The Girl Who Trod on the Loaf Page #2

								

hast caused thy mother" she would say, "Oh that I had never been born!
My mother's tears are useless now."

And then the words of the kind people who had adopted her came
to her ears, when they said, "Inge was a sinful girl, who did not
value the gifts of God, but trampled them under her feet."

"Ah," thought Inge, "they should have punished me, and driven
all my naughty tempers out of me."

A song was made about "The girl who trod on a loaf to keep her
shoes from being soiled," and this song was sung everywhere. The story
of her sin was also told to the little children, and they called her
"wicked Inge," and said she was so naughty that she ought to be
punished. Inge heard all this, and her heart became hardened and
full of bitterness.

But one day, while hunger and grief were gnawing in her hollow
frame, she heard a little, innocent child, while listening to the tale
of the vain, haughty Inge, burst into tears and exclaim, "But will she
never come up again?"

And she heard the reply, "No, she will never come up again."

"But if she were to say she was sorry, and ask pardon, and promise
never to do so again?" asked the little one.

"Yes, then she might come; but she will not beg pardon," was the
answer.

"Oh, I wish she would!" said the child, who was quite unhappy
about it. "I should be so glad. I would give up my doll and all my
playthings, if she could only come here again. Poor Inge! it is so
dreadful for her."

These pitying words penetrated to Inge's inmost heart, and
seemed to do her good. It was the first time any one had said, "Poor
Inge!" without saying something about her faults. A little innocent
child was weeping, and praying for mercy for her. It made her feel
quite strange, and she would gladly have wept herself, and it added to
her torment to find she could not do so. And while she thus suffered
in a place where nothing changed, years passed away on earth, and
she heard her name less frequently mentioned. But one day a sigh
reached her ear, and the words, "Inge! Inge! what a grief thou hast
been to me! I said it would be so." It was the last sigh of her
dying mother.

After this, Inge heard her kind mistress say, "Ah, poor Inge!
shall I ever see thee again? Perhaps I may, for we know not what may
happen in the future." But Inge knew right well that her mistress
would never come to that dreadful place.

Time-passed--a long bitter time--then Inge heard her name
pronounced once more, and saw what seemed two bright stars shining
above her. They were two gentle eyes closing on earth. Many years
had passed since the little girl had lamented and wept about "poor
Inge." That child was now an old woman, whom God was taking to
Himself. In the last hour of existence the events of a whole life
often appear before us; and this hour the old woman remembered how,
when a child, she had shed tears over the story of Inge, and she
prayed for her now. As the eyes of the old woman closed to earth,
the eyes of the soul opened upon the hidden things of eternity, and
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