ough to acknowledge the hand of Providence in
this prosperous event, though she was blind to it when the
dispensation was more dark. Next morning she went early to visit
Mrs. Simpson, but not seeing her below, she went up stairs, where,
to her great sorrow, she found her confined to her bed by a fever,
caught the night before, by sitting so late on the bench, reading
the letter and talking it over. Betty was now more ready to cry out
against Providence than ever. "What! to catch a fever while you were
reading that very letter which told you about your good fortune;
which would have enabled you to live like a lady as you are. I never
will believe this is for the best; to be deprived of life just as
you were beginning to enjoy it!"

"Betty," said Mrs. Simpson, "we must learn not to rate health nor
life itself too highly. There is little in life, for its own sake,
to be so fond of. As a good archbishop used to say, ''tis but the
same thing over again, or probably worse: so many more nights and
days, summers and winters, a repetition of the same pleasures, but
with less relish for them; a return of the same or greater pains,
but with less strength, and perhaps less patience to bear them.'"
"Well," replied Betty, "I did think that Providence was at last
giving you your reward." "Reward!" cried Mrs. Simpson. "O, no! my
merciful Father will not put me off with so poor a portion as
wealth; I feel I shall die." "It is very hard, indeed," said Betty,
"so good as you are, to be taken off just as your prosperity was
beginning." "You think I am good just now," said Mrs. Simpson,
"because I am prosperous. Success is no sure mark of God's favor; at
this rate, you, who judge by outward things, would have thought
Herod a better man than John the Baptist; and if I may be allowed to
say so, you, on your principles, that the sufferer is the sinner,
would have believed Pontius Pilate higher in God's favor than the
Saviour whom he condemned to die, for your sins and mine."

In a few days Mrs. Betty found that her new friend was dying, and
though she was struck at her resignation, she could not forbear
murmuring that so good a woman should be taken away at the very
instant which she came into possession of so much money. "Betty,"
said Mrs. Simpson in a feeble voice, "I believe you love me dearly,
you would do any thing to cure me; yet you do not love me so well as
God loves me, though _you_ would raise me up, and He is putting a
period to