us thought never entered her head, and yet
how full of good and unselfish thoughts that little head is, for all its
giddiness.

"She spoke just now of giving some of the blessings she had received to
others, to those who were thirsting for one drop, and did not guess that
I who stood so near her was even one of those. It would only trouble and
distress her to know how dark my mind is about these things which she
thinks I have known all about for years--aye, truly I _have_ known about
them since I knew anything, yet of what use has the knowledge been to
me. It's like the 'learned lumber' Pope speaks about--it's like
rummaging in a library without a light. O, will light such as Minnie
speaks about ever dawn in my heart? Will such a change as has beautified
and softened her life with such a sweet and gracious influence, ever
come near to touch mine? Minnie, my friend, you seek my aid to walk in
the path you think I know so well, but it is I who should lean on you. I
hold the scroll in my hand, but you have the guide in your heart." So
thinking she turned wearily from the window and began her studies.

CHAPTER III.

PREPARATIONS.

Sharply at four, Mabel appeared at the door of Minnie's home, and she,
being quite ready, they proceeded without delay to carry out their
purpose of "viewing the battlefield" as Mabel remarked.

Hollowmell was a lovely glade which lay at the foot of a gentle
eminence, immediately behind which lay the pit whose ugly shaft was
almost hid by it. No one would have imagined that such a thing lay in
the immediate neighbourhood who saw the glade before the row of miner's
cottages had been erected on one side of it by Mr. Kimberley for the
convenience of his work-people, and even yet the beauty of the scene
would not have been marred by the pretty picturesque-looking little red
brick houses with their white-coppiced windows and green-painted sashes,
if the carelessness and disorder which reigned within had not been
reflected without in the neglected plots of ground attached to each
cottage, in the dirty window-panes, and in the untidy women and
children, and occasionally begrimed men who seemed to have no other
object in life than to hang about and complete the disgrace they had
wrought on the fair face of nature.

Mabel and Minnie walked along the entire row, as the empty cottage stood
at the further end, looking with a new interest at the faces with which
they were both well acquainted by