That will be
something new: now I will try my best!" Alice sprang from her chair,
and tripped from the apartment quite pleased with the idea. A smile
broke over Miss Clinton's features, after her niece had left her
alone. "How easily Alice might be trained to better things, by love
and gentleness," she said half aloud. "Oh! if she would only love
me, and turn to me fondly. How I would delight to breathe a genial
prayer over the buds of promise in her youthful heart, and fan them
to warmer life." More than an hour flew by, as Mary Clinton sat in
thought, devising plans to awaken her favourite to a true sense of
her duties--to a knowledge of her capabilities for happiness and
usefulness. We may be useful with a heart full of sadness; but we
can rarely taste of happiness, unless we are desirous to benefit
some one besides ourselves. A quietness came over the lonely one as
she mused--a spirit of beautiful repose; for she forgot all thoughts
of her own enjoyment, in caring for another.
"You are quite a physician, Aunt Mary, to a mind diseased,"
exclaimed Alice, breaking her revery as she came in with a smiling
face, after the performance of her unaccustomed labour.
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