Miss Manners's words stayed with Jessie. She had plenty of sense and spirit, as well as a real wish to do right, and a yearning to spread the great Light round her. To be sure, the going to some mission in a dreadfully ignorant and wicked place would have seemed more like a good work than just taking a class who would be taught and cared for even without her help.

But she could see that if she could not keep these tidy little trained children in order, she would not have much chance with the street Arabs she had read of.

She got on much better the next Sunday. She kept the children interested almost all the time, all except the two lowest, who were determined to chatter till she made one stand on each side of her, and then one of them, Emma Lott, chose to howl till Miss Manners came to see what was the matter; but she did not get much by that, for she was only told that she was very naughty not to mind Miss Hollis, and desired to stop crying directly, which she did; and then Miss Manners asked Miss Hollis to be so kind as not to take away her ticket, if she would try to behave well for the rest of the day.

Once more Lily Bell was so kind as to inform "teacher" that Susan said "she didn't care, not for she." To which Jessie coolly answered that she hoped Susan would soon learn to care for being a good girl, taking care not to look the least mortified, so that the information fell very flat. After that she had no more trouble with sauciness from the children; she began to find that Susan was clever and bright, and that Kate May and Lucy Elwood were very nice little maidens, who seemed to care to be good. They brought her flowers, told her funny little bits of news about baby beginning to walk, and mother going to Ellerby, and she found the time spent at school a very pleasant part of her Sunday; while as to the hours of preparation with Miss Manners, she enjoyed them so much that it was quite a blank if that lady had any engagement to prevent her from receiving her little party of teachers.

Jessie found herself learning much more than she taught. Her quick nature could not but look into everything thoroughly, and when she had been once shown how to throw all her mind as well as her soul into the study of the Bible and Prayer-book, she found ever new delight in them. She began to find it helped her to pray with her understanding, as well as with her spirit at Church; to care more for her prayers at home, and to feel more on the times of the Holy Communion. She made her last year's hat serve again with a fresh tulle trimming, that she might buy herself a "Teacher's Bible," and not worry her mother and Grace any more by disturbing the big one, since they thought it honouring such a Bible to let it alone.

Mrs. Hollis did read the Psalms and one Lesson every day. She said she had once promised Amy Lee, aunt to the present Amy, and she had hardly ever missed doing so.

But Grace had not time. Just after Whitsuntide the daughter of a very rich farmer in the neighbourhood was engaged to be married, and wanted a quantity of fine work to be done for her, making underlinen and embroidering marks to handkerchiefs.

She came with her mother to offer the work to Miss Lee, giving six weeks for it, but it was more than Aunt Rose thought right to undertake in the time. She said she could not get it done without disappointing several persons, and that she was very sorry, but that she could only undertake two sets of the things in the time.

Mrs. Robson, the mother, was vexed and half angry. She said she hated common shop-work, and ready-made things, and she had taken a fancy to what she had seen of Miss Lee's work. She even offered to increase the payment, but Rose Lee stood firm. She said there was no one at hand whom she could hire and entrust with such work, and that she could not feel it right to undertake it, as it would only lead to breaking her engagements.

"O, very well; I see you don't care to oblige me," said the lady, twirling off with her very tight skirts, and whisking up a train like a fish's tail. "No, I will not break the set. I am not accustomed to refusals."

And off the two ladies drove, and Jessie told the story at home with a great deal of spirit.

"Now that's just like Rose Lee," said Grace. "She won't make a bit of exertion for her own good!"

"Well," said Jessie, "you know we should have to work awfully hard if she took it in hand."

"I suppose she would have paid you for extra hours," said Grace sharply.

"Miss Rose said it was the way to ruin a girl's health to set her to do such a lot of work," said Jessie.

"And quite right too," put in her mother. "I knew a girl who was apprenticed to a dressmaker, and sat up five nights when they had two black jobs one after the other, and that girl's eyes never was the same again!"

"Besides," added Jessie, "there's so much in hand."

"Well, it might not do to offend Mrs. or Miss Manners, but—"

"O, it is not that! The children's things were sent home yesterday. I wish you could have seen them, they were loves; and Miss Manners has got a new dress from London. She let Miss Lee see it, and take the pattern of the trimming. No, but Mrs. Drew has sent her Swiss cambric to be made up for Miss Alice, and Miss Pemberton has a new carmelite to be finished, and there are some dresses for the maids at the hall, all promised by Midsummer day."

"Pooh! Customers like that can wait."

"I don't see that it is a bit more right to disappoint them than any one else," said Jessie sturdily.

"Old Miss Pemberton, to be compared with a lady like that!" exclaimed Grace.

"It doesn't make much odds as to right or wrong," said Jessie, "but I don't think Mrs. Robson is much of a lady, to judge by the way she gave her orders and flounced off in a huff."

"A lady," said Mrs. Hollis, contemptuously, "I should think not. Why, her father kept the 'White Feathers' at Ellerby; and Robson, he rose up just by speculations, as they call them; but I've seen him a little greengrocer's errand-boy, with a face like a dirty potato."

"They can pay, any way," said Grace. "Folks say Robson could buy out our squire, ay, and my lord himself, if he chose."

"And I'm sure," said Jessie, "she and her daughter had clothes on that must cost forty or fifty pounds apiece. Such a fur cloak, lined with ermine; and the young lady's jacket was sealskin, trimmed ever so deep with sable, and a hummingbird in her hat. They say little Miss Hilda saw her and cried for pity of the poor dear little bird."

"Well, I'll tell you what," said Grace, "I'll set off this minute to Newcome Park, and see if I can't get the work, or at least some of it. You and I can do plain work as well any day as Rose Lee, Jessie."

"Yes," said Jessie, "but I have my time at Miss Lee's all the same."

"Of course, child; but there are the evenings, and I can sit to it while mother minds the shop."

"Don't undertake more than you can manage, Grace," said Mrs. Hollis.

"Trust me for that, mother. You can wash up, Jessie; I can get there before they go to dress for dinner. It is a capital thing! It will just make up for that bad debt of Long's, and help us to get in a real genteel stock of summer goods."

Grace managed the house, and her mother, who durst not say a word when she was set on a thing; and as to Jessie, her sister always treated her as a rather naughty, idle child.

The girl had struggled hotly against this, but it had always ended in getting into such a temper, and saying such fierce and violent things, that she had been much grieved and ashamed of herself, and now felt it better to let Grace have her way than to get into a dispute which was sure to make her do wrong.

But when Grace, as neat as a new pin, had tripped out of the house, Mrs. Hollis and Jessie looked at one another, as if they had a pretty severe task set them.

"Well, I think we could have managed without," said Mrs. Hollis, "but to be sure it is as well to be on the safe side; though I'd rather be without the money than be at all the trouble and hurry this work will be!"

"I am sure I had," said Jessie. "I wish I had said nothing about it. Grace can't bear to hear of anything going that she has not got."

"Any way," said Mrs. Hollis, "you shall not be put upon, Jessie, after all your work at Miss Lee's. You shall not be made to sit at your needle all the evening. It is not good for your health, and so I shall tell Grace."

Jessie thanked her mother, but had little hope that she would be able to hold out against one so determined as her sister. Neither mother nor daughter would have broken her heart if Grace's application had come too late, but no such thing! It had been dark about an hour when she was driven up to the door in a dog-cart, out of which huge rolls of linen were lifted, enough, as it seemed, to stock the shop. Grace shook hands with the smart groom who had driven her, thanked him, and came in in high spirits.

Mrs. Robson had been most gracious! She said she had feared being obliged to put up with mere warehouse work, and that she could not bear; but country people were so lazy and disobliging. It was not what she was used to.

Grace had been taken up into the young lady's own room, and oh! what she had to tell about tall cheval glasses, and ivory-backed brushes, and rose-coloured curtains, and marble-topped washhand-stands, and a bed and wardrobe of inlaid wood, with beautiful birds and flowers, and gold-topped bottles and boxes, and downy chairs! The description was enough to last a week, and indeed it did, for fresh details came out continually. It almost made Jessie jealous for Miss Manners. Once when she had been caught in a sudden shower and arrived wet through she had been taken up to Miss Manners's bed-room to take off her boots and put on slippers.

And there was only a plain little iron bed, uncurtained, and the floor was bare except for rugs at the hearth and bed-side, and the furniture was nothing but white dimity. The chimney ornaments and the washhand-stand looked like those in a nursery—as indeed they well might, for they had belonged to Miss Dora nearly all her life; they all had stories belonging to them, were keepsakes from dear friends, and she would not have given one, no, not the shell cat with an ear off, nor the little picture made of coloured sand, for Miss Robson's finest gilded box, unless indeed that had come in the same way.

And there were two prints on the walls, very grave and beautiful, which made one feel like being in Church, and so did the illuminated texts, though all were not equally well done, some being painted by her little nieces. Jessie had a feeling in her mind that there was something finer and nobler in not making one's own nest so very splendid and luxurious, but she knew Grace would laugh at the notion, so she said nothing of the difference, while her mother said, "Dear, dear!" and "Think of that!" at each new bit of magnificence she heard of.

Grace had her patterns and materials, and the fineness of them, and beauty of the lace provided for the trimming, were quite delightful to look at.

The payment was to be very handsome, and Grace felt secure of carrying through the work in time, with the help of her mother and sister.

"You shall have your share, Jessie," she said. "See, here are some sweet French cambric handkerchiefs to be marked in embroidery. 'I have a sister who can embroider beautifully,' says I, and they just jumped at it. 'Nina' is the name to be worked in the corners."

"Oh, I like embroidery," cried Jessie. "Thank you, Grace."

"There's six dozen," said Grace, "and you'll be able to do one a day. Four pence a letter. Why it will be quite a little fortune to you," said Grace, overpowered with her own generosity; and Jessie on her side thought of the many things 4l. 16s. would do for her.