pwinkley took it into her thoughts, and carried it about with
her for days, and considered it; asking herself questions.

Was it going aside in search of an undertaking that did not belong
to her?

Was it bringing home a care, a responsibility, for which they were
not fitted,--which might interfere with the things they were meant,
and would be called, to do?

There was room and opportunity, doubtless, for them to do something;
Mrs. Ripwinkley had felt this; she had not waited for her child to
think of it for her; she had only waited, in her new, strange
sphere, for circumstances to guide the way, and for the Giver of
all circumstance to guide her thought. She chose, also, in the
things that would affect her children's life and settle duties for
them, to let them grow also to those duties, and the perception of
them, with her. To this she led them, by all her training and
influence; and now that in Hazel, her child of quick insight and
true instincts, this influence was bearing fruit and quickening to
action, she respected her first impulses; she believed in them; they
had weight with her, as argument in themselves. These impulses, in
young, true souls, freshly responding, are, she knew, as the
proof-impressions of God's Spirit.

Yet she would think; that was her duty; she would not do a thing
hastily, or unwisely.

Sulie Praile had been a good while, now, at the Home.

A terrible fall, years ago, had caused a long and painful illness,
and resulted in her present helplessness. But above those little
idle, powerless limbs, that lay curled under the long, soft skirt
she wore, like a baby's robe, were a beauty and a brightness, a
quickness of all possible motion, a dexterous use of hands, and a
face of gentle peace and sometimes glory, that were like a
benediction on the place that she was in; like the very Holy Ghost
in tender form like a dove, resting upon it, and abiding among them
who were there.

In one way, it would hardly be so much a giving as a taking, to
receive her in. Yet there was care to assume, the continuance of
care to promise or imply; the possibility of conflicting plans in
much that might be right and desirable that Mrs. Ripwinkley should
do for her own. Exactly what, if anything, it would be right to
undertake in this, was matter for careful and anxious reflection.

The resources of the Home were not very large; there were painful
cases pressing their claims continually, as fast as a little p