“IT is vexatious, my Dora, very vexatious,” said Miss Clare, in a tone of condolence; “it is trying to you, after all the pains which you have bestowed on your work, to see that work suddenly spoiled. But still take comfort, dear child, in the thought that no labor undertaken for our Master can really be lost.”
Dora sobbed more bitterly than before, for she knew that hers had not been labor undertaken for the Master, and she felt that her time and toil had been worse than lost.
Miss Clare did all that she could to comfort her favorite niece. She showed Dora the beautiful brooch which she herself valued so greatly; she told her that she had brought it as a birthday remembrance; but, much to the lady’s surprise, Dora only shook her head sadly, and sobbed forth, “Not for me—not for me! Oh, that model, I wish that I never had touched it—I wish that I had never set a stitch in one of those curtains!”
“I see that you are distressed, very naturally distressed, by the mishap which has befallen your curtains, fearing that thereby the whole model may be spoilt,” observed Theodora. “You are thinking of the disappointment of your brother and sisters, of the Ragged-school children who are coming to-day, of my friends who are invited to see the model. You think that there is no time to repair the effects of the spilling the scarlet ink; but I think that I see a way to remedy the mischief;” and Miss Clare, as she spoke, placed before the weeping girl her beautiful embroidered scarf. “I had intended to give this to Agnes when I gave you the miniature brooch, but I will now alter my plan. I will try to find out, or purchase, some other remembrance for Agnes; and, with a little alteration, do you not think, my sweet girl, that this work will do nicely for the inner curtains and veil?”
“A thousand times better than mine could have done!” exclaimed Dora, darting a glance of almost fierce dislike at the embroidery, now stained and marred, which she had once surveyed with such proud admiration.
“No, indeed,” said Miss Clare, very kindly; “for though the Indian scarf may be—certainly is in itself more beautiful than your curtains, we cannot see in it the same token of patient perseverance in making what was intended to be a humble offering of love to the Lord.”
“Oh, Aunt Theodora, I can stand this no longer!” exclaimed Dora, almost choking with the violence of her emotion; “you must know all, I can hide it no more; you must hear what a naughty, naughty girl I have been!”
Then, as well as she could through her tears and her sobs, Dora relieved herself of the burden of concealment which had become at last intolerable. She told everything to her aunt—the first fault, the breaking of the fourth commandment; then the falsehood, the deceit which had followed, for when did an unrepented sin ever stand alone! Dora concluded by passionately exclaiming, “You cannot, you must not, give me the brooch—Agnes has deserved it much better; she has been conquering her temper and doing all that she can to please mamma, while I have been only a hypocrite! Please give the brooch to Agnes, and the scarf for the model; I could not bear now to take either—I who have only deserved to be punished!”
Miss Clare was surprised, pained, disappointed by what she now heard; yet there was comfort to her in seeing that now at least her poor niece was heartily repenting.