sick or the weary, made from
what, in richer households, unthrifty servants would have thrown away.
There were always roots to spare from the small garden, herbs for
medicines, eggs for sale, salves, and lotions, and conserves of fruit
or honey. All the poor infants in the parish were neatly clothed in
baby-linen made out of old garments. There were always bundles of
patches to give away, so useful to poor mothers; strips of rag for
hurts; old flannel, and often new; a little collection of rubbish now
and then for the bagman, though very rarely, the breakage being small
where there were so few hands used, and they so careful.

They gave their time, too; for they were the nurses of all the sick,
the comforters of all the sorrowful, the advisers of all in
difficulty--without parade. They were applied to as of course--it
seemed natural. And they were sociable: they had their little
tea-parties with their acquaintance; they made their little presents
at Christmas-time; they sweetened life throughout their limited
sphere; and all so quietly, that no one guessed the amount of their
influence till it ceased. They preached 'the word' practically,
producing all the charity it taught, inculcating the 'peace on earth,
good-will towards men' which disposes even rude natures to the gentler
feelings, and soothes the chafed murmurer by the tender influence of
that love which is so kind. They were unwearied in their walk of
mercy, though they met with disappointment even among the simple
natures reared in this secluded spot. They bore it meekly; and when
cross or trial came to those around, then could our good sisters carry
comfort to afflicted friends, never pleading quite in vain for the
exercise of that patience which lightens suffering. They were as
mothers to the young, as daughters to the old, of all degree; for they
did not ostentatiously devote themselves to the poor and ignorant
alone--the so-called poor: the poor in spirit, of whatever rank, were
as much their care as were the poor in purse; their charge was all who
needed help--a help they gave simply, lovingly, not as meddlers, but
as sisters bound to a larger family by the breaking of the ties which
had united them to their own peculiar household.

There was no scenic effect visible along the humble walk of their pure
benevolence, no harsh outlines to mark the course they went, or shew
them to the world as devoted to particular excellence all throughout a
lifetime of pai