had no choice. Nobody else had offered to take Nelly; and it was very kind of them to do so.

"Sit down, Nelly," she said, about an hour after Mary had gone; "I want to talk to you a bit."

Poor Nelly! she had some idea of what was coming. She knew that her mother was going to die, and she thought she was going to say something about it. She became very pale; but, like a brave little woman, she resolved to be as calm as she could.

66

"Would you like to live with Mrs. Earnshaw?" asked Grace. 'She says that when I am gone she will take you home with her."

Nelly's heart was too full to reply, and she said nothing. "It is very kind of her," continued Grace: "and I am sure both she and her husband will always be kind to you, if only you are a good girl; and that I hope you will always try to be, and pray to God every day to help you. Keep to the Sunday-school and the chapel, and don't go rambling away on the Sundays. Promise me, Nelly. And promise that you won't forget to read your Bible and to pray to God every day."

"Yes, mother,” replied Nelly, "I'll promise you."

Grace had great confidence in Nelly, and she was not without hope that God had begun a good work in her heart. She thought, however, that she would say something on the same subject to Mary Earnshaw; and accordingly, on her next visit, Grace said, "Mary, you'll let Nelly go to the Sunday-school and the chapel, as she has been used to do, won't you ?"

Mary promised, and she told Reuben what she had done, and he made no objection.

On the evening of Grace's funeral, Mary took Nelly home with her. Her own little Polly's room and bed had been prepared for Nelly. Her eyes filled with tears wher. she took her up, after she had bid Reuben good-night. It recalled her loss, but she was greatly comforted; for here was Nelly, who had come to be her daughter.

"What shall I call you?" asked Nelly, when they were by themselves. "I can't call you mother, for I shall want to keep that for my own mother, when I think and talk about her; but I'll call you auntie-may I?"

"Very well," said Mary. So that was settled, and thenceforward Reuben and Mary were aunt and uncle.

"Just wait a minute, auntie, before you take the light away, till I say my prayers."

As Nelly knelt down in her night-dress at her bedside, Mary looked at her, and said to herself, "A new thing in our house, that! It's a long time since either Reuben or I said any prayers."

Mary's conscience was awakened. She was in the habit of retiring to rest a little before her husband, and before she went to bed that night she tried to pray. But she felt as though she scarcely knew how. Still it was the beginning of better ways.

Sunday morning came, and Mary rose quite early enough to have breakfast with Nelly, in time for the Sundayschool. As for Reuben, he seldom rose on Sunday mornings till the forenoon was more than half over. In the afternoon, immediately after dinner, Nelly went to school again. When chapel-time drew nigh in the evening, she said,

"Auntie, I would like to go to chapel: may I? I can go by myself; and I can sit where my mother and I used to sit together in the free seats."

"Hast thou not had enough of school and chapel to-day, little lass?" asked Reuben.

"No, uncle," she replied; "I would like to go; andand—” her lip quivered, and she could not complete the sentence for a minute or two-"mother said I was to go whenever I could."

"Get away with thee, then," said Reuben, kindly. "Do as thy mother bade thee."

Nelly went to fetch her hat and jacket, and during her absence Mary said, "Reuben, I don't like Nelly going by

herself. It will be dark when she comes out of chapel. I would like to go with her."

Reuben was not very well pleased. It was a fine autumnal evening, and he had planned a walk in the country, and he always liked his wife to go with him. He hesitated, and at length he said, not seeing how he could refuse, "Well, do as thou pleases."

Reuben took his walk alone, but felt it rather dull; and Nelly and Mary went to chapel.

That night, it so happened that, without having given any notice of his intention, the minister, who had attended Grace Hepper in her last illness, spoke very beautifully about the comfort a real Christian had in sickness and in the prospect of death, and told his people something about Grace and one or two other members of the church who had died recently. He concluded by an earnest appeal to all his hearers to become Christians indeed. Many were very powerfully affected, and amongst them Mary Earnshaw. She would give a great deal, she thought, to be a real Christian. On returning, she told Reuben what she had heard ; but Reuben's time had not yet come. "Yes," he said, "it was all very well; but people did not need all that to die peaceably."

At length it became quite a settled thing that Mary and Nelly should go to chapel together on the Sunday evenings. Still Reuben did not like it, so far as his wife was concerned. But he saw that it pleased Nelly; and she had so won his heart that he did not like to trouble her.

One Sunday afternoon, Mary had been called to see a relative who was ill, and Reuben and Nelly were left by themselves. Nelly thought, as auntie was absent, she must do her best to entertain her uncle. She asked him, therefore, if she might repeat some of the hymns she had learnt for the Sunday-school; to which Reuben assented very readily. "Ay," he said, as she concluded each hymn, "that's very nice;" "Thou'st that well off," and so on.

The stock, however, soon came to an end, and for a few minutes Nelly seemed at a loss what to do next. At length she said, "Uncle Reuben, do you love the Lord Jesus Christ ?”

Reuben was taken by surprise. Nobody had ever asked him such a question before. "Do I love the Lord Jesus Christ ?" he said. "Well, I hardly know. But whatever put it into thy head to ask that?"

"Because, uncle," replied Nelly, "our teacher, Miss Jones, has been talking to us about it in the Sunday-school this afternoon."

"Ay," said Reuben; "and what did she say?"

"She said more than I can tell you, uncle," replied Nelly; "but I can tell you something. She said we ought to love Him, because He was so good to everybody, even to little children; because He died for us; and because, although He has gone up to heaven, He is still doing us good. She told us what we should do, if we really loved Him. We should think a great deal about Him; we should read His Bible; and we should go to His house to hear more of Him, and to praise Him. She said too-let me see what else there was-oh, she said we should tell others about Him, and try to get them to love Him."

"Dost thou love Him, Nelly?"

"Yes, uncle, I do," replied the little girl; "but I don't think I love Him enough, and I should like to love Him more. But do you love Him, uncle? I sometimes think you don't."

"What makes thee think so, Nelly ?" asked Reuben.

"Well, uncle,” replied Nelly, " because I never see you read the Bible, and you never go to chapel. Then, you talk a great deal to auntie and me and to other people about all sorts of things, but you never say a word to anybody about Jesus."

Just then looking up at the clock, she saw that it was nearly chapel-time; so, getting up from her little chair, she said," But it's time for me to be getting ready for chapel."

She went upstairs, put on her bonnet, and in a few minutes she was gone.

What Nelly had said had called up in Reuben's mind a train of memories which had long slumbered. He had been a Sunday-scholar in his boyhood, and he had been in the habit of going to chapel. What Nelly had said reminded him of what his own teachers had said to him, and of what he had heard from ministers in the pulpit; and his conscience told him that he had not been doing right to neglect it all, as he had done. At length he came to a sudden resolution. "I'll go," he said, "to chapel for once. It's a bit late; but I'll go in quietly. Anyhow, it will do me no harm."

Nelly could scarcely believe her eyes when, looking to the other side of the chapel, she saw the doorkeeper showing Reuben to a seat. She was pleased to see that he listened very attentively, never once taking his eyes off the preacher.

When the service was ended she got out as soon as she could, and waited at the other door till Reuben came out. She then put her hand gently into his, and they walked home together; but scarcely a word was spoken on either side.

What Reuben heard that Sunday evening deepened the impression of his talk with Nelly. He liked the minister, and he went again and again, and then he became a regular attendant. Better still, he found peace with God through faith in the Lord Jesus.

"Ah, Mr. Booth," he said to the minister one day, "the best thing that ever happened to us was little Nelly coming to our house. But for that, we should very likely have never once thought about our souls and salvation. I often think of those words, 'Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.' Nelly was not quite a stranger; but she's been an angel to us both!"