ied out with the first
Sunday; and after that she always remained with Mrs. Edwards, who,
being very delicate, and having a young infant, had been obliged to
resign her own class, the one now taken by Lucy. Mrs. Edwards was a
sweet, gentle woman, overflowing with Christian love and kindness; and
as Stella at once took a great fancy to her, she exercised a very
beneficial influence over one who was much more easily swayed by
kindness than by any other power.

The celebration of the Lord's Supper was approaching, and as Bessie
was looking forward to participating for the first time in the holy
ordinance, Lucy gladly embraced the opportunity of making a formal
confession of her faith in Christ, and claiming the blessing attached
to the ordinance by Him who instituted it. It was pleasant, too, to do
so in the very place in which He had first, by the cords of love,
drawn her heart to Himself. Solemn as she knew the step to be, she had
lived too long on the principle of "looking unto Jesus" not to feel
that she had only to look to Him still to give her the fitting
preparation of heart for receiving the tokens of His broken body and
shed blood; and in this happy confidence she came forward to obey His
dying command.

Stella had seemed much interested about the approaching communion, and
had asked a good many questions respecting it, and as to the nature of
the qualification for worthily partaking in it. At last, much to
Lucy's surprise, she asked her, with a timidity altogether new to
her, whether she thought _she_ might come forward also.

It was with difficulty that Lucy could restrain the expression of her
surprise at the unexpected question, but she did repress it, and
replied:

"It all depends on whether you have made up your mind to take Jesus
for your Lord and Saviour, and to follow Him, dear Stella!"

"I should like to, if I knew how," she said. "I have been speaking to
Mrs. Edwards about it, and she thinks I might come. I know I'm not
what I ought to be, and that I've been very careless and wicked; but
Mrs. Edwards says if I'm really in earnest, and I think I am, I may
come to the communion, and that I shall be made fit, if I ask to be."

Lucy had not lost her faith in the Hearer and Answerer of prayer, but
she had been so long accustomed to regard Stella as one who "cared for
none of these things," that she could scarcely believe in the reality
of so sudden a change. But it was not so very sudden, and Lucy's o