"Ah Ella, don't you remember the other day you told me you thought you had been trying to please God all these weeks that you have been so good, and I told you then that I was afraid you were only trying to please me? And now, my dear child, do you not see that I was right? A desire to please your friends, Ella, is a good motive, but it is not the best. You must learn to do right because it is right, and pleasing in the sight of God. It is easy to deceive our friends and ourselves, but we cannot deceive God. He looks at the motives—at the feelings and desires of the heart, while we can see only the outward conduct. Dear Ella, I wish I could see you a child of God, striving to please him in all your ways."
"I do mean to try to be good when you're gone, Miss Layton; but I know I can't."
"Not if you try in your own strength, Ella; but you must ask help of God. Ask him to give you a new heart, my child—a heart that will hate sin, because it is so displeasing to him—a heart loving holiness, and earnestly desiring to please and glorify God. And if you ask these things with your whole heart, and in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ, God will hear and grant your petitions, for he says, 'Ask and ye shall receive; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you.' And he tells us that he is more willing to give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him, than parents are to give good gifts unto their children.
"You try to please me, Ella, because you love me; but, O my child, how much more ought you to love your Saviour! I have shown you a little kindness, but what is that compared with what Jesus has done for you? Think how he left that beautiful heaven, and came down to our little world, and suffered, and bled, and died, that he might save you and me. O Ella, how can we help loving him with all our hearts, and striving to please him every moment of our lives! 'Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and gave his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.'"
In a few weeks, Mr. Crane, the new teacher, came, and school commenced again. Mr. Crane proved to be very much such a teacher as Mr. Burton, though perhaps not quite so severe. Unfortunately, Ella was not at all disposed to like him, nor indeed anybody who took Miss Layton's place; and he seemed to take a dislike to her from the first. Sallie Barnes, too, went to school again, and seeming to dislike Ella more than ever, was continually trying to get her into trouble. There would have been constant quarrelling between them, had not Mary Young acted as peace-maker, and done her best to keep them apart. Mary tried to take Miss Layton's place to Ella, and did all she could to encourage her to industry and attention; and she often talked to her of the love of Christ, trying to lead her to the Saviour, and telling her of the happiness she had found in his service. Still it was a very uncomfortable winter to Ella. She did not become quite as careless and indolent as she had formerly been, nor indulge her temper quite so much, yet she was bad enough to be often in disgrace, both at home and at school.
The winter seemed very long, but spring did come at last, and Ella was busy in her little garden, and again she planted flowers on her mother's grave, and went every day to water them and see how they grew. One evening, when on her way there, as usual, she met Mary Young; and they walked on together.
"Come, Mary," said Ella, when they had reached the churchyard gate, "come in with me, and see how pretty my mother's grave looks; the flowers are all growing so nicely, and the rose-bush has some buds on it already."
They went in; but when they reached the grave, what a scene of desolation met their view! Some one had been there before them, and pulled up all the flowers by the roots, trampled them in the dust, and even cut off the rose-bush close to the ground. Ella stood a moment struck speechless with astonishment and dismay, then bursting into tears, she exclaimed, passionately:
"It was that wicked Sallie Barnes! I know it was! What a mean, bad, wicked girl she is! I hate her, so I do; and I hope somebody will go and tear up all her flowers, and spoil all her garden, for I know she did this!"
"O Ellie, Ellie! how can you say so?" said Mary. "I am very sorry for you, very sorry indeed; but I did not think you would have been so wicked, as to say that you hate anybody."