tears fell on the page, and she confessed her fault in her heart to God, and begged him to forgive her. Then she felt happier at once. After school, one of her school-fellows was kept in to finish a sum; she was crying, and did not seem able to do it, so Amy went quietly to her, and showed her the way, and then danced off to the play-ground. On their way home she had a harder struggle to make, and that was to tell Kitty she was sorry for her hasty words; but she conquered, and Kitty having confessed that she too had been in the wrong, the sisters felt happy again together.

This was true repentance; it was a sorrow for and confession of sin, and then forsaking the sin; it was a change of mind. That evening Amy felt very serious when she thought over the day’s doings; she was weaker than she had thought—it was harder to do right than she had believed; but she resolved to try harder again to-morrow. So she went to bed hopeful, although rather sad. We shall see how her resolutions were carried out.

CHAPTER V.

TRY AGAIN.

AMY did try very hard the next day, and she prayed earnestly for strength from on high. She rose early, she got everything ready in time for her father, and he praised her and called her “a thrifty little maid;” she never reproached Kitty with leaving the work to her; she went cheerfully through her lessons, and in the afternoon she had the delight of being highly commended by the mistress and set to teach one of the younger classes. After school, some of the children went blackberry-picking, and the Harrisons were of the number. They had a merry time of it; the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the thick leaves of the wood where the blackberries grew just let enough of the sunbeams through; and Amy Harrison’s heart was full of peace and sunshine, and the woods were full of beautiful ripe blackberries, so that in a few hours the little party tripped homeward full of glee, and with baskets filled to the brim with large ripe blackberries. They were walking on fast, laughing and chattering, when Amy saw that a little lame girl named Lucy Maitland could not keep up with the rest, and so she stayed to talk to her. Lucy looked rather dismal, and her basket was not half full; she could not climb in and out among the rocks and brambles like the others. Amy felt sorry for her; she thought she would give her some from her own basket, but she did so wish to take it home full, and she did not like Kitty to have more than herself. But then the words breathed into her heart, “By love serve one another,” and she resolved to seize the opportunity; and without another word, she poured out a third of her own little store, and nearly filled Lucy’s basket. Lucy’s eyes glistened, but she had not time to say much, for the children were comparing what they had each gathered, and Amy’s basket had to be held up amongst the rest.

“Why, I thought your basket was quite full,” said Kitty.

“So it was,” exclaimed little Lucy, “but she has half emptied it to fill mine.”

The children all loved Amy for doing this, and wondered how it was they had not thought of little Lucy before; so now, many of them insisted on pouring some blackberries into Lucy’s basket, and giving part of Amy’s back to her. In this way Lucy and Amy’s stores were soon the largest of the whole, and the children separated in good humour with each other and everything.

As Amy and Kitty entered the garden, the first thing that caught Amy’s eye was her little baby sister sitting on her little chair under the window. On each side of the door grew a little rose tree, one of which belonged to Amy and one to Kitty. Amy’s was a red rose. The flowers were nearly all gone, but one had lingered behind the rest. Amy had watched it with especial care: she had plucked off all the dead flowers around it, and this morning she had been thinking it would just be in beautiful bloom by Sunday, that she might take it to school as a present for Mrs. Mordaunt. And now there sat the baby with that very bud in her lap quietly picking it to pieces, and holding up the scattered leaves in Amy’s face, she lisped, “Pretty, pretty!” Amy was too angry and too vexed to think, and it was of no use to scold the baby, so she snatched the rose from the baby’s hands, and said, “You good-for-nothing, naughty little thing;” and then she burst into tears. The baby began to cry too, and their mother came out to know what was the matter. “O mother, how could you?” sobbed Amy passionately. “Why did you let baby sit close to my rose-bush—my beautiful rose? I had been saving it all the week for Mrs. Mordaunt—and it was my last.”

Mrs. Harrison tried to comfort Amy; and Kitty offered her the best flower in her garden. They both felt very sorry for her. But Amy was not to be comforted, and so they gave up trying. Poor Amy’s evening was quite spoilt,—not so much, I think, by the loss of her rose as by the loss of her temper.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TRUTH SETTING FREE.

THE next day she awoke, out of spirits and out of temper. She did not see why she should always work, while Kitty was enjoying herself in bed. She forgot the joy of serving others, and thought it very hard others should not try to serve her. We are apt to be very strict about other people’s duties when we forget our own. So Amy lay in bed until the last moment, and then hurried on her clothes, and hurried over her work, and what was worse, hurried over her prayers, and thus went out to meet the day’s temptations unarmed.

It never improves the temper to be hurried; and Amy was still further tried this morning by her father, who was in haste to be off to his work, and wondered why she was so slow.

“It’s of no use,” grumbled Amy to herself, “to try to do right and please everybody. The more one does, the more people expect. Nobody thinks of scolding Kitty for being slow.”

A day so begun seldom grows bright of itself. There is a sunshine which can scatter even such clouds, but Amy did not look up to that; it did not seem to shine for her; it never does, if you will not look up. She felt very discontented and ill-used; it seemed as if no one cared for her, and everything worked together to torment her; and so things got darker and darker, and Amy’s temper more bitter and her heart sorer every moment.

At last her mother went out, and Kitty was sent to the bakehouse, and Amy was left alone to rock the cradle and watch that the kettle did not boil over.

Amy had much rather not have been left alone just then; her own thoughts were not at all pleasant; but as she was alone she could not help thinking. At first she thought how unkind every one was, and of all the wrongs she had had to bear,—of Kitty’s laziness, of her mother’s rebukes, and then of her beautiful rose, and the naughty baby. “Kitty and the baby might do just what they liked, but if she did the least thing wrong she was scolded and punished.” But this thought of the rose led her back to Mrs. Mordaunt’s lesson on Sunday. Had the good seed borne good fruit this week,—this week that was to have been the beginning of a new life? Had it led her to overcome one fault, to be a step nearer to God and goodness