Who had ever asked Rachel for advice! Rachel the simpleton--Rachel the slighted and laughed-at dressmaker? Little did Mr. Jones know how nervous he made the poor girl; besides, she felt quite bewildered at the strange views he took of the case he submitted to her. At length she gathered courage, and looking earnestly in his face with her mild brown eyes, she spoke. "Mr. Jones," she said, "it seems to me that as the money is yours, and that as your intentions are to turn it to a good account, you have a right to do with it as you please. I think, too, that you are likely to do very well as a grocer, for we really do want one about here. But I only tell you what I think. I do not advise. I really cannot. If you want advice, Mr. Jones, why, ask it of one who cannot mistake, for He is not liable to human error--ask it of God Almighty." Richard Jones scratched his head, then hung it down ashamed. If he had dared, he would have asked of Rachel how he was to ask of God to advise him, and, especially, how he was to get the answer! Poor fellow! he had an excellent hearty some faith, much charity, but the world's net was around him. His life was not like that of Rachel Gray--a heaven upon earth. And Rachel, who laboured under the disadvantages of a narrow education, and a narrow life, who had not enough knowledge and enough experience of human nature to understand clearly that there were states of mind worlds lower than her own, did not suspect that she had given Richard Jones the worst of all advice--that which the receiver cannot follow. Alas! who talks of God now! who listens like Adam in Eden to the voice of the Lord, and treasures in his or her own heart that source of all knowledge? And we complain that God goes away from us; that His face is dark, and behind the cloud; that in the days of adversity we find him not. Jones rose confused, muttered thanks, then hastily changed the subject by asking to see his daughter. Even as he spoke, the door opened, and Mary entered. She did not show much pleasure or surprise on seeing her father; it was not that she did not love him, but she was a spoiled child, too much accustomed to his fondness and devotion to set great value on either. She complained of the heat, then of the cold, sat down, got up again, and gave herself all the airs of a precocious woman. Her father, leaning on his stick, looked at her with admixing fondness, and occasionally nodded and winked at Rachel, as if inviting her to admire likewise. At length, with a half stifled sigh--for he never parted from his darling without regret--he again said he must go. "And so, good-bye, my little Mary," he added, kissing her, but the peevish child half-turned her head away, and said his beard hurt her. "You hear her, Miss Gray," he exclaimed, chuckling, "does not care a pin for her old father, not a pin," and chucking Mary's chin, he looked down at her fondly.