for this or that, I should have missed and lost so much." I once
happened to open a book of sermons, and to see the title of one,
"Every Man's Life a Plan of God." I did not read the sermon itself,
and have never seen the book again; but I have thought of it a great
many times. Since it is true that our lives are planned with the
greatest love and wisdom, must it not be that our sorrows and
hindrances come just from our taking things wrong?

And here, for the last of the story, is a verse that Robert Browning
wrote, that Miss Ashton said one morning, and Miss Catherine liked:--

"Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith 'A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!'"

MR. BRUCE.

Last summer (said Aunt Mary), while you were with your father in
Canada, I met for the first time Miss Margaret Tennant of Boston, whom
I had for years a great desire to see and know. My dear friend, Anne
Langdon, has had from her girlhood two very intimate friends; and Miss
Tennant is one, and I the other. Though we each had known the other
through Anne, we had never seen each other before.

I was at the mountains, and upon our being introduced we became very
good friends immediately; and, from at first holding complimentary and
interesting conversations concerning Anne in the hotel parlor, we came
to taking long walks, and spending the most of our time together; and
now we are as fond of each other as possible. When we parted in
September, I had promised to visit her at her house in Boston in the
winter; and, when she was ready for it, I was too.

To my great delight, I found Anne there; and we three old maiden
ladies enjoyed ourselves quite as well as if we were your age, my
dear, with the world before us. Miss Margaret Tennant certainly keeps
house most delightfully.

She lives alone in the old Tennant house, in a pleasant street; and I
think most of the Tennants, for a dozen generations back, must have
been maiden ladies with exquisite taste and deep purses, just like
herself; for every thing there is perfect of its kind, and its kind
the right kind. Then she is such a popular person: it is charming to
see the delight her friends have in her. For one thing, all the young
ladies of her acquaintance--not to mention her nieces, who seem to bow
down and worship her--are her devo