plain sewing you've had in hand so long. It's time it
was done and put away."

Bessie looked a little disappointed. The new hat was not so attractive
as the sash would have been. Suddenly her mother's remark on the
brownness of her hat suggested the image of Nelly's tattered, dingy
one, which she had noticed that afternoon.

"What would you do with my old hat, mother," she said, "if I get a new
one?"

"I don't know. You've your sun-bonnet for wearing about the farm. Put
it by for Jenny, perhaps," suggested the thrifty Mrs. Ford.

"Might I give it to Nelly Connor, mother? Hers will hardly stay
together."

Mrs. Ford had never seen Nelly, but she knew something of her forlorn
situation. "I'm sure," she said, "I shouldn't mind if you did. I dare
say it would be charity to her, poor thing." And it occurred to her to
think whether she, a well-to-do farmer's wife, had been as abundant in
deeds of charity as she might have been.

Bessie considered the matter settled, and next day set to work with
renewed zeal on the "plain sewing," which had been getting on very
languidly; for Bessie was not fond of long, straight seams, or of
sitting still for any length of time. She set herself a task as she
took her seat under the spreading butternut-tree; and Jenny and Jack
came to beg for "a story." Bessie's story-telling powers had been
largely developed of late, to make the Sunday lessons she had begun to
give the restless little things more palatable to them. Only the
promise of "a story" could fix their attention long enough to commit
to memory a simple verse. And her powers once found out, she soon had
demands upon her for stories to a greater extent than her patience was
always equal to satisfying.

Bessie had become, as her mother had noticed, much more thoughtful of
late. Her card, hung up in her room, kept always before her mind her
resolution to "look to Jesus" for help to live to please Him. And
though she still often forgot and yielded to temptation, yet, on the
whole, she was steadily advancing in that course in which all must be
either going forward or backward. Her mother noticed that this decided
improvement dated from the day when she had brought home the card,--a
day which had not been without influence on herself,--although, when
worldly principles have been long suffered to hold undisputed sway,
it is difficult at once to overcome old habits; and lost ground is not
less hard to retrieve in spiritual than in ear