"No, my dear! As soon as you have finished that, you will want to do something else just as much. Remember morrow is Sunday, and we have our necessary work to do before Church, so it will not answer to be late in the morning."
Ethel almost wished it were any other day, but she was accustomed to implicit obedience, so she picked up her papers, and put away her colors with a very good grace. She tried hard to prevent the thought of her new employment from intruding on her prayers, and succeeded pretty well; but her dreams were haunted by pictures, and she thought of them the first thing in the morning. She could not resist the temptation to take a peep at her work of the night before, and had even taken her brush is hand to alter the shading of the old woman's cap, when she recollected herself, and put the pencil away with a blush.
"It would be as bad as Abby doing her arithmetic on Sunday, for fear she should not finish it before Holidays."
As her mother said, Ethel had too much the habit of drawing comparisons between Abby and herself. She was given to nourish a Pharisaic spirit of thanking God that she was not as others.
For once, Sunday seemed a long day to Ethel. She could not interest herself in her favorite pursuits—her Sunday-school book seemed dull, and she was tempted to speak harshly to the children several times in the course of the afternoon.
Her father remarked her impatience, and took an opportunity of saying gently, "Ethel, if your employment is going to spoil your Sundays, it would be better to give it up at once. Your earnings will cost more than they come to, if they lead you into sin."
Ethel acknowledged her fault, and made an effort to do better. She called the children to her, and began to tell them Bible stories. And when they were tired of that, she interested herself in her lessons for next Sunday, so that the afternoon passed more quickly than she had supposed possible.
Monday being washing day, Ethel had more work to do than usual, so that she had no time to touch her pictures before school. When she arrived at the school-house, she found Rosa and Bessy waiting for her, anxious to know the result of her conference with their uncle. Ethel told them of the bargain she had made.
"That is more than he gives us," remarked Bessy, rather inclined to be hurt at first.
"Ethel does them better than we," said sweet-tempered little Rosa. "You know uncle would not trust those flower paintings with us, for fear we should spoil them."