"NoT slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.”

"Provide things honest in the sight of all men."

"If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own houshold, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.”

LITTLE GEOFFREY.

It was a warm summer evening, the school had long since broke up for the day, and Ellen Foster was sitting by the door of her grandmother's cottage, looking idly up the lane. The house was on the outskirts of the village, and almost from its little garden rose high up into the air the deep beech woods of Arlington; the large long house was distinctly visible, and very magnificent it looked from its size and situation, crowning the eminence on which it stood and surrounded on all sides by noble trees.

But Ellen Foster was in no mood for admiring the scene; she was thinking with a sad heart, what a dreary life hers was; her grandmother was fretful and impatient, and required a great deal of attention, and she did not much like her school, which seemed very irksome and full of constraint at times; she suspected that she was no favourite with the mistress; and she knew

that she was not with her companions. She was now occupied in contrasting the princely mansion on the top of the hill with the humble cottage that she dwelt in at its foot. While she thus stood dreamily by the house door, two figures on horseback appeared in the lane; the one an elderly gentleman of very venerable appearance, the other a young lady who might be about twenty years of age. Ellen knew them at once to be Sir Hugh Fleming and his niece; a third figure was following them, a groom in a bright livery and splendidly mounted. Miss Fleming was the greatest heiress in the county; in a few years Arlington was to be her own, which she was to inherit in right of her mother who was lately dead. Ellen Foster looked at the cavalcade, and sighed again. Sir Hugh and his niece and their attendant rode past in silence. Miss Fleming who was said to be as haughty as she was beautiful, did not see the little girl who curtseyed to her as she passed.

"You have not begun your task this evening," said old widow Foster, as her grand-daughter re-entered the house.

"There will be plenty of time for it," said Ellen, who took up, as she spoke, her bonnet and shawl, and commenced putting them on.

"Where are you going to, Ellen ?" asked the old lady.

"I am going to Sophy White," replied the little girl impatiently, "to ask her to come out for a walk."

"If you go any where, you should go and see your cousin Geoffrey; your aunt told me to-day that you had not been lately to see him."

"I don't want to go, now," said Ellen, impatiently; "besides, I am going to Sophy White; Geoffrey makes me wretched to be long with him ;" and she left the house as she spoke, and walked down the village towards the cottage where Sophy White lived; before she arrived at it she came to a road which cut across the village; here she stopped involuntarily; were she to turn to the right, she would be taken to her cousin Geoffrey, if she went straight on she would come to the dwelling of the Whites; she stopped, and hesitated which should she do; she knew which she ought to do; the choice was between a pleasant ramble with one of her schoolfellows, or an hour spent in the close confinement of a sick room; which will she do? How awful are these moments! when in the common path of daily life we are called perpetually to choose between the good and the evil; such choices are

often about apparent trifles, but how awful, I say, are they to us all, when we think that they are forming what we call our characters, and are laying their stamp upon us for eternity.

The evening could not be finer, no companion could be more cheerful than Sophy, she had already declared her intention of following her own pleasure; but she paused, as there came over her a vision of little Geoffrey's pale suffering face,the path to the right was taken, the pleasure foregone, the duty chosen.

But, as she walked on, the thoughts which she had but now entertained returned. "I wish I were an heiress," she said, unconsciously and aloud, "a great house, a high name, plenty of money, horses, carriages, and attendance." Ellen Foster had once been up to the great house, and the spacious richly furnished rooms were not forgotten in her picture; she was puzzled while she thought for almost the first time of the great contrast between rich and poor; all the blessings of life seemed on the one side, all the sufferings on the other. "I wish I were an heiress," she thought again and again, as she walked up to her uncle's cottage. A fair and quiet spot it was, surrounded by a well kept garden, the windows looking along a great expanse of down,