Ethel had carried her sins, her temptations, and her thankfulness to the foot of the Cross, and she felt that she had there received forgiveness for the past, and strength for the future. Her late experience had taught her that when left to herself, she was not only no better, but it seemed not half as good as the people she had been looking down upon for two or three days, and she had learned a lesson of humility and self-distrust destined to be the beginning of a new spiritual life in her soul.
The chair came at eight o'clock while her parents were in church, and just after the boys had gone to bed, and was safely housed for the night in a closet opening from the hall. Something else came too—namely, an invitation from Mrs. Sarah Bertie to the whole family to spend Christmas evening at her house, "to meet a very few friends."
When Mrs. Fletcher returned, she decided that Aunt Sally's invitation must be accepted as a matter of course, and Ethel went to bed very tired but very happy, and expecting a pleasant Christmas day.
[Chapter Fourth.]
ON Christmas morning Ethel was awakened just as the church clocks were striking six. She jumped up at once, and lighting her candle, and partly dressing herself, she went down stairs to dispose her presents in the dining room.
"How cold it is!" she said, shivering, after she had finished her arrangements.
Just then her eye fell upon the basket of kindlings and charcoal set ready for morning use.
"I mean to make the fires," she continued, "and then it will be nice and warm for father and mother when they come down."