helping it, when there it was just opposite in the aisle, and I'd never seen one like it; and as to the sermon, you've just given it to me over again, you've got it so pat; and I'll go to the missionary work meeting too, Grace, and very like the young lady will be there, and I can see her trimming."
"If you go for that, I would go to a fashion-book at once," said Grace; "but I must really be off now, I've not another minute to stop."
"Oh dear, I forgot," cried Florence, jumping up, "I was to ask you to call for our best tea-pot at Bilson's. And my mother wants a dozen—" and there her voice was lost as she followed Grace out of the room through the shop, and even along the road, discoursing on her commissions.
Amy and Jessie were left together, and Amy stood up and said:
"Dear, I am so glad you felt it as I did!"
"One could not help it, if one listened at all," said Jessie. "Amy, I must be doing something for His sake. I can't rest now without it. You teach at the Sunday school. Don't you think I might?"
Amy meditated a little.
"I think they would make up a class for you. When Miss Pemberton's niece goes away, the class she takes has to be joined to her aunt's, and that makes a large one."
"Then will you speak to Miss Manners for me?" asked Jessie. "Are they little girls or big ones?"
"Oh, that's the second class. They would be sure not to give you that," said Amy, as if she thought the aspiration very high, not to say presumptuous. "Perhaps Margaret Roller, the pupil-teacher, you know, may take that. Then I should have hers and you mine. They are dear little girls, some of them, only Susan Bray always wants a tight hand over her, Polly Smithers is so stupid, and Fanny Morris is so sly, one always has to be on the watch."
"Here she comes," said Florence, who was the nearest to the window, and the entrance of Aunt Rose, a brisk, fair little woman, young looking for her age, recalled all her "young ladies," as Florence and Jessie, and perhaps Amy likewise, preferred being called, to recollect that stitching was, at that moment at least, the first thing to be attended to.
CHAPTER II
THE SUNDAY SCHOOL
Perhaps Amy's business-like tone about the school classes fell a little flat upon Jessie's ear. She had not been to a Sunday school in her childhood. Her father had been a prosperous upholsterer's foreman in Minsterham, and Grace and Jessie had gone to an "academy" till, when they were sixteen and fourteen years old, their father died of a fever, and their mother, who had a cottage of her own at Langley, resolved on coming back and setting up a small shop there for all sorts of wares, with Clementina Hollis over the door.
Jessie was about eighteen, two years younger than her sister. She had always been a bright, quick, lively girl, but never very thoughtful, and much too inquisitive, till her curiosity had brought on her a terrible accident, which had kept her laid up in a hospital for many weeks. She had come home quite well at last, and much improved. A fellow patient, and likewise a lady who had visited her and lent her books, had both made much impression on her. She cared about right and wrong as she had never done before, was more useful at home, and tried to restrain her inclination to find out all about everything; she said her prayers more carefully, went to Church more often, and heeded more what she heard; and altogether she was what her mother called an altered girl. This was Lent, and a clergyman was staying with Mr. Somers to preach a course of sermons on the Friday evenings, and it was one of these that had so much struck these young girls, and had put into their minds for the first time, with any real force, the full sense that the true Christian must seek to work for the good of the household of Christ as well as his own household, and that "bringing forth good fruit" does not simply mean taking care of oneself, and trying to save one's own soul.
The language had been beautiful and stirring, and there was a burning desire in more than one heart to be doing something for Christ's sake. The first thing that Jessie thought of was the Sunday school. She had read books about it, and her fellow patient was full of ardour about "training little lambs," as she called it, so that it seemed the most beautiful and suitable task she could undertake.
Amy Lee, on the other hand, hardly knew how to spend a Sunday without the school. She had been a scholar there until she had quite outgrown the first class, and had been more than a year confirmed, and then she had become a teacher of the little ones. She liked the employment, and was fond of the children; she would have been sorry to drop the connection with Miss Manners or with Miss Joy, the mistress, and the rest of the school staff; she was pleased to work for and with Mr. Somers and Miss Manners, and she had been trained to be reverent and attentive; but it had never occurred to her to think of it as more than a nice and good thing to do, or to look on it as a work undertaken for Christ's sake.
"Teaching at school, I do that already," she said to herself, when Aunt Rose's entrance had made her work her machine more and her tongue less. "I must get something more to do. Oh! I know. There's poor old half-blind Mrs. Long. She is left to herself terribly, they do say, and I'll go and tidy her up, and see to her and read to her every day. I could do it before my work and after. Maybe I might get her to be a better old woman than she ever has been. Books say that nothing so softens an old woman as a nice, bright young girl coming in to make much of her, and I'm sure I'm nice and bright—not so much in myself, but compared with the whole lot of Longs."
So Amy told her plan to her aunts, as soon as Florence and Jessie had gone home to dinner.
The two aunts looked at one another, and Aunt Charlotte said, "Did the sermon make you think of that?" in rather a doubtful tone.
"Yes," said Amy. "One seemed to long to be doing some good, not be only an empty flower, as he said."
"Mrs. Long," said Aunt Rose; "she ain't a very nice person to fix upon."
"But no one wants it so much, aunt," said Amy.
"That's true," said Aunt Charlotte. "Well, Amy, we must think about it, and speak to your father. Run out now, and gather a bit of parsley for his cheese."
Amy knew it was to get her out of the way, and felt rather disappointed that the proposal was not seized upon at once, and applauded.
"She's a good girl," said Aunt Rose.
"Well, so she is, and I don't like to stand in her way," said Aunt Charlotte.
"But to pitch on old Sally Long of all folk in the world!" said Rose.
"There's no doubt but she does want something done for her; but I misdoubt me if she will choose our Amy to do it. Besides, I don't like her tongue. That's what daunts me most."
"Yes. If she took it kind of the girl, she would never be satisfied without talking to her of all the old backbiting tales that ever was! And we that have kept our girl up from hearing of all evil just like a lady—"
"What is it?" said Ambrose Lee, himself coming in, after putting up his cart.
"Why, that sermon last night has worked upon our Amy, so that she wants to do something extra," said Aunt Rose.
"A right down good sermon it was," said the father; "a bit flowery, to suit the maidens, I suppose."
"And she said it all off to me, quite beautiful," said Rose, who had stayed at home.
"And what does the child want to be doing? I won't have her go back to her books again, to worry her head into aching."
"No, that's not what she wants. Her notion is to run in and out and see to old Widow Long."
"Widow
