ly with a view to learn amusement; but, by the blessing of
God, they grew fond of instruction, and some of them became truly
pious. Mrs. Jones spoke to them on Sunday evening as follows: "My
dear young women, I rejoice at your improvement; but I rejoice with
trembling. I have known young people set out well, who afterward
fell off. The heart is deceitful. Many like religious knowledge, who
do not like the strictness of a religious life. I must therefore
watch whether those who are diligent at church and school, are
diligent in their daily walk. Whether those who say they _believe_
in God, really _obey_ him. Whether they who profess to _love_ Christ
keep His _commandments_. Those who hear themselves commended for
early piety, may learn to rest satisfied with the praise of man.
People may get a knack at religious phrases without being religious;
they may even get to frequent places of worship as an amusement, in
order to meet their friends, and may learn to delight in a sort of
_spiritual gossip_, while religion has no power in their hearts. But
I hope better things of you, and things that accompany salvation,
though I thus speak."

What became of Hester Wilmot, with some account of Mrs. Jones's
May-day feast for her school, my readers shall be told next month.

PART II.

THE NEW GOWN.

Hester Wilmot, I am sorry to observe, had been by nature peevish and
lazy; she would, when a child, now and then slight her work, and
when her mother was unreasonable she was too apt to return a saucy
answer; but when she became acquainted with her own heart, and with
the Scriptures, these evil tempers were, in a good measure,
subdued, for she now learned to imitate, not her violent mother,
but _Him who was meek and lowly_. When she was scolded for doing
ill, she prayed for grace to do better; and the only answer she made
to her mother's charge, "that religion only served to make people
lazy," was to strive to do twice as much work, in order to prove
that it really made them diligent. The only thing in which she
ventured to disobey her mother was, that when she ordered her to do
week-day's work on a Sunday, Hester cried, and said, she did not
dare to disobey God; but to show that she did not wish to save her
own labor, she would do a double portion of work on the Saturday
night, and rise two hours earlier on Monday morning.

Once, when she had worked very hard, her mother told her that she
would treat her with a holiday the follow