Bella looked up with shining eyes and a flush on her cheeks. "Aunt Maggie, I came to-day to ask if you would help me to get a little place. I felt as if I couldn't go on living at home as it is now. It is so uncomfortable, and I thought I would like to go out in service. I know I am very young, but——"
Mrs. Langley was looking at her with a grave face, but very kindly eyes. "I know how you felt, dear; but it seems to me plain enough that your place is at home. You see, you're the eldest, and the others are but little things, and if you want Margery to know anything about her dear mother, you must teach her, and 'tis you must help to train her up to be what her mother would have wished her to be."
Bella's bright, eager eyes filled with tears. "I wish mother was here," she cried, "it's all so different now, and so miserable!"
"I know, I know; but, child, you must try and remember how it would have grieved your poor mother, if she could know that her children's home was unhappy, and then tell yourself that it is going to be your work to make it different—to make it what she would wish it to be."
Bella's tears gradually ceased. "But how can I begin, and when?" she asked hopelessly.
"Begin to-day, and with the first chance you see. Be content to begin with little things in a little way. Don't expect to make great changes, and set all right at once. You have to take these words as your motto, 'Patience, Pluck, and Perseverance.'"
Bella's face brightened. It cheered her heart to feel that she could do something, and do, too, what her mother would have had her do. It was with less reluctance than usual that she got up to go back to her home.
"I often wish, Aunt Maggie," she said affectionately, "that I could live with you, but it would never do, would it?"
"I often wish so, too, dear. Good-bye now. Run home quickly, you may be wanted."
Bella ran up the lane with a very much lighter heart than she usually bore. She was fired with the thought of her new endeavours, and anxious to begin. She would keep her eyes always open to see things that she could do,—and almost as the thought was passing through her mind her chance came, for as she opened her own gate she saw that the fowl-house door was standing wide, and that the hens were scattered all over the garden, scratching up the beds.