ably feel it in this instance. I
should almost have thought you unfeeling if you had not. However, that
business is all over; and well over, to my mind. I am thankful it is no
worse. Now for what I want to say to you. I have been turning over in
my mind how I might say to you what would be likely to do you good, in
such a way that you could easily bear it in mind. And I have settled to
give you a few plain rules, which you will find of service if you follow
them. Now don't you go saying to yourselves that Aunt Kezia is an old
country woman who knows nothing of grand town folks. As I was beginning
to say when you interrupted me, Cary--there, don't look abashed, child;
I am not angry with you--manners change, but natures don't. Dress men
and women how you will, and let them talk what language you please, and
have what outside ways you like, they are men and women still. Wherever
you go, you will find human nature is unchanged; and the Devil that
tempts men is unchanged; and the God that saves them is unchanged.
There are more senses than one, lassies, in which the things that are
seen are temporal; but the things that are not seen are eternal."

My Aunt Kezia began to feel in her bag--that great print bag with the
red poppies and blue cornflowers, and the big brass top, by which I
should know my Aunt Kezia was near if I saw it in the American
plantations, or in the moon, for that matter--and out came three little
books, bound in red sheepskin. Such pretty little books! scarcely the
size of my hand, and with gilded leaves.

"Now, girls," she said, "I brought you these for keepsakes. They are
only blank paper, as you see, and you can put down in them what you
spend, or what you see, or any good sayings you meet with, or the like--
just what you please: but you will find my rules written on the first
leaf, so you can't say you had not a chance to bear them in mind. Miss
Annas, my dear, I hope I don't make too free, but you see I did not like
to leave you out in the cold, as it were. Will you accept one of them?
They are good rules for any young maid, though I say it."

"How kind of you, Mrs Kezia!" said Annas. "Indeed I will, and value it
very much."

I turned at once--indeed, I think we all did--to my Aunt Kezia's rules.
They were written, as she said, on the first page, in her neat, clear
handwriting, which one could read almost in the dark. This is what she
had written.

"Put the Lord first in everyth