Chapter I: Better Than “a Rich Cousin.”

“And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye,
always having all sufficiency in all _things_, may abound to
every good work.”

Miss Cox had found a destitute family down by the Mills, and enlisted the girls of her Sabbath School class to provide suitable clothing, in which the children could come to church.

They were to meet at her house Saturday afternoon to sew, having, the Sabbath before, brought what money they could to purchase material. Bell Forbush had given a whole dollar, while poor Sarah Ellis shook her head sorrowfully when asked for her mite.

“But you will come and sew, and that will do just as well,” said Miss Cox, putting down twenty-five cents for Sue Sherman.

“I gave every bit of my pocket-money,” whispered Bell to Sue; “but, you see, Cousin Mate will give me some more if I just ask her; for, don’t you think, she’s going to stay all summer, and she has such lots of money she’s always giving me some.”

Sue was more than half inclined to envy Bell this stroke of good luck in the shape of a rich cousin. She quite envied her the next Saturday afternoon. It sounded so grand for Bell to say whenever anything was found to be lacking, “O Miss Cox! I will give that. I’ll run right over to the store this minute.”

Buttons, trimmings, handkerchiefs, hair-ribbons, even,—“I had no idea we should make out such complete outfits, and so pretty,” said Miss Cox, “and we shouldn’t but for you, Bell.”

“Bell will certainly become bankrupt if she keeps on,” said Jenny King.

“Not while she has a rich cousin to go to,” said Nettie Rand, in her provoking way.

Bell colored, but had the readiness to say frankly, “that’s the secret of it. Cousin Mate wants me to be benevolent, and has promised to find all the money I need.”

“Great way of being benevolent, that is!” said Nettie, tossing her head.

“It’s doing good just the same,” rejoined Sue, standing up for her friend, “only it must be real nice and easy to know whatever you want is to be had just for the asking.”

Say Ellis looked up with a bright smile, but she said nothing.

“We are very much obliged to Miss Marvin and to Bell too,” remarked Miss Cox, basting away on the last little sacque. “The younger ones are all provided for now, but there’s an older girl. I can’t even get a chance to speak to her yet; folks say she’s a wild, high-flyer of a thing, with an ugly temper, and that she uses dreadful language. I don’t know as we can do anything—”

“Oh! that Tryphosa Harte,” interrupted Nettie. “She’s perfectly horrid. It’s that girl who stood on the steps and mimicked us, the other night, Bell.”

“She’s just about your size, isn’t she?” resumed Miss Cox; “and I was thinking, if each of you should give her something of your own,—things you had done wearing of course, but tasty and like other people’s, dress her up real pretty, you know,—and all take some sort of interest in her, we might get her into Sabbath School and help her be somebody. They say she’s uncommonly smart.”

“But, Miss Cox, she makes all manner of fun of anything good. I’ll ask mother to give her my last summer’s sacque, but I shouldn’t dare speak to her,” exclaimed Sue.

“I could give her one of my cambric dresses and I dare say Cousin Mate would get her a hat, but she’s so disagreeable I never want to go near her,” said Bell.

“It wouldn’t be a bit of use, I know,” put in Nettie Rand. “She’d only laugh in our faces the minute we said Sabbath School to her; and I think it’s hard work enough to ask folks to be good when they treat you decent. I dare say father would give her a pair of shoes, but they’d never walk into church, I’m sure of that.”

“I should call it casting pearls before swine,” laughed Jenny King. “Please, Miss Cox, don’t set us to driving any but _little_ pigs into Sabbath School: you can coax round them easy, but that Tryphosa Harte,—it would take the meekness of Moses to begin with, and the patience of Job to hold out. I know meekness and patience and perseverance are nice things to have, but, you see, none of us has a rich cousin to keep us supplied with that sort of pocket-money.”

Again Say Ellis looked up, with a flash of sunshine in her mild, blue eyes, and this time she spoke:—

“I’d like—to try, Miss Cox. I never spoke to her but once, and then she threw mud at me, but I could—try; and I’d like—to give something. Would a pair of stockings—”

“Yes, indeed; she’ll need everything, I suppose,” said Miss Cox warmly. “If you _would_ try, Sarah dear. I have an idea one of you would succeed much better than I.”

“Whatever did you offer for?” asked Jenny King, as she and Sarah walked home together. “It will be just a waste of kindness.”

“But if there’s plenty more to be had, we needn’t mind,” said Say, smiling.

Jenny stared, and then said slowly, “But I do mind having a dirty, ragged thing like that turn up her nose at me. You just try how it feels a few times, and—”

“But don’t you know—I was thinking—I’m sure it’s something like,” stammered Say.

“What _are_ you getting at?” laughed Jenny good-naturedly, as they stopped before the gate of the small cottage where Sarah lived.

“Why, you said we hadn’t any rich cousin to give us patience and meekness, and I thought, wasn’t God a great deal better, because, you know, it was in our Sabbath School lesson,—Whatsoever we ask, He can give it to us. Only think,—_whatsoever_!”

“Yes, but I never thought of taking it so, really.”

“_I_ thought of it when Sue said it must be nice to know we could have anything we wanted. You see, I couldn’t give any money, because mother has to work so hard, and I wondered supposing I had and asked God to make it up, if he would. And when it came to doing something, I was sure he’d help if we all prayed. I wanted to ask the girls to, but I didn’t quite dare.”

“Isn’t it queer,” said Jenny thoughtfully, “how afraid we are to talk about such things to each other? Now, we asked Bell to ask her cousin for a dozen things, and it isn’t so very different asking God, only that he’s so great.”

“Which makes it so much the better, and he has—different things, you know, patience, and love.”

“Oh dear! it’s such hard work to use those things, I’m afraid I don’t want them much,” sighed Jenny; “but I’ll pray about Tryphosa. I begin to pity her more already.”

“Going to give away your stockings!” exclaimed Tilly Ellis, Sarah’s little sister, that night, as the latter was looking over her one small drawer of underclothing. Neat, and whole, and enough, but very little to spare: that told the whole story at the Ellis’s.

“Yes, Tilly; you know God wants us to do good, and he’s promised to give us everything we need, and I think he’ll show me how I can earn some more. I’m going to try it anyway, because if I didn’t give her something, she wouldn’t know I really wanted to help her.”

Tilly was too sleepy to ask who “her” was; and the next thing either of them knew, it was the Sabbath morning, and the birds were holding a praise-meeting under their chamber-window.