“I do like to see them pretty green things agin the white curtains; ’tis something cheerful, like, for the children to watch; they looks after the buds and flowers as if they could see ’em grow.” I replied—“The little slips you planted a few weeks ago will soon be up; and in the meantime, your nice white curtains will make the room look very neat.” “Yes; these white curtains I bought last ar’n’t quite so nice as I should like ’em to be.” I smiled. I could not help looking back a few years, and remembering the wretched hovel in which I had first become acquainted with her and her children, when even a pair of clean hands or a clean face would have been as great a rarity as snow in harvest. “Why, Mrs R—,” I added, “you have become particular, indeed. I see something new every time I come. I don’t know where you are going to stop.” “Never, I hope, ma’am. We saves up, and gets one little thing after another; and such rejoicing goes on here at every fresh thing that comes. The children have saved their halfpence for a long time past, and last week they bought two new hymn-books; and the first thing we hear in the morning, when we wakes, is their singing; and their voices is so pretty.” The children rushed to shew their treasures, carefully unwrapped them from the paper, and produced two threepenny “Curwen’s Hymn-books.” No landed proprietor could have felt richer, or looked happier. “I often think, ma’am,” said the mother, “of how we was when you first came to us; and I often think, too, how I _could dare to_ keep such a place for my poor husband and children as I did then. I hope the Lord have forgive me.” Here was the secret of all this social improvement. “How can I _dare_ to keep so much misery about me, that I could and ought to prevent? How can I _dare_ to leave these children, whom God has entrusted to me to train for Him, without trying in any way to prepare them either for time or for eternity? How shall I dare to stand before God’s judgment throne, to give an account of the deeds done in the body?” It is this awakening of conscience that alone enables a poor mother to see her true position, and gives her the courage and resolution to do her best for her husband and children, in the face of difficulties of which the rich have scarcely any idea. Where conscience has slumbered long, or, as in most cases, has never been aroused, the progress will often be slow; but let this right principle be once established, and the work is done.