Should she give up? That would look so silly. Yes, but would it not serve Miss Manners right for giving her such stupid, unspiritual kind of teaching to do, and also serve the children right for their pertness and ingratitude? No, she could not give up in this way. She had begun, and she must go on, at least till she had some reason for giving up respectably and civilly--only she wished she had known how unlike it was to what she had expected before she had undertaken it! Then she was sensible of a certain odd, uppish, self-asserting feeling within her. She used to have it in old times, but she had learnt to distrust it, and to know that it generally came when she was in a bad way. Was she thinking of pleasing herself, or of offering a little work to please God, and try to let the good seed turn to good fruit? Ah! but was it all a mistake? Was becoming a mark for Susan Bray to worry, doing any good at all? CHAPTER IV. TEACHER AMY. IT was a pleasant sight for Amy when poor little Edwin Smithers's pale face brightened up, as she opened his door. He was not like the rough little monkey she had known at the infant school, who had only seemed to want to learn as little, and to play as many tricks, as he could. In the hospital, the attention kind people had paid him had quickened up his understanding, and mended his manners. He had been petted and amused there, and the being left alone in the dull cottage was a sad trial to him. His mother had regular work, and so had his elder brother, but this kept them out all day from eight till five, except that Mrs. Smithers kept Friday to do her own washing in. She was obliged to be away even at dinner time, as her work lay far from home, and she gave her next-door neighbour, Mrs. Rowe, a shilling a week to keep up the fire, look in on the sick boy, and give him his dinner. She was unlucky in her neighbour. Many women would have gladly given far more kind service for no pay at all, but they were too far off, and Mrs. Rowe made it a rule to "do nothing for nothing." His brother and sisters came in for a little while at twelve, their dinner time, but they wanted to go out to play, and had no notion of amusing him; indeed he was glad when they went away; Charlie clumped about so, and made such a noise, and little Jenny would take away his picture books or the toys that had been given him in the hospital. Then Polly would call her a naughty girl, and snatch them from her, and so his little wooden horse lost its head, and his railway train was uncoupled, and one wheel pulled off; and when old Mrs. Rowe found him crying, all she said was, "Dear! dear! don't ye fret now, don't ye!" and when that did not make him stop crying, she said he was a bad boy to make such a work about nothing. When she was a girl, nobody had frail trade like that, all painted and gaudy, to play with; a bit of an oyster-shell or a crab's claw was enow for them. He had got into such a caddle as never was too!