“Because a few months ago Agnes was much more given to picking holes than to sewing them up,” answered the boy. “I liked to plague her and she to tease me, and I thought that we should always live a kind of cat-and-dog life together. But now we’re going to be grand allies,” added the merry boy, clapping Agnes upon the shoulder; “by your example you’ll help to mend my manners as well as my gloves!”
Lucius spoke in his saucy playful way, but “there’s many a true word spoken in jest,” and he was but expressing what all the family had observed, that there was gradual but steady improvement in the outer conduct of the once peevish and selfish girl.
But the sharpest conflict of Agnes upon her twelfth birthday had been against a jealous spirit within. From a few words dropped by her aunt on the previous evening, Agnes felt sure that her mother’s likeness would be given as a birthday present to one of the twins, and she had not a doubt that the younger would be the one thus favored.
“It was just the same last birthday,” thought Agnes with bitterness: “I am given some makeshift, Dora has what is really of value. It is rather hard that she should always be preferred before her elder sister because she is called after my aunt, whilst I am named after my mother. But oh! how wicked is this feeling of jealousy, how sinful these unkind and covetous thoughts! Lord! help me to overcome this secret temptation, and to feel pleasure, real pleasure, when I see Dora wearing that which is so precious to us both!”
As the thought, or rather the prayer, passed through the mind of Agnes, the door opened and Miss Clare entered, followed by Dora. The lady held the beautiful brooch in her hand, and going up to the elder twin whom she had not met before on that morning, with a kiss and a whispered blessing, fastened the precious jewel on her breast.
That twenty-fourth day of December was a day long remembered with delight by many a poor child in Chester, for large was the number of scholars (it would be scarcely just to call them ragged) who enjoyed the feast and the varied amusements provided for them in the large red house by their benefactress, Miss Clare.
Specially was the beautiful, the wonderful model which the young gentlefolk had made, the theme of many a conversation in the low courts and lanes from which the guests had been gathered. Worn, weary mothers, at their sewing or washing, paused, needle in hand, or with arms whitened with soap-suds, to hear of the golden pillars, and silver loops, and above all of the splendid embroidery that adorned the inner part of the model, that part which, as Miss Clare had told them, was called the Holy of holies.
“And the young ladies looked just as pleased and happy as we,” a bare-footed little urchin observed at the end of a lively narration of all the wonders that he had seen; “all but one, and her eyes were red as if she’d been a-crying,—what could she have had to make her cry? But she smiled, too, when we clapped our hands and shouted for joy as we saw the beautiful tent!”
What delighted their eyes, and pleased their fancy, was what naturally made the greatest impression on the ragged scholars who had stared in wondering admiration on the model of the Tabernacle of Israel. But the concluding words of a little address made by Miss Clare to the children were what sank deepest into the memories and hearts of her twin nieces.