"Visiting the poor," continued Bruce, "is not a kind of business which our father can undertake; he has been accustomed to office-work all his life, and, as he told me to-day, he cannot begin at his age an occupation which is to him so utterly new." "It would be utterly new to me, and I dare not attempt cottage-visiting!" cried Emmie, whose benevolent efforts had hitherto been confined to subscribing to charities or missions, and working delicate trifles to be sold at fancy bazaars. "You are young, dear," observed Bruce Trevor. "And that is just the reason why I should not be sent amongst all those dreadful people!" cried Emmie. "I might meet with rudeness, or drunkenness, or infectious cases. I cannot think how you could ever wish me to undertake such a work! Wait till I am forty or fifty years old before you ask me to visit these poor." "And in the meantime," said Bruce, "children are growing up ignorant of the very first truths of religion; wretched women, who know no joy in this world, see no prospect of peace in another; the sick lack medicine, the hungry, food; the widow has no one to comfort her, and the dying--die without hope!" Emmie clasped her hands, and looked pleadingly into the face of her brother. "Oh! what do you ask me to do?" she exclaimed; "do you want me to visit all these cottages, and the public-houses as well!" "Not all the cottages, and most certainly not the public-houses," answered Bruce with a smile. "See," he continued, pointing to different parts of his chart, "I have marked with an E those dwellings which I thought that a lady might visit." "There are a fearful number of E's," said poor Emmie, very gravely surveying the paper. "Nay, if you took but two cottages each day (that would be scarce half-an-hour's work), in a month you would have visited all that I have marked for you," said the methodical Bruce; "and in each you would have left some little book or striking tract, if you had found that the inmates could read." "I should be afraid to ask them if they could read or not," cried Emmie. Bruce went on without heeding the interruption. "You would keep a book, and mark down each day where you had called, with a slight notice of the state of each cottage, the name of its tenant, the number of the children, and such other particulars as would be of the utmost value to our father when he affords relief in money. It would be better, perhaps, for you to make it a rule not to give money yourself." "That is just the only thing that I could do!" exclaimed Emmie; "I dare not intrude into cottage homes without the excuse of coming to give charity to those who want." "The visits of a lady would not be deemed an intrusion," said Bruce. He had some practical knowledge on the subject, having been for years at a private school where the ladies of the master's family constantly visited the poor. "Your gentle courtesy will make you welcome wherever you go. Nor need you go alone, you can always take Susan with you."