f sorrow was greatly lightened for her
young heart. Every morning, to gather strength for the day's duties
before her, and every evening, for consolation before she lay down to
rest, did the young girl take out the mirror and gaze at the reflection
which in the simplicity of her innocent heart she believed to be her
mother's soul. Daily she grew in the likeness of her dead mother's
character, and was gentle and kind to all, and a dutiful daughter to
her father.

A year spent in mourning had thus passed away in the little household,
when, by the advice of his relations, the man married again, and the
daughter now found herself under the authority of a step-mother. It was
a trying position; but her days spent in the recollection of her own
beloved mother, and of trying to be what that mother would wish her to
be, had made the young girl docile and patient, and she now determined
to be filial and dutiful to her father's wife, in all respects.
Everything went on apparently smoothly in the family for some time
under the new regime; there were no winds or waves of discord to ruffle
the surface of every-day life, and the father was content.

But it is a woman's danger to be petty and mean, and step-mothers are
proverbial all the world over, and this one's heart was not as her
first smiles were. As the days and weeks grew into months, the
step-mother began to treat the motherless girl unkindly and to try and
come between the father and child.

Sometimes she went to her husband and complained of her step-daughter's
behavior, but the father knowing that this was to be expected, took no
notice of her ill-natured complaints. Instead of lessening his
affection for his daughter, as the woman desired, her grumblings only
made him think of her the more. The woman soon saw that he began to
show more concern for his lonely child than before. This did not please
her at all, and she began to turn over in her mind how she could, by
some means or other, drive her step-child out of the house. So crooked
did the woman's heart become.

She watched the girl carefully, and one day peeping into her room in
the early morning, she thought she discovered a grave enough sin of
which to accuse the child to her father. The woman herself was a little
frightened too at what she had seen.

So she went at once to her husband, and wiping away some false tears
she said in a sad voice:

"Please give me permission to leave you today."

The man was comp