“Sophy Trimmer.”
“Where does your father live?”
“He lives just round the corner.”
“You should be very thankful that your life has been spared,” said Mrs. Claremont.
Sophy did not look at all thankful, she only glanced sadly down on her torn dress, and whimpered, “Just new on to-day.”
“You remind me,” said the lady, “of a story which I read in the papers some years ago. A lady was going in a vessel to Scotland, and carried with her a quantity of jewels to the value of a thousand pounds. She thought so much of these jewels, that she was heard to say, that she would almost as soon part with life itself as lose them. An accident happened to the vessel on the way to Scotland; the water rushed into the cabins, and the poor lady was taken out drowned.”
“That is a shocking story,” said Sophy.
“She could not carry her jewels with her to another world. But there is one ornament which even death itself has no power to take away.”
“What can that ornament be?”
“An ornament more precious than the crown of the Queen, ‘the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is, in the sight of God, of great price’ (1 Pet. iii. 4). The poorest may wear this—the rich are poor without it. O my child, care not to appear fair in the eyes of your fellow-mortals, but in the sight of God; your ‘adorning, let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible’” (1 Pet. iii. 3, 4).