Page:Traits and Trials.pdf/233

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FRANCES BEAUMONT.
227

liked to disturb her mother by any noise of contention, nor to make her sister rise merely by compulsion. But Edith, though violent in temper, had an affectionate heart, and where that exists it may always be worked upon to good. Very quick in her apprehensions, she soon saw that her sister was always actively employed, and the desire arose to assist her. Fanny exhausted her ingenuity in contriving a thousand ways of wanting her services.

The pride of usefulness led, as it ever does, to the most beneficial results, and Edith became anxious to get up in the morning, that she might help her sister. An errand was next found to employ her. Hitherto the girl had fetched the milk of a morning: after going with her once, herself, to see that there was no danger that she could incur, Fanny in future sent her sister for it. The child was delighted with the office, she had a pleasant walk across the field, and the farmer's wife, a thoroughly good-hearted woman thought that she could never make enough of the