poor silly lamb that is always straying away.
Phoebe, `the Father Himself loveth thee.'"

"Oh, I know! But I can't see Him, Mrs Dorothy."

"I suppose He knows that, too," answered her old friend, softly. "He
knows how much easier it would be to believe if we could see and feel.
Maybe 'tis therefore He hath pronounced so special a blessing upon such
as have not seen, and yet have believed."

"Mrs Dorothy,"--and Phoebe looked up earnestly,--"don't you think
living is hard work?"

"I did once, my maid. But I am beyond the burden and the heat of the
day now. My tools are gathered together and put away, and I am waiting
for the Master to call me in home to my rest. Thou too wilt come to
that, child, if thy life be long enough. And to some, even here,--to
all, afterward,--it is given to see where the turns were taken in the
path, and whereto the road should have led that we took not. Ah, child,
one day thy heaviest cause of thankfulness may be that in this or that
matter--perchance in the matter that most closely engaged thee in this
life--thy Father did not give thee the desire of thine heart."

"Yet that is promised as a blessing?" said Phoebe, interrogatively,
looking up.

"As a blessing, dear child, when thy will is God's will. Can it be any
blessing, when thy will and His run contrary the one to the other?"

"Then you think I should not wish to be loved!" said Phoebe, with a
heavy sigh.

"I think God's child will do well to leave the choice of all things to
her Father."

"I must leave it. He will have it."

"He will have it," repeated Mrs Dorothy solemnly; "but, Phoebe, you can
leave it in loving submission, or you can have it wrenched from you in
judgment. Though it may be that you must loose your hold on a gem, yet
you please yourself whether you yield it as a gift, or wait to have it
torn away."

"I see," said Phoebe.

"Was there any further trouble, my dear?"

"Only that," replied Phoebe. "Life seems hard. I get so tired!"

"Thou art young to know that, child," said Mrs Dorothy, with a rather
sad smile.

"Well, I don't know," answered Phoebe, doubtfully. "I think I have
always been tired. And don't you know some people rest you, and some
people don't? When there is nobody that rests one-- Father used--
but--"

Mrs Dorothy thought there was not much difficulty in reading the story
hidden behind Phoebe's broken sentences.

"So life is hard?" she echoed. "Poor child! Dear, it was