harder to Him
that sat on the well at Sychar, wearied with His journey. He has not
forgotten it, Phoebe. Couldst thou not go and remind Him of it, and ask
Him to bless and rest thee?"

"Mrs Dolly, do you feel tired like that?"

A little amused laugh was Mrs Dolly's answer.

"Thou hast not all the sorrows of life in thine own portion, little
Phoebe. I have felt it. I do not often now. The journey is too near
at an end to fret much over the hard fare or the rough road. When there
be only a few days to pass ere you leave school, your mind is more set
on the coming holidays than on the length or hardness of the lessons
that lie betwixt."

"I wish I hadn't to go to Delawarr Court!" sighed Phoebe. "There will
be a great parcel of people, and not one I know but Rhoda, and Mrs
Gatty, and Mrs Molly; and Rhoda always snubs me when Mrs Molly's
there."

"Molly is trying," admitted the old lady. "But I think, dear child, you
might make a friend of Gatty."

"Perhaps," said Phoebe.

"And, Phoebe, strive against discontent," said Mrs Dorothy; adding,
with a smile, "and call it discontent, and not vapours. There is a
great deal in giving names to things. So long as you call your pride
self-respect and high spirit, you will reckon yourself much better than
you are; and so long as you call your discontent low spirits or vapours,
you will reckon yourself worse used than you are. Don't split on that
rock, Phoebe. The worst thing you can do with wounds is to keep pulling
off the bandage to see how they are getting on; and the worst thing you
can do with griefs and wrongs is to nurse them and brood over them.
Carry them to the Lord and show them to Him, and ask His help to bear
them or right them, as He chooses; and then forget all about them as
fast as you can. Dear old Scots Davie gave me that counsel, and through
fifty years I have proved how good it was."

"You never finished your story, Mrs Dolly," suggested Phoebe.

"I did not, my dear. Yet there was little to finish. I did but tarry
at Court till the great plague-time, when all was broke up, and I went
home to nurse my mother, who took the plague and died of it. After that
I continued to dwell with my father. For a while after my mother's
death, he was very low and melancholical, saying that God had now met
with him and was visiting his old sins upon him. And then, the very
next year, came the fire, and we were burned out and left homeless.
Then he was wo