“Well, sir, we’ll see whether mother is the only woman in this world after all.  You tramp down cellar and bring me up that stone jar on the second shelf, and we’ll have those pies in the oven in a twinkling; and that little woman in the corner, with two tears rolling down her cheeks, may bring her white dress and my work-box and thimble, and put two irons on the stove, and my word for it you shall both be ready by three o’clock, spry and span, pies and all.”

By three o’clock on the afternoon in question Ester was thoroughly tired, but little plum pies by the dozen were cuddling among snowy napkins in the willow basket, and Alfred’s face was radiant as he expressed his satisfaction, after this fashion: 

“You’re just jolly, Ester!  I didn’t know you could be so good.  Won’t the boys chuckle over these pies, though?  Ester, there’s just seven more than mother ever made me.”

“Very well,” answered Ester, gayly; “then there will be just seven more chuckles this time than usual.”

Julia expressed her thoughts in a way more like her.  She surveyed her skillfully-mended and beautifully smooth white dress with smiling eyes; and as Ester tied the blue sash in a dainty knot, and stepped back to see that all was as it should be, she was suddenly confronted with this question: 

“Ester, what does make you so nice to-day; you didn’t ever used to be so?”

How the blood rushed into Ester’s cheeks as she struggled with her desire to either laugh or cry, she hardly knew which.  These were very little things which she had done, and it was shameful that, in all the years of her elder sisterhood, she had never sacrificed even so little of her own pleasure before; yet it was true, and it made her feel like crying—­and yet there was rather a ludicrous side to the question, to think that all her beautiful plans for the day had culminated in plum pies and ironing.  She stooped and kissed Julia on the rosy cheek, and answered gently, moved by some inward impulse: 

“I am trying to do all my work for Jesus nowadays.”

“You didn’t mend my dress and iron it, and curl my hair, and fix my sash, for him, did you?”

“Yes; every little thing.”

“Why, I don’t see how.  I thought you did them for me.”

“I did, Julia, to please you and make you happy; but Jesus says that that is just the same as doing it for him.”

Julia’s next question was very searching: 

“But, Ester, I thought you had been a member of the church a good many years.  Sadie said so.  Didn’t you ever try to do things for Jesus before?”

A burning blush of genuine shame mantled Ester’s face, but she answered quickly: 

“No; I don’t think I ever really did.”

Julia eyed her for a moment with a look of grave wonderment, then suddenly stood on tiptoe to return the kiss, as she said: 

“Well, I think it is nice, anyway.  If Jesus likes to have you be so kind and take so much trouble for me, why then he must love me, and I mean to thank him this very night when I say my prayers.”