Some of Minnie's books were lost as usual, when at last she was free to go, for although she had tried, and been pretty successful too, in keeping her books together since her promise to do so, they sometimes reverted to their old habit of getting lost again, and to-day she had almost fallen back to her former careless state.
Mona looked on from time to time when she could spare a minute from her work, and at last observed in her most sarcastic manner that "fair words were easily spoken and light vows swiftly broken."
Minnie flared up in a moment.
"Fair words are easily spoken, as you say, Mona," she retorted, "you speak of what you know nothing. It may be so. Sharp things cost more, I dare say, and that is doubtless why they are generally more successful in their aim."
Mona laughed disagreeably, and enquired with mock politeness, "at what object Minnie might at present be aiming."
She was about to retort with a bitterness scarcely less penetrating than Mona's own sharp thrusts, when she suddenly checked herself, and putting her books which she had now collected under her arm, she walked out without even waiting for Mabel, lest she should find the temptation to speak too strong for her. Her heart was very heavy as she walked homewards, and her eyes would keep filling with tears.
Only last night she had been so happy in her efforts to do good, and here she was, actually as bad as any of the people she had been flattering herself she could reform. What was she to do? she asked herself a hundred times, and then it occurred to her that she must tell God about it.
She hastened home, and shutting herself into her room poured out all her sorrow and contrition into the ear of Him who is ever ready to hear and comfort. When she rose she felt both refreshed and strengthened, and after a little while something came into her mind which she had, only by chance, heard the minister say yesterday. She could not tell the exact words, for she had only a vague remembrance of it, but it was something about the mistake of allowing anything, however good and right it might be in itself, to come between us and our present duty.
"That is just the mistake I have fallen into," thought Minnie, "I ought to have been attending to my lessons, which were clearly of the first importance at the time, and having gone wrong at the beginning, I naturally fell into a great many other scrapes. I must remember that about present duty. I am rather afraid I allowed the same thing to occur yesterday in church, or I should have been better able to recollect the words I wanted just now."
On the afternoon of the following day, which happily contained no cause of regret to Minnie, she and Mabel went down to the vacant cottage, and occupied themselves for about two hours busily and happily in rendering it fit for their purpose. They were determined to do all the scrubbing and cleaning themselves, so on that and the two following afternoons all the time they could spare was devoted to the work.