Polly's work was to be sunshine in her home, and to assist her mother in the delicate needlework to which she had long been accustomed. After a time, she was sunshine in another pleasant home; but this was years afterwards, when her mother ceased to need her help.
Bessie's work was to teach other little girls what she had learned, first from her Sunday school teacher, and afterwards from other teachers to whom both she and her sister were sent by the good friend whom God had sent to them in their need.
Bessie was a very apt scholar, as you may judge from what you have already been told; and afterwards, she was such a kind teacher, that all her little pupils loved her very dearly indeed. And you would have loved her too, if you had known her.
It is at a pleasant home in the country where we shall last see Mrs. Reardon and her two daughters. It is a neat cottage with a porch in front, over which roses and honeysuckles are twining; for it is a June day, and the roses are in full bloom—so are the honeysuckles. Mrs. Reardon is rather infirm now; but she has a pleasant, thoughtful face, which it does one good to see. She is watering her flower-garden in front, when she hears voices at a little distance which gives her quite a start. So she puts down her watering-pot and goes to the gate, which she opens just in time to be caught in the arms of her own Polly, now quite a motherly woman herself, while another person, by Polly's side, says laughing:
"There, mother; I am as good as my word, you see; I have brought Sunshine to you again."
"And Bessie is just behind, mother," says Mrs.—, Polly, I mean. "We were not coming without her."
"And between us all," says the gentleman, who is very much like Mr. Marshall grown young again, and is indeed his nephew, "we shall manage, I hope, for to-day at any rate, to keep the wolf from the door."
LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES & SONS, LIMITED.