Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/42

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LIVE AND LET LIVE.

the same class is in any other country, their characters will be so too. This relation is sometimes a very happy one, when there is mutual kindness, and affection, and, I may say, respect — trust on one side, and faithfulness on the other, and gratitude on both."

"Gratitude, mother! Do you think that I can make a person that pays me for my service grateful to me besides?"

"My dear child, if you are such a servant as I trust you will be, you will render services that money can never pay for — but you will understand all this better hereafter, when you have seen more of the world. Serve others from a sense of duty as you have served me from love. Remember the woman in Scripture of whom our Saviour said 'she had done all that she could,' and for that reason he graciously accepted her small service. Ask God's blessing daily — that will be sufficient for you. Good-night, my dear child — to-morrow you begin!" Lucy moved Jemmie from his basket-cradle to her cot, where he always slept, and fell asleep wetting his cheek with her tears.

It was worthy of remark, that Mrs. Lee had never once alluded to her former superior condition. She carried her virtue still further; she endeavoured to conceal it from her children, and to forget it herself. How unlike those who have neither the sense nor the virtue to adapt their minds to fallen fortunes, but with their old tastes and appetites are for ever hankering after the luxuries of Egypt, instead of putting forth the strength essential to help them through the wilderness, and which would surely carry them to an inheritance enriched with divine gifts — the promised land of persevering virtue.