[Illustration]

JENNIE BROWNING


The light of a beautiful Sabbath was fast fading, and the last golden
gleams fell softly upon the form of a light-haired little girl who sat
by a cottage window, her head leaning upon her hand as if in deep
thought.

The sun had departed like a grand old monarch, leaving behind him a
glory of purple and gold more beautiful than his own full splendor. Yet
the little girl saw nothing of all this beauty. She was thinking of the
story in the Sabbath school book she had been reading,--the story of a
child's life; and she wondered if all that happened in the story could
be really true.

Jennie was pondering in her troubled brain a question which the reading
of the book had brought. What could it be? Evidently it was not to be
answered easily, for her face only grew more clouded, until at last she
resolved to ask the help of some wiser mind.

Fortunately, Jennie knew that she had but to make her perplexities
known to her mother and they would all be explained in the clearest way;
so, seating herself in her rocking-chair by her mother's side, she
said:--