"Hush, child!" said Johanna, reprovingly; for Hilary's cheeks were red, and her voice angry. She was taking the hot, youthful part which in its hatred of forms and shams, sometimes leads--and not seldom led poor Hilary--a little too far on the other side. "I think," Miss Leaf added, "that our business is with ourselves, and not with our neighbors. Let us keep the Sabbath according to our conscience. Only, I would take care never to do any thing which jarred against my neighbor's feelings. I would, like Paul, 'eat no meat while the world standeth' rather than 'make my brother to offend.' " Hilary looked in her sister's sweet, calm face, and the anger died out of her own. "Shall I give up my academy?" she said, softly. "No, my love. It is lawful to do good on the Sabbath day, and teaching a poor ignorant girl to write is an absolute good. Make her understand that, and you need not be afraid of any harm ensuing." "You never will make her understand," said Selina, sullenly. "She is only a servant." "Nevertheless I'll try." Hilary could not tell how far she succeeded in simplifying to the young servant's comprehension this great question, involving so many points--such as the following of the spirit and the letter, the law of duty and the compulsion of love, which, as she spoke, seemed opening out so widely and awfully that she herself involuntarily shrank from it, and wondered that poor finite creatures should, ever presume to squabble about it at all. But one thing the girl did understand--her young mistress's kindness. She stood watching the delicate little hand that had so patiently guided hers, and now wrote copy after copy for her future benefit. At last she said-- "You're taking a deal o' trouble wi' a poor wench, and it's very kind in a lady like you." Miss Hilary was puzzled what answer to make. True enough it was "kind," and she was "a lady;" and between her and Mrs. Hand's rough daughter was an unmistakable difference and distinction. That Elizabeth perceived it was proved by her growing respectfulness of manner--the more respectful, it seemed, the more she herself improved. Yet Hilary could not bear to make her feel more sharply than was unavoidable the great gulf that lies and ever must lie--not so much between mistress and servant, in their abstract relation--(and yet that is right, for the relation and authority are ordained of God)--but between the educated and the ignorant, the coarse and the refined. "Well," she said, after a pause of consideration, "you always have it in your power to repay my 'kindness,' as you call it. The cleverer you become the more useful you will be to me; and the more good you grow the better I shall like you." Elizabeth smiled--that wonderfully bright, sudden smile which seemed to cover over all her plainness of feature.