"Poor and uncared for,
Toiling not learning,
What can I do
That will earn me renown?
Living and loving,
No useful work spurning,
Faithful to death
Thou shalt win thee a crown."—ANON.
MRS. EDEN had arranged with Margie's mother that the former should come on the first day of the next week.
"That will give you time to get her things ready," she said.
But there were grave difficulties in the shape of Margie's outfit. Mrs. Rust was poor, and with such a large family to provide for she could not afford the necessary outlay all at once. She promised to do her best, however, and there the matter rested.
But on the way home, Mrs. Eden proposed a plan which Lilla caught at eagerly. This was, that the very next morning they should go into the village and buy enough print to make Margie a dress.
"If I stitch the seams up in my machine, we can soon finish it between us," Mrs. Eden said. "And it will make her look tidy at once, besides being an inducement to her to be a good girl."
Lilla lay awake a good while that night thinking about the change which was to take place in their household arrangements, and in consequence did not rouse next morning until her grandmother called her. By making extraordinary haste, she was down in time to help dust and set breakfast. But there was no chance for her French vocabulary, and almost immediately after breakfast they started for the linendraper's.
Some lessons could be learnt whilst the print was being cut out, but Lilla's thoughts were so much distracted that she had hard work to concentrate them on her And when she went to bed that night, she could not help questioning whether the manner in which the day had been spent had tended much towards the attainment of her ambition.
"But Margie wants the dress," she said to herself. "After all, Dorcas made clothes for poor people, and I couldn't help sleeping late."
And then "the thing that lies the nearest" came into her head again, and she said, half aloud:
"It certainly was 'the nearest,' though how I am ever to grow great at this rate, I can't see. Oh! Dear—" And Lilla extinguished her light and soon forgot all about it in sleep.
But when Sunday night came round, matters were no better. A whole week had passed since the forming of her resolution, and no progress seemed to have been made. To be sure, Margie's dress was completed, and Lilla had tried it on and laughed to see how loosely it fitted her. For Mrs. Eden had made ample allowance for the maid's sturdier build. But that was nothing towards being great, and fewer lessons than ever had been done.
"I confess I can't understand it," she said to herself, as she laid her head upon the pillow. "I don't believe I can have found the right r or I should get along faster. But when our servant comes, I shall have nothing to do but study, and I am to have masters soon."
Monday evening brought Margie, with a bundle of clothes and a small box containing her Sunday hat, and some caps and white aprons to wait in.
It was curious to watch the awkward advances the two girls made to each other; Margie afraid of presuming upon her young mistress's good nature, and Lilla shy from the bare fact that Margie was a stranger. By degrees, however, this strangeness wore off. And at the end of the first week, they were on very good terms. Mrs. Eden, on her side, expressed great satisfaction with her new maid's activity and teachableness, and things seemed going on very smoothly.
Lilla found now that she had time for her before breakfast, and as April brought mild weather, she was often up and at work for an hour, as well as having time to attend to her flower-garden. To her great delight, her grandmother appeared very pleased with the rapid progress she was making, and began to talk seriously of procuring further instruction for her next term.
"For you will really be beyond me soon, Lilla, if you go on at this rate," she said.
One great source of wonder to Lilla was the strength of Margie's arms. She would often watch her as she rubbed and swept and scrubbed and carried with untiring energy, and then, looking down at her own slender white arms, feel almost ashamed to remember how quickly they used to tire when she "played" at being servant.
At last one Saturday morning she could be silent no longer. Margie had been giving the grate an extra clean, and still was on her knees before it, brushing away with all her might to put on the final polish.
She looked up as Lilla entered, and paused for a moment to shake back her hair, which was curly and apt to get rather untidy when she was at work.
"Isn't that very hard work, Margie?" Lilla asked.
"Not very," answered Margie, giving her hair another toss, and then—finding it refused to obey—a push with her hand, which left a droll smear across her forehead.
"I should soon get tired of it," said Lilla.
"I'm used to work," returned Margie. "I expect I'm a good deal stronger than you are. I know what 'I' should get tired of, though—those . Sit, sit, sitting, all day long, and every day in the week. I shouldn't mind the piano so much."
"But I want to get on," said Lilla. "You know, Margie, I mean to be great when I am grown up." And she hurried off with her .
But that night when Lilla went to bed, she happened to remember Margie's words. And as it was Saturday night, she had plenty of time for conning them over, for Mrs. Eden never encouraged her in working late at her lessons on Saturdays.
"God gave us the Sabbath," she would say, "in order that we might refresh our bodies, as well as our souls, and make them strong for another week's work. And if we overtire ourselves before it comes, we lose half the benefit of it—which is next to breaking it."
Lilla put down her candle and went to the window. The sky was cloudy, and there were no stars, but the moon was up, and kept appearing between the rifts, casting a pale light over the plantation, and then vanishing again.
"I don't expect I 'am' so strong as Margie," she said to herself, as she watched it, "and certainly I am not so clever at housework. Then, I suppose, 'I cannot be so great in that respect.'"
This was a new thought, for it had never occurred to Lilla before that "greatness" could have anything to do with such things as physical health or bodily strength, or, in fact, anything but head-work.
"To be sure," she continued, after a few moments' reflection, "I make up for it in learning, for she doesn't know a word of French. But, then, I don't see how I can be 'really' great if one part of me is inferior. Still, I'm doing the best I can, and grandmother is certainly very pleased with my progress, so I must persevere. Only I must try to grow strong too."
So Lilla took to watering her flowers more vigorously, and running upstairs two steps at a time. She rummaged out a pair of dumb-bells, and used them, too, for ten minutes every day, to expand her chest.
Meanwhile, Margie, on her side, had not forgotten Lilla's words: "I mean to be great when I am grown up."
"It wouldn't be much use 'my' trying!" she said to herself. "Scrubbing and cleaning never made anyone great yet. But I should rather like to be something worth growing up for."
Thus, unknown to each other, mistress and maid were trying to reach the same end. But, as neither had yet learnt what true greatness really was, neither had found the r
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