the mother would reserve time for the care and culture of these little
ones, who were given over to Dora with but one hope--the forlorn
one--that she would save them alive. This the old lady could not
promise to do; for she understood that having the sentence of death in
ourselves, we are not to trust human means and precautions, but only
Him who raiseth the dead. She, however, cheerfully undertook the
precious charge committed to her trust; glad from her heart that the
poor lambs had been saved from the slaughter, and praying most
earnestly that they might be claimed by the Great Shepherd, and
gathered to his fold.

Martha was a very quiet, thoughtful child, with speech and manner much
beyond her years; she was not, therefore, strictly confined to the
nursery, but allowed to mingle freely with her mother's guests. Emma,
on the contrary, was much younger, and full of wayward humors. She
greatly needed a mother; but the sacred writer has declared, "She that
liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth." How many little hearts
have proved the bitterness of that truth! God in mercy saved little
Emma from this sad experience, by raising up for her infancy and
childhood such a friend as was the pious, faithful Dora.

"It is a promising bud," thought the good woman, "but it may wither
even without the blight of fashion; so I will try to secure for it an
immortal bloom."

Thus in the morning Dora sowed her seed, the "good seed" for an
immortal harvest; and soon the tender blade began to appear--a most
ungainly thing in the eyes of her mother; for the first fruit of Dora's
good seed, as shown by little Emma, was a great love of truth--a love
which as yet she knew not how to regulate or apply. She was a beautiful