cQ)&'K 
 
 
 DEAN'S 
 
 Sllustrntfli /nrtjiing fowh. 
 
 EYE SERVICE 
 AND LOVE SERVICE. 
 
 r^^ 
 
 LOJSVO^ I DEAN <Sf SOJN% 
 11, Ludgu<te Idilh 
 
 vuvwvvw 
 
 U3 
 
 EaP 
 
 tB 
 
 
 2i'N^ 
 
EYE SERVICE AND LOVE SERVICE. 
 
 Whex we Rerve tifose with whom we 
 happen to be in a caieless kind of way, 
 
EYE SERVICE, AND LOVE SERVICE. 3 
 
 and only because we are looked after, it is 
 called eye service: but when we do so 
 willingly and from a motive to please, it 
 is then termed a service of love and affec- 
 tion. 
 
 I will tell you a story about the two 
 sorts of service, and then you shall say 
 which it is you ought to practise. 
 
 Two little girls, who had been carefully 
 brought up by wise but poor parents, were 
 one day left, in the time of harvest, to take 
 care of a cottage, and to tend their little 
 baby brother, who slept in the cradle. The 
 mother w-as gone out to glean. She gave 
 them their food and set them their tasks 
 for the day, and carrying her own and her 
 husband's dinner in a basin, she bade 
 them good-bye. The children were 
 pleased with the new idea of being mis- 
 tresses of the little cottage for so many 
 hours. And as they were really good 
 girls, it never entered their heads to do in 
 their mother's absence what they would 
 have feared to do in her presence. Meg- 
 gie therefore cleaned the door-step, as she 
 had been told, and washed some socks for the 
 
4 EYE SERVICE; AND 
 
 baby; and Bessie, who was older and 
 
 siruager, carried ouv tlie basket or butter 
 
LOVE SERVICE. 5 
 
 to several houses which their mother sup- 
 pUed. At noon they sat down to dinner. 
 They were rather tempted to give httle 
 Dick, the baby, the things he cried for, in 
 order to keep him quiet ; but the words, 
 *^eye service," came into their minds 
 several times, and they resisted the temp- 
 tation. After dinner was over, the chil- 
 dren cleared away and went into the 
 garden to play. They were very merry 
 at bo-peep with baby, when a girl, called 
 Jenny Bryant, popped her head over the 
 hedge and said, '^ We have had fine sport 
 to-day, come to our house, and we will 
 show you what it is " Now Jenny, 
 although a near neighbour, was a girl with 
 whom their mother did not like her little 
 daughters to be intimate, for although a 
 good-tempered child, she was not well 
 brought up, and cared very little for her 
 father and mother. 
 
 On this day, her mother, as well as 
 Bessie^s and Meggie's, was out gleaning, 
 and Jenny, and a few companions as idle 
 as herself, had been gossipping with a 
 gipsy woman, asking her to tell fortunes. 
 
6 EYE SERVICE, AND 
 
 as it is called ; a thing which some people 
 know to be silly, but which it is better to 
 call by its true name, wicked. Now 
 Jenny's orders had been to let no one into 
 the house, for Mrs. Bryant had many 
 beautiful lace sleeves, and collars, and 
 handkerchiefs, belonging to the gentlefolks 
 of the village, lying on her dresser waiting 
 to be ironed. But poor Jenny, no sooner 
 was her mother's eye taken from her than 
 she invited several of the neighbouring 
 girls to come in and chat with her ; and 
 these girls, as thoughtless as herself, had 
 tempted her to ask the gipsy in. And 
 now Jenny wanted Bessie and Meggie to 
 come too, and tried all possible ways to 
 tempt them to leave the cottage. " So 
 near to our house," said Jenny, ** and 
 so easy to lock the door. Oh, come 
 along? It is such fun to hear the old 
 woman's stories." But they refused. *' ]f 
 we go with you, Jenny," said Meggie, 
 ** we should be disobeying mother." *' Did 
 your mother tell you," said Jenny, '' not 
 to leave the house?" '* No," replied 
 Bessie, ** but we know that she would not 
 
LOVE SERVICE. • 
 
 like our doing so; she never likes the 
 house to be left." " Well, you are over 
 good," said .Tenny, with a jeering laugh ; 
 •' I think it is enough if I do what motiier 
 tells me, without guessing at her wishes 
 when she is out of it. Then, let us bring 
 the gipsy in to you." 
 
 «' No ! that would be as bad, ex- 
 claimed both the children. " I am sure," 
 said the elder, " mother would dishke our 
 talking to the gipsy." " Nonsense !" said 
 Jenny, as, laughing and mocking at the 
 good little girls, she' ran away across the 
 green. She had scarcely got halt way 
 there, however, before two girls caine 
 running to meet her, saying that the 
 gipsy would not wait, and that they had 
 sent Fanny Mitchell, the third girl, home 
 to oet some m.oney of her sister, to pay the 
 glpty—for gipsies will not tell fortunes tor 
 
 nothing. . 
 
 But what was Jenny's surprise when 
 she came into the house to find the gipsy 
 gone ! and what was her mother's ang^r 
 when she returned at night, to find huit- 
 a-dozen handkerchiefs, some new lace, 
 
 3^65 19a 
 
8 EYE SERYICE, AND LOVE SERVICE. 
 
 and fine-worked collars, gone too ! How 
 this came about Jenny knew well, and at 
 length confessed. 
 
 The little girls who had acted, in their 
 mother's absence, out of heart-love to her, 
 just the same as if she had been present, 
 could bid her welcome with a joyful kiss 
 that evening, and the mother, as she 
 knelt down with them before they went to 
 rest, and prayed to the great God to keep 
 and preserve them, thanked Him that He 
 had given to her children who served her 
 with love and not with eye service.