_The same subject, concluded._
1. On the fifth day, she summoned courage enough to persevere, and
actually performed every task with attention.
2. In the afternoon, Betty took her out to walk, and Anna coaxed her
into a visit to Mrs. Wilson's cottage. What was her indignation, as she
approached the house, to see the children again playing on the margin of
the duck-pond!
3. As soon as they saw her, they ran to hide themselves, but not until
she had observed that their new frocks were as dirty, and almost as
ragged, as the old ones. Betty did not fail to make Anna fully sensible
of her own superior wisdom.
4. "I told you so, child," said she; "I told you it was all nonsense to
try to dress up those dirty creatures; much good you have done, to be
sure!" Anna almost cried with vexation, as she thought of all the time
and labor she had wasted upon her benevolent task, and she walked home
with a heavy heart.
5. The next morning, she had scarcely risen from the breakfast-table,
when Kitty came to show her a beautiful little ship, which, her
brother, who was a sailor, had made for her, as a token of remembrance.
[Illustration]
6. Anna was delighted with it; nothing could be more beautiful than its
graceful form, its delicate rigging and snowy sails. She begged to have
it set on her table, that she might see it while she was studying, and
the good-natured Kitty left it with her.
7. But in vain the heedless child tried to study; her eyes and thoughts
wandered perpetually to the pretty toy before her. "How I should like to
see it sail!" said she to herself. The more she looked at it, the more
anxious she became to see it in the water.
8. At length, taking it carefully up, she stole down stairs, and hurried
across the garden to a little brook in the adjacent field. Here she
launched her tiny bark; but it had scarcely touched the water, when it
turned over on its side. She then recollected that she had once heard
her father speak of the manner of ballasting a ship; so she hastened to
gather a quantity of small stones, with which she filled the little
cabin.
9. Again she intrusted her ship to the crystal streamlet; but, alas! the
weight of the stones carried it straight to the bottom. There it lay in
the pebbly channel, with the clear waters rippling above it, and the
little girl stood aghast upon the brink.
10. She bared her arm, and attempted to reach it, but without success.
At length, while making a desperate effort to regain it, she lost her
balance, and fell into the water.
11. Fortunately, the water was not deep, and she soon scrambled out
again; but she was thoroughly wet, and, having been very warm before the
accident, she was now chilled to the heart.
12. Grasping the little ship, the cause of all the mischief, she hurried
home, and creeping softly into the kitchen, sought her friend Kitty, to
screen her from Betty's anger. By this time she was shivering with a
violent ague, and Kitty carried her immediately to Betty.
13. Poor Anna! she was now obliged to be put to bed, and to take some
of Betty's bitter herb tea, seasoned too with scolding, and all kinds of
evil predictions. She felt very unhappy, and cried sadly; but
repentance, in this case, came too late.
14. Her head began to ache dreadfully; her skin was parched with fever,
and before the next morning she was very ill. She had taken a violent
cold, which brought on an attack of scarlet fever; and when Mrs. Elmore
returned, she found her little daughter stretched on a bed of sickness.
15. How did that fond mother tremble, as she watched by the bedside of
her darling child, uncertain whether she would ever again lift up her
head from her uneasy pillow!
16. Anna did not know her mother in the delirium of fever, and her
melancholy cry of "Mother! mother! come back!--I will never be so bad
again!" wrung Mrs. Elmore's heart.
17. For three weeks Anna lay between life and death; and when she was at
length pronounced out of danger, she was as helpless as an infant.
18. One day, as she sat propped up by pillows, she told her mother all
that had passed during her absence, and awaited her decision respecting
the use she had made of her time.
19. "My dear child," said Mrs. Elinore, "I trust the past will afford a
lesson you will never forget. So far from having made good use of your
time, you have done harm in everything you have undertaken.
20. "Your attempts at study, instead of affording you any real
instruction, have only given you habits of inattention, which you will
find very difficult to overcome; for your eyes have wandered over the
page, while your thoughts have been with the fool's, to the ends of the
earth.
21. "Your irregular care of my plants, which you thought would serve
instead of habitual attention, has been the means of destroying them as
effectually as if you had allowed them to perish from total neglect.
22. "Your injudicious benevolence to the Wilsons served only to make the
children envious of each other, without giving them habits of neatness,
which are essential to the well-being of such a family; while it had a
worse effect upon yourself, because it not only wasted your precious
time, but excited in you a feeling of vanity, on account of what you
considered a good action.
23. "If, instead of trusting so boldly to your good resolutions, you had
entered upon your duties with an humble mind, and resolved to _try_ to
do right,--if you had apportioned your time with some degree of
regularity,--you might have performed all that was required of you,
enjoyed all your amusements, and gratified every kindly feeling, without
a single self-reproach.
24. "As it is, you feel sensible of having failed in everything,--of
having exposed yourself to great peril, and subjected your mother to
great anxiety, simply from your disposition to loiter, when you should
labor.
25. "I trust that, in the solitude of your sick chamber, 'the still
small voice' of your many wasted hours has made itself heard, and that
hereafter you will not so utterly fail to make good use of your time."