_Make Good Use of your Time._--EMMA C. EMBURY.
[Illustration: "To everything there is a season, and a time for every
purpose under heaven."]
1. "My dear Anna," said Mrs. Elmore, as she bade her little girl
farewell, "I shall be absent ten days; and as you have already had so
many lessons from me respecting the manner of distributing your hours of
amusement and study, I will only say to you, now, '_Make good use of
your time_.'"
2. Anna's eyes filled with tears as the carriage drove off, and she felt
very lonely when she returned to the parlor without her mother. She
thought over her mother's parting words, until she felt quite proud of
the confidence reposed in her, and resolved not to abuse it by neglect.
3. She accordingly took her books and sat down to her studies, as
attentively as if her mother had been waiting to hear her recitation.
4. Anna was an affectionate, intelligent child. She would have made any
sacrifices to please her mother, and she really loved her studies; but
her one great fault was a disposition to loiter away time.
5. This her mother well knew; and after trying admonition, until she
almost feared she was increasing the evil by allowing Anna to depend too
much upon her guidance, she determined to test the effect of leaving her
to her own responsibility.
6. For an hour after her mother's departure, Anna sat in close attention
to her studies. All at once, she started up. "I am so hungry," said she,
"I must go to Betty for some luncheon;--but stop--I will finish my
exercise first."
7. She wrote a line or two; then throwing down her pen, petulantly
exclaimed, "There! I have made two mistakes, because I was in such a
hurry;--I will not finish it till I come back."
8. So away ran the little girl to her old nurse, and the next half-hour
was spent in satisfying her hunger. As she was returning, with laggard
step, she happened to spy, from the window, a beautiful butterfly
fluttering about the rose-bushes in the garden; and, quite forgetting
her unfinished exercise, away she flew in chase of the butterfly.
9. But, agile as were her movements, the insect was too nimble for her;
and after an hour's race beneath the burning sun, she returned, flushed
and overheated, without having succeeded in its capture.
10. Again she applied herself to her books; but study was not so easy
now as it would have been a little earlier. Anna was too tired to apply
her mind to her lessons; and after loitering a while over her desk, she
threw herself on the sofa, and fell into a sound sleep, from which she
was only awakened by a summons to dinner.
11. After dinner, Betty proposed taking her out to walk; and though
conscious that she had not performed half her duties, she had not
resolution enough to refuse to go. Tying on her bonnet, she took a
little basket on her arm, and set out with Betty to gather
wild-flowers.
12. When they reached the woods, Betty sought out a mossy seat under an
old tree, and, taking her work from her pocket, began to sew as
industriously as if she had been at home.
13. "O Betty!" exclaimed Anna, "how can you sit and sew, when there are
so many pleasant sights and sounds around you?"
14. "I can hear the pleasant sounds, my child, without looking round to
see where they come from," replied Betty; "and as for the pretty sights,
though I can enjoy them as much as any one, I cannot neglect my work for
them.
15. "I promised your mother to have these shirts finished when she came
home, and I mean to do so."--"Dear me!" said the little girl, "I wish I
had brought my book, and I might have studied my lesson here."
16. "No, no, Anna," said the old woman; "little girls can't study in the
woods, with the birds singing and the grasshoppers chirping around them.
Better attend to your books in-doors."
17. Betty continued her sewing; and towards sunset, when they arose to
return, she had stitched a collar and a pair of wristbands, while Anna
had filled her basket with flowers.
18. As they approached the village, Betty called at a poor cottage, to
inquire after a sick child, and Anna was shocked at the poverty and
wretchedness of the inmates. The little children were only half clothed,
their faces were covered with dirt, and their rough locks seemed to bid
defiance to the comb.
19. Pitying the condition of the poor little girls, Anna determined to
provide them with some better clothing; and she returned home full of
benevolent projects.
20. The next morning, as soon as she rose, she began to look over her
wardrobe; and selecting three frocks which she had outgrown, she carried
them to Betty, to alter for Mrs. Wilson's children.
21. "I shall do no such thing," said Betty; "Mrs. Wilson's children are
not suffering for clothes; the weather is warm, and they are as well
clad as they will be the day after they are dressed up in your finery.
22. "Mrs. Wilson is an untidy, slovenly woman; and though your mother
charged me to look after her sick baby, she did not tell me to furnish
new clothes for the other dirty little brats!"
23. "Well, Betty, if you don't choose to do it, I'll try it
myself."--"Pretty work you'll make of it, to be sure! you will just cut
the frocks to pieces, and then they will fit nobody."
24. "Well, I am determined to fix them for those poor little ragged
children," said Anna; "and if you will not help me, I will get Kitty the
chambermaid to do it."