their small parties at home. Very different, however, was this pleasure
from that which she had formerly sought and experienced.

"What a change in Emma Lindsay!" was an exclamation frequent among her
mother's friends. "Her pertness, repartee, and saucy witticisms are all
gone. What have they been doing for her? This winning softness and
grace of manner seems foreign to her nature."

"I never thought," said another, "that I should come to love Emma
Lindsay; but I do, and cannot help it--she is so lovely, so polite, and
yet so _sincere_." A mystery, indeed, to the worldly wise, how
politeness and sincerity could be made to embrace each other.

The solemn subjects of death and eternity were matters of frequent and
free conversation between Emma and her pious friend; and now, though
there seemed some respite from the speedy execution of the sentence,
"Thou shalt die, and not live," neither thought of the matter in any
other light than that of a _little_ time given for work important to be
done. Happy for Emma that she took this view of the subject, since it
saved her from that remissness too common among the followers of
Christ.

"The Lord seems to have need of me," Emma would say to the good Dora;
while she would answer, "Yes, dear, but be ready for him at his coming;
be sure that you are able to say, 'I have _finished_ the work thou
gavest me to do.'"

Notwithstanding these favorable indications, as it regarded the health
of her daughter, Mrs. Lindsay was sometimes roused from her security by
symptoms less favorable, and at last resolved to follow the advice of