"She's a-blessing me without knowing it," thought Mary, recalling the words of the Catechist. "She's a-saying 'God be with you!' I'm afraid all's not right with me, for it seems as if I couldn't take any comfort from the thought of God being with me! It makes my conscience uneasy to know that He is watching me now that I'm a-going to break his law, and sell on his holy day." O reader! If ever the thought of the presence of your heavenly Father gives you a feeling of fear, rather than a feeling of comfort, be sure that you are wandering from the right way, and—whatever excuse you may make for yourself—that you are doing or thinking something that puts your soul in danger! As Mary slowly made her way with her heavy basket to the corner of the street where she usually stood to sell, a friend of hers passed her on the way, but stopped and turned round to ask after Emmy who had not been well. A few words were exchanged between the two women, and then the friend, who had a Prayer-book in her hand, said, "I can't stop longer now; I don't like to be late for church. Good-bye, Mrs. Cowell." "Good-bye!" repeated poor Mary. "Ah!" she said with a sigh, as she watched her friend hastening on, "God will be with her, to bless her, for I know that Martha serves Him. Oft-times I've heard her say, 'The Lord is my Shepherd, I shalt not want;' and though she's no better off than myself, it's wonderful, it is, how she has always had friends raised up for her in her troubles; and when trials came the thickest, how somehow or other a clear way out was always opened afore her! Martha says the best thing is to trust God and obey him, and that we don't obey because we don't trust. May be there's truth in that word; for if I really believed what Aylmer told me, that God cares for me as I care for my Emmy, I should do even just as he bids me, and keep this day holy. But it's hard to be hindered getting my bread honestly on one day out of seven; I don't see the harm in a poor widow woman selling a little on Sundays." And yet Mary's mind was not easy; she had learned enough of God's word to know that by selling her oranges and nuts upon the day which the Lord has set apart for Himself, she was not only sinning herself, but leading others into sin. When little children thronged round her basket, eager to buy her fruit, Mary could not forget—she wished that she could—the solemn warning of the Lord: "Whoso shall offend (cause to sin) one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea."