"I know you are not perfect, Ella, but you are strangely changed, and I can plainly see that you are trying to serve God."
"Give the glory where it is due, dear aunt Prudence; but Oh, how happy I am! I feel as if I had nothing more to ask for, now that you, my dear aunt, will be my companion in my pilgrimage. God has heard my prayers. He is indeed 'the hearer, and answerer of prayer.' But, aunt Prudence, you had two much brighter examples of piety before you, in my mother and Miss Layton; did not the beautiful consistency of their lives convince you of the truth and value of religion?"
"I never knew them until years after their conversion, and when I was forced to notice how good and amiable they were, I said to myself, It is their natural disposition; but I knew what you were by nature, so that that excuse did not avail me then, and I could not but acknowledge to myself, that nothing but the power of God could have wrought such a change. And I bless God for the affliction, with which he has visited me this winter, for while confined to my bed unable to do anything, and often with nothing but my thoughts to occupy me, I seemed to be compelled to think of my past life, and to consider my latter end."
During the ensuing summer, Miss Clinton's health was almost entirely restored. She also recovered the money she had lost, and they returned to S——, to their old home. Mary and Ella were rejoiced to be once more near each other; able to take sweet counsel together, to walk together to the house of God, and together to talk of their common hopes and joys. All her old neighbours were surprised to see the strange change in Miss Prudence. The quiet, gentle, humble woman that returned to them, was so different from the loud, boisterous, proud and passionate woman that went away, that they knew not what to make of it. They all agreed that she was very much improved, but no one enjoyed the change so keenly as Ella. There was now no discord in her home, but peace and love reigned in its stead. Aunt Prudence, from being her greatest trial, had become her dearest earthly comfort: formerly, they seemed to have nothing in common; now,
"Their fears, their hopes, their aims were one,
Their comforts and their cares."
"Aunt Prudence," said Ella to her aunt, one day a few months after their return, "the school Miss Layton had when she was here last, is now without a teacher, and a gentleman was speaking to me yesterday about taking it; what do you say?"
"I think you had better not; there is no longer any necessity for you to exert yourself, unless you are too proud to depend upon me."
"I confess that I prefer being independent, aunt, though I hope it is not pride that makes me feel so; but setting that reason aside, I still feel a desire to teach. I think that scarcely any one has more opportunities for doing good than a christian teacher, and it is certainly our duty to do all the good we can; to use every talent in the service of our Master. 'To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.' You know I succeeded in my first effort so well, that the parents of my pupils urged me to stay, and continue my school; I think that proves that I have a talent for teaching, and if I have, ought I not to use it?"
"Think of the great, the solemn responsibility, Ella."
"I have thought of it, aunt Prudence, and I feel that it is a very great responsibility; but would I get rid of it by burying my talent in the earth?"