. The child was nervous and uneasy about the coming of her mother. She was afraid she might come to the house tipsy, and so offend the friends who loved her so well.

“Can you slide on the ice?” asked Jessie.

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Madge, evidently getting to be more and more absent-minded.

“She is thinking about her mother,” whispered Carrie.

“Yes, don’t let us trouble her,” replied Jessie.

Quickly sped the bright needle, with its beautiful worsteds, along the slipper, and quickly grew into shape the flowers which were to form the pattern. A happy heart and a resolute will, make her fingers both nimble and skilful.

By and by, Uncle Morris’s night-key was heard opening the door-latch again. Jessie started, listened a moment, then dropped her work, and taking Madge’s hand, said:

“Your mother is come!”

“Where is she?” asked the child, looking anxiously toward the door.

“Come with me, I’ll show you,” said Jessie, taking her by the hand.

They went into the hall. Uncle Morris was there, and so was Mrs. Clifton. She was a short, slender, well-formed woman, with large, dark bloodshot eyes. Her face was pale, her cheeks hollow, and her hair uncombed. She was poorly dressed, and yet there was something about her, which told of better things. As soon as she saw Madge, she ran to her, folded her nervously to her bosom, and exclaimed:

“Oh! my child! pity your poor, wretched mother!”

Madge, finding her mother to be sober, grew cheerful. Her mother, after being taken to the bath-room, and furnished with some changes of raiment, was installed in the room with the seamstress, and then, as waters close up, and flow on smoothly again, after a little disturbance, so did affairs at Glen Morris move on once more, in their wonted quiet course.