"Katie," said Eric, "you remember _I_ told you that you should not work one moment longer than you wanted to. A girl with two strong brothers to support her need not work for her living unless she chooses to. Do you want to stop now?" "I _want_ to, ever so much," said the girl, "but I don't _mean_ to. Do you think I am a baby to begin a thing and then leave it off again? There's just as much reason as there ever was for my earning money. I'm not going to be dependent upon you, and mother is growing older every day. Do you remember what the Bible says about those who put their hands to the plough and look back? I don't mean to be one of those; and I mean to pray every day," she said more softly, "that I may be more patient and persevering." Eric understood her, and even Alfred respected his sister the more for what he could not understand. "I wish I knew some way of making money faster," said Katie to her brothers soon after; "a great deal, I mean. Mother wants any quantity of things--blankets, and kitchen utensils, and table things, and she hasn't a bonnet fit to go to church in. It takes about all we can make to feed us all, and if there is any left she always uses it to buy things for us instead of thinking about herself." "I wonder how it is mothers never think of themselves," said Alfred. "They are always fussing to make us happy, and we don't do things for them at all." Katie thought of the words:-- "As one whom his mother comforteth," which had been in last Sunday's lesson, but did not say them aloud, only it was a comfort to her to think of the other holy words which say of a mother and her child: "She may forget, yet will not I forget thee." No matter how much a mother may love, God loves us better still. One day about that time, Bertie Sanderson, following her usual custom of looking around the room instead of at her work, saw something that caused her to start, open her eyes very wide, and then mutter half-aloud:-- "Oho! the saints are not so saintly after all. It's dishonest to look around the room, is it? I wonder what you call that!" "Bertie Sanderson, talking, as usual," said Miss Peters, marking the fine upon the slate which she always carried with her," and Katie Robertson, too," noting a sudden flush upon the face of the latter. "I _am_ surprised." "I did not speak," said Katie, respectfully, but with some confusion. "There's no harm in talking to yourself," said Bertie, in the rude tone which she usually addressed to Miss Peters. "Were not those girls talking, Gretchen," said the superintendent, appealing to a stout German who worked near the others. "No, ma'am, I believe not; at least, Katie wasn't. I heard Bertie say something, but Katie did not answer, but"--