Contented in the midst of poverty, happy in the consciousness of moral improvement, patient under suffering, and pious without cant, or affectation of superior godliness, she offered, under the most painful circumstances, a rare example of Christian resignation to the will of God. While reading the Gospel at school, as a portion of her daily task, it had pleased the All-Wise Dispenser of that blessed revelation to man, to open her eyes to the importance of those noble truths that were destined to set her free from the bondage of sin and death. She read, and believing that she had received a message from the skies, like the man who found the pearl of great price, she gave her whole heart and soul to God, in order to secure such an inestimable treasure. The sorrows and trials of her lowly lot were to her as stepping-stones to the heavenly land, on which all her hopes were placed, and she regarded the fatal disease which wasted her feeble frame, and which had now confined her to the same bed with her mother, as the means employed by God to release her from the sufferings of earth, and open for her the gates of heaven. How earnestly, yet how tenderly, she tried to inspire her afflicted mother with the same hopes that animated her breast! She read to her, she prayed with her, and endeavoured to explain in the best way she could that mysterious change which had been wrought in her own soul, and which now, on the near approach of death, filled her mind with inexpressible joy. This reading of the Scriptures was a great consolation to the poor widow, and one day she remarked in a tone of deep regret and with many tears-- "Who will read the Bible to me, Charlotte, when you are gone? Mary cannot read, and if she could, who could understand what she read, and Sophy hates everything that is serious, and is too selfish to trouble herself to read aloud to me." "Mother, I have thought much about that of late," said the sick girl, raising herself on the pillow into a sitting posture, and speaking with great earnestness. "The doctor said yesterday that I might survive for six or seven weeks longer,--'perhaps,' he added, 'until the latter end of Autumn.' During that time, could I not teach you to read?" "At fifty years of age, Charlotte?" and the poor widow smiled at the enthusiasm of her child. "And why not, mother?" said Charlotte, calmly. "It would be a great comfort to you, during the long, lonely hours you pass in bed; the thing may appear difficult, but I assure you that it is not impossible." "And then your weak state; think how it would fatigue you, my dear child?" "So far from that, mother, it would afford me the greatest delight," and the sick girl clasped her thin, wasted hands together, and looked upward with an expression of gratitude and love beaming on her pale, placid face.