perfuming the air--unaccustomed thoughts came into the little girl's
mind,--thoughts which, in the din and bustle of the city, where the
tide of human interests sufficed to fill up her undeveloped mind, had
scarcely ever entered it. But here, where the direct works of God
alone were around her, her mind was irresistibly drawn towards Him of
whom Miss Preston had told her, that He had made her and all she saw
around her, and who lived, she supposed, somewhere beyond that blue
sky. With so many pleasant things around her, the thought of their
Maker was pleasant too. But then Miss Preston had told her that God
loved what was good, but hated what was bad; and did not her new
mother constantly tell her she was a "bad child?"--an accusation in
which her conscience told her there was much truth. So God could not
love her, she thought.

But Miss Preston had said that God did love her--that He cared for her
continually, and wished to make her good and happy--that He had even,
in some strange way which she could not understand, sent His Son to
die for her, that she might be made good. It was all new and strange,
but she had faith in Miss Preston; and because she had told her, she
believed it must be true, that she, who had come to think
herself--poor child--too bad for any one to care for, had really a
great, kind Friend near her, though she could not see Him, and loving
her more than the mother whose warm caress she could still remember.
It was an idea that might seem beyond the grasp of a poor untaught
child, were it not that He who reveals Himself to babes and sucklings
can speak to the heart He has made in ways beyond our power to trace.
The idea in Nelly's mind of that wonderful love which she so sorely
needed, was more enlightened than many a philosopher's conception of
divinity, and the dark eyes filled with tears as a half-formed prayer
awoke from her heart to the loving Jesus, who, Miss Preston had told