However, by the time her cousin arrived she had schooled herself into receiving her with composure, and even something like cordiality. Emma was a brown little thing, with sad eyes and stooping figure, several years younger than Mabel. She certainly was not an attractive child, and Mabel said to herself a dozen times a day,—"I cannot love her! I shall never be reconciled to having her here."
One day nurse said,—
"She follows one with those great hungry eyes, and it seems as though she was just hungering for love."
Quickly there flashed through Mabel's mind the words,—
"For I was an hungered and ye gave me no meat; I was a stranger and ye took me not in;" and then she remembered the "inasmuch" which concludes this passage.
Now Mabel was a young Christian, and she had much to learn. It had not before occurred to her that she could make the disagreeable duty of loving and cherishing her cousin into something done "for His sake." But now with this motive she could rise above the unpleasantness, and she soon became not only tolerant of her presence, but quite fond of the forlorn child, who, under the softening influences of home love, became herself quite lovable.
[FRETTING LETTIE.]
"LET! Let! Lettie!"
"I do wish," snapped Lettie Edmonds, as her brother Sidney rushed into the room, "that you wouldn't call me Let. I'm sure it is not so hard to speak two syllables together, Sid."
"Oh! I suppose Sid-ney is much more difficult, or perhaps your organs of speech are more delicate than mine. But I say, mother says for you to come and pare the potatoes for dinner."