"Could you do that?" cried Tom in surprise. "I never heard of anything like this horrid infection!"
"I know of one thing that is like it," said Susan, gravely, "the infection of a sinful example. Evil spreads from one soul to another, as fever from person to person. Oh! How grievous it would be by one's works or one's words to give something far worse than any sickness to those whom we love."
"I suppose," observed Tom, "that bad men are shut up in prison that they mayn't infect other people with their wicked example."
"There are many who do harm in that way, whom no one would think of shutting up," replied Susan. "The selfish, the idle, the worldly, the proud, may be spreading the infection of their faults around them, and yet their company may be thought very good, and not dangerous in the least. No one would willingly take a fever, but how many willingly take bad advice, and follow an evil example."
"But what is to be done about the dinners?" interrupted Jessy. "It would never do to pack up scarlet fever with potatoes and mutton."
Susan considered for a moment or two. "Giles seems very good-natured," she observed. "Perhaps he would kindly take the trouble of not only buying the stamps, but putting them up in the letter!"
"That will do famously," cried Jessy.
Susan then removed the cloth from the table, and carried away the plates and dishes. The heart of the young maid warmed towards her little charge.
"I doubt that my dear young lady ever before thought of helping the needy," reflected Susan, "and now she does so simply from kindness of heart; she knows nothing yet of mercy to the poor, shown as a proof of grateful love to the Lord. But it is well to make a beginning," said Susan to herself, as she carried the tray downstairs. "The time may come when Jessy will delight in doing good, with the means and power to do much, such as I never will have.
"Ah! The tiniest spark that glimmers in a night-light may kindle a very large fire, or a beacon that will be seen for many miles round! Who knows but that, by God's blessing, a poor nursery-maid's simple teaching may be the means of drawing children's hearts to the Lord; and that these children, in future days, may be burning and shining lights, so as both by their words and works to glorify their Father in Heaven!"