le, under Margaret's eye. I fancy I perceive
Enderby--But that is his own affair. I am sure I daily witness one
healing and renovating process which Margaret is unconsciously
effecting. There is no one of us so worthy of her, so capable of
appreciating her, as Maria Young: they are friends, and Maria Young is
becoming a new creature. Health and spirit are returning to that poor
girl's countenance: there is absolutely a new tone in her voice, and a
joyous strain in her conversation, which I, for one, never recognised
before. It is a sight on which angels might look down, to see
Margaret, with her earnest face, listening humbly, and lovingly
serving the infirm and much-tried friend whom she herself is daily
lifting up into life and gladness. I have done with listening to
abuse of life and the world. I will never sit still under it again.
If there are two such as these sisters, springing out of the bosom of
a busy town, and quietly passing along their path of life, casting
sanctity around them as they go,--if there are two such, why not more?
If God casts such seeds of goodness into our nook, how do we know but
that he is sowing the whole earth with it? I will believe it
henceforth.

"You will wonder, as I have wondered many a time within the last six
weeks, what is to become of us when we lose these strangers. I can
only say, `God help us!' But that time is far off. They came for
several months, and no one hints at their departure yet. They are the
most unlearned creatures about country life that you can conceive,
with a surpassing genius for country pleasures. Only imagine the
charm of our excursions! They are never so happy as when in the
fields or on the river; and we all feel ourselves only too blest in
being able to indulge them. Our mornings are all activity and
despatch, that our afternoons may be all mirth, and our evenings
repose. I am afraid this will make you sigh with mingled envy and
sympathy; but whatever is that can be told, you may rely upon it that
I shall tell you, trusting to your feeling both pleasure and pain in
virtuous moderation.

"I have done my story; and now I am going to look what o'clock it is--
a thing I have refrained from, in my impulse to tell you all. The
house is quite still, and I heard the church clock strike something
very long just now; but I would not count. It is so. It was midnight
that