with tears; -- large, bright drops rolled heavily down, one
by one, and fell on the little white hand. Yes, in that mo-
ment, a ray of real belief, a ray of heavenly love, had pen-
etrated the darkness of her heathen soul! She laid her
head down between her knees, and wept and sobbed, --
while the beautiful child, bending over her, looked like the
picture of some bright angel stooping to reclaim a sinner.

"Poor Topsy!" said Eva, "don't you know that Jesus
loves all alike? He is just as willing to love you as me.
He loves you just as I do, -- only more, because he is better.
He will help you to be good; and you can go to heaven at
last, and be an angel forever, just as much as if you were
white. Only think of it, Topsy! -- you can be one of those
spirits bright, Uncle Tom sings about."

"Oh, dear Miss Eva, dear Miss Eva!" said the child, "I
will try, I will try; I never did care nothin' about it before."

St. Clare, at this instant, dropped the curtain. "It puts
me in mind of mother," he said to Miss Ophelia. "It is
true what she told me; if we want to give sight to the
blind, we must be willing to do as Christ did, -- call them
to us, and put our hands on them."

"I 've always had a prejudice against negroes," said Miss
Ophelia, "and it 's a fact, I never could bear to have that
child touch me; but I did n't think she knew it."

"Trust any child to find that out," said St. Clare;
"there's no keeping it from them. But I believe that all the
trying in the world to benefit a child, and all the substantial
favors you can do them, will never excite one emotion of
gratitude, while that feeling of repugnance remains in the
heart; -- it's a queer kind of a fact, -- but so it is."

"I don't know how I can help it," said Miss Ophelia;
"they are disagreeable to me, -- this child in particular, --
how can I help feeling so?"

" Eva does, it seems."

"Well, she's so loving! After all, though, she's no
more than Christ-like," said Miss Opbelia; "I wish I were
like her. She might teach me a lesson."

"It would n't be the first time a little child had been
used to instruct an old disciple, if it were so," said St. Clare.

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