They bless him that gives, if not him that takes the
offering. By and bye, however, a few indications of the working of the
good system appeared. Miss Webster would offer to come and sit and chat
with aunt Agnes when Emilie was teaching or walking; and aunt Agnes in
return taught Miss Webster knitting stitches and crochet work. Miss
Webster would clean Emilie's straw bonnet, and when asked for the bill,
she would say that it came to nothing; and would now and then send up a
little offering of fruit or fish, when she thought her lodgers' table
was not well supplied. Little acts in themselves, but great when we
consider that they were those of an habitually cold and selfish person.
She did not express love; but she showed the softening influence of
affection, and Emilie at least understood and appreciated it.
Fred had perhaps the hardest work of all the actors on this little
stage; he thought so at least. Joe White was an unamiable and, as Fred
expressed it, a sneaking boy. He had never been accustomed to have his
social affections cultivated in childhood, and consequently, he grew up
into boyhood without any heart as it is called.
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