It would have astonished any one unaccustomed to the few wants of simple tastes, and to the many small gains from various trifling produce which careful industry alone can accumulate, to see the plenty consequent on skill, order, and neatness. The happiness was a joy apart, only to be felt by the sort of poetic mind of the truly benevolent, for it depended not on luxury, or even comfort, or any purely selfish feeling. It sprang from warm hearts directed by clear heads, invigorated by religious feelings, and nourished by country tastes, softened and elevated by the trials of life, till devotion to their kind became the one intention of their being; for it is as Sisters of Charity we introduce our heroines to our readers, one of a wide class in our reformed church, who, unshackled by vows, under no bondage of conventual forms, with small means, and by their own exertions and self-sacrifices, do more good in their generation than can be easily reckoned--treading in the footsteps of their Master, bearing healing as they move. Every frugal meal was shared with some one less favoured. No fragments were too small for use in Sister Anne's most skilful cookery; not a crumb, nor a dreg, nor a drop was wasted. Many a cup of comfort fed the sick or the weary, made from what, in richer households, unthrifty servants would have thrown away. There were always roots to spare from the small garden, herbs for medicines, eggs for sale, salves, and lotions, and conserves of fruit or honey. All the poor infants in the parish were neatly clothed in baby-linen made out of old garments. There were always bundles of patches to give away, so useful to poor mothers; strips of rag for hurts; old flannel, and often new; a little collection of rubbish now and then for the bagman, though very rarely, the breakage being small where there were so few hands used, and they so careful.