"Thy wants are easily supplied then," replied the good man, as he filled her tumbler, and laid a slice of bread upon her plate. Again Emma thought of the "sincere milk of the word," and looking at the plain old farmer, she wondered if he had not grown to the stature of a Christian, by means of this simple charity. "Has thee been long out of health?" asked the farmer. Emma was not startled by this question, though her mother and sister, had they been present, would have considered it a rudeness. "I was very healthy when a little child," replied Emma. "This feebleness came on me by degrees,--I can scarcely tell when it commenced." "Very likely," replied the farmer. "I lost two sisters by consumption; they appeared much as thee does." "Father!" exclaimed Margaret; and the old gentleman recollected himself. "I don't conclude from this," said he, "that thy case is one of consumption:" and he looked kindly into Emma's face, as though desiring to be both considerate and sincere. "It would not alarm me to hear you call it by that name," replied Emma. "I am in the habit of regarding death as at the door; and wish so to do, because I am thus constantly reminded that what my hands find to do must be done with my might." "I am glad to hear such a testimony from thee," said the old man, earnestly. "It is a pity that any of us should forget the work to be done in this world, and the shortness of time." The dinner was now over, and Emma, greatly refreshed, shook hands with the farmer and his family, promising to call again; and then took the short way of the main road to her own home. The old man looked after her, as her white dress glanced through the green trees by the roadside, until she descended the hill, and was out of sight. "What does thee think of that child, Sarah?" he asked, turning to his wife. "Well, Enoch," was the reply; "_I_ think that she is ripening for glory." The good woman was not of the same religious persuasion with her husband; but this small matter never interrupted the most cordial interchange of religious sympathy between them; and now his eyes filled with tears, and he felt as he had often done before, that "the Spirit" moved Sarah to give this testimony. "Margaret," said he, turning to his daughter, "thee can learn a great deal from that child, though she is much younger than thyself." Margaret felt the slight pettishness which always attended a reference to her age, and was about to ask her father how he knew her to be much older than Emma Lindsay; but a more rational feeling had been roused in her heart, and for once it predominated over this folly.