"Bless de Lord, I'm pretty well, and granny's no wuss." I heard the voice below my window just as the dawn of a bright summer day was coloring the eastern horizon. Then another question was asked by the cook below, as she threw open the shutters, but I could only hear old Susan's reply: "No, I can't come in; I'm up so airly to look for wood to bile the kittle. Granny'll be a-wantin' breakfast." Soon after I saw the poor old woman bent almost double with the weight of fagots on her back, and her check apron filled with chips and corn-cobs from the wood-yard. I raised the sash, and called her: "Aunt Susan, do come in! Flora will get your breakfast, and you can take some home with you for granny," said I. She lowered the bundle of fagots from her shoulders, and pushed back the long gingham sun-bonnet, as she looked up at my window. "Bless yer heart, chile, but I couldn't--wouldn't!" She shook her head very decidedly, and adjusted the red bandana turban which had been crushed down by the sun-bonnet. "Ye see, me and granny ain't had fambly prayers yit this morning. That's it; obliged to yer jes' the same." I suggested that our Heavenly Father would not reject prayers that were offered after breakfast. She looked up at me as I leaned from the window to catch the glory of the sunrise, and said, with rather a touch of sadness in her tone: "No, chile, yer hadn't oughter think so. De Lord fust, an' everything else afterwards. Ef ye eat, or ef ye drink, do it all to de glory of God; but it tain't ter His glory ef yer please yerself fust. I'll be round biemby; then we 'splain the matter together." And reloading her tired shoulders, she tottered off under her burden. This poor colored woman, bent down by her seventy years of sickness, and poverty, and hard work, and constant care, had a conscience so tender that nothing could have induced her to partake of the proffered meal before she had offered up her morning prayer, lest the act might seem like want of reverence and respect.