A GOOD THOUGHT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2006, 4 August 1892, Page 40

A GOOD THOUGHT.

(Written for tho Witness Little Folks, by "Alice.") (Continued.)

When Anuio and Willie were baken to bhe hospital to see their father, bhey found him much worse than had been at firsb supposed. His injury would detain him for some months, and the question arose whab was to become of the children. Upon their Becond visit, howover, they saw tho blind lady seated by their fabher's bed, and she had a plan to propose. She had had an interview with Mr Tanner, with whom she was acquainted, and he had offered bo keep Willie and train him as a handy boy about the place, generously allowing him the mornings to go bo school. Annio wns to go to Mrs Payne. When Willie heard of these arrangements, to which his father gladly consented, he could scarcely contain himself for joy. He saw himself prospecbively a decenb working boy, with good clothes and good food, growing up a useful man, and once more he determined that his dream should be made to come true. Annie, however, looked ready to cry. She hated restraint, and wretched as was her home, she would rather stay there and take the risk of bad food and poor clothing than have certain duties to perform every day, even with the prospect of future reward. " She didn't want to go bo service," she declared, "specially bo be ordered aboub by anobh'er girl," and she frowned angrily as she remembered the trim appearance of the servant maid whom she had seen in the blind lady's house. "She wished," sho declared, "that she had never set eyes on the half-crown, much less hands," and only Willies glowing representations of the futuro could bring her to a more reasonable frame of mind. " We'd never be good for nothink if we went on like this," declared the boy, "an' I want to know things," he continued, " an' to do bhings, an' to do 'em proper, so as to grow up respectable." But Annie maintained they were all right as they were, and sho believed the more people know the more they had to do. Finally she allowed herself; to be taken possession of by Mrs Payne, and was installed as a permanent inmabe of her clean kitchen.

If Annie could have had her own way there she would have been more content, but the bitterest part of the whole thing was that Mrs Payne's trusty and clever maid Martha was mistress there. If Annie had been left alone to cook the dinner her mistress would have been half poisoned, bub still it was gall and wormwood to obey. Annie had never learned obedience to any of superior talent or position, and many an angry tear fell as she cleaned the knives for " the other girl " to set on the clobh, or peeled bhe pobatoes for • ' the other girl" to cook and carry in to table. She did nob know, poor ignorant child, that everybody serves for love or wages through all the world. She envied Mrs and Miss Payne their pretty room, and above all their music ; but she did not think thab in another way Miss Payno worked hard for ib, and that she was not born able bo play bhe piano so well that she made money by ib. She did nob remember bhab from the firsb nobes, little by little, hour by hour, day by day, year by year, her young mistress had worked to gain her gift ; nor when she coveted the pictures on the walls did she thiuk that they were in anobher way bhe expressions of obher men's toil. It seemed to Annie like it seems bo many obhers, that all these accomplishments are gifts thab have dropped down oub of the skies, instead of being bhe result of one thing — work. Ib seemed very much bo Annie bhab bhe world had grown, and had been given in choice lots to favourite people. There used to be some angry hours out in . the kitchen when Martha and Annie both wept — Martha in mortification at Annie's rebellion, and Annie because she could not have her own way. Bub Mrs Payne genbly and firmly insisbed upon Annie learning the very commonest things well from the beginuing, and in much such words as I am ppeaking to you, tried to show the girl that before you can lead you must know the way.

Stumbling across her in the hall several times, after she had risen hastily from the piano, Mrs Payne discovered that Annie was a passionate lover of music. Here she thought would be a means of reaching her bearfc, and one evening drawing the child into the room she told her that when she could blacklead a grate so that it could not be made brighter, and kept the bricks in the yard scrupulously clean she would give her an hour's music lesson each day. All at once the world looked bright to Annie. To be able to bring music out of the quiet keys seemed to the child the most unspeakable delight. For the first time she felt a little affection for this gentle lady, who so unselfishly insisted upon doing her the best good in the world — that is, by making her do her best. That is the only real help we can be to x^eople, and when fathers and mothers are insisting upon the children doing the very best they can, they are teaching their children how to be happy, -because self-reliant, men and women.

After this Annie's execution with the blacklead brushes was very vigorous, and after careful application came skill, and Martha declared "she never saw the like."

Mrs Payne had a wonderful way of knowing things, although she was blind, and Annie used to declare she had got eyes in her fingers, for she would touch a thing, nnd know immediately whether it was all right or not ; feo th.tt when she pas&ed her linger tips over the polished surface of tho grates and smiled, Annie knew th.it it was all right, and that her first reward for accomplishment was about to come.

•'Now, Annie," said Mrs Payne kindly, "you are beginning to understand the meaning of what you thought my severity. You can blacklead a grate thoroughly. You have learned to do it well, and for always. You not only can do ib well yourself, but can now teach others who do not know how it should be done, so that you have gained two things. You can be of service to yourself and to others. This is the lesson I want to teach you, my dear — that the useful people are the only independent and powerful people. The world is so very much in earnest now that it will have things done well."

Then began the first music lesson, and Annie in this wits wonderfully quick — so much so that Mrs Payne herself grew interested, and saw the way to the girl's heart. As the months went on it was a very eager face that bent over the music book — a different face altogether from that which drooped so sullenly over the fire in the wretched room where the brother and sister had once found their home, and tho scrubbing brush went to many a simple tune as Annie sang at her work.

There used to come to tiho house very often two pretty little girls named Daisy and Muriel, and sometimes their mamma came with them in

the carriage, and upon these occasions, in a. neat muslin apron and cap, Annie, when she had grown handy enough, was allowed to carry in the tea and cakes, and do other little offices in the drawing room, and several times when the little girls came alone she was senb to walk home wibh them for company, for which services their mother gave Annie the prettiesb dress sho had ever had in her life. In this dress it was Annie's greatest joy to go out walking with her brother on Sunday afternoons. But I must tell you all about Willie in another chapter.

(To be continued.)