once more
hurried her into a new plan before her old ones had been worked out.
Plainly she could not help poor Jack and keep her former resolution, not
to be turned aside from finishing her gifts for Uncle Morris. She was
fairly puzzled. It was right to make shirts for a poor boy. It was right
to keep her purposes too. Yet she could not do both. But did not the boy
need the shirts, more than Uncle Morris did his slippers? Would not her
uncle be willing to wait? No doubt he would, but then her promise to
finish the slippers before beginning any thing else, was part of a plan
for conquering a bad habit. Would it be right to depart from that plan?

Such were the questions which floated like unpleasant dreams through
Jessie's mind as she sat with her hands on the back of a chair-seat,
knocking her heels against the floor. Her mother, though she allowed her
to think awhile in silence, read her thoughts in the workings of her face.
When Jessie seemed to be lost in the fog of her own thoughts, Mrs. Carlton
came to her aid, and said:

"Jessie."

"Yes, Ma."

"I have been thinking that poor Jack needs those shirts directly, and that
you could not make him a pair in less than two, perhaps in not less than
three weeks. So I don't see how you can help him out of his present
trouble."

Jessie sighed, and said, "I didn't think of that."

"Well, I have a plan to propose. I will send him two of Guy's shirts
to-morrow, and you shall make two new ones for Guy, at your leisure."

"What a dear, good, nice mother you are," cried Jessie, running to Mrs.
Carlton, and giving her more kisses than I am able to count.

Thus did a mother's love find a key with which to unlock Jessie's puzzle,
and to enable her to help poor Jack, without breaking her purpose to
finish Uncle Morris's things, and thereby drive that plague of her life,
the little wizard, away from Glen Morris.

"I will work ever so hard, see if I don't, Ma," said she, as she patted
her mother's cheek. "I will finish the slippers, and get the shirts done,
too, before Christmas. Don't you think I can?"

"You _can_, I have no doubt, if you try my dear."

"Well, I'll _try_ then. I'll join Guy's famous Try Company, and will try
and try, and try again, until I fairly succeed."

Mrs. Carlton kissed her daughter affectionately; after which the now
light-hearted girl bounded out of the room, singing--

"If you find your case is hard,