e!' says the Dame, glancing up; 'she's always a-readin'. What
with novils and histories, she's injurin' her health, Miss Johns, as
sure as you're alive.'

"Then, as we set off again,--the Dame calling out some last word, and
brandishing her trowel over the fence,--old Squire Elderkin comes
swinging up the street with the 'Courant' in his hand; and he lifts his
hat, and says, 'Good morning to you, Miss Johns; and how is the little
French lady this morning? Bright as ever, I see,' (for he doesn't wait
to be answered,)--'a peony in her belt, and two roses in her cheeks.'
Yet my cheeks are not very red, papa; but it's his way....

"After school, I go for the drive with the Doctor, which I enjoy very
much. I ask him about all the flowers along the way, and he tells me
everything, and I have learned the names of all the birds; and it is
much better, I think, than learning at school. And he always says, 'It's
God's infinite love, my child, that has given us all these beautiful
things, and these songsters that choir His praises.' When I hear him say
it, I believe it, papa. I am very sure that the priest who came to see
godmother was not a better man than he is.

"Then, very often, he lifts my hand in his, and says, 'Adaly, my dear,
God is very good to us, sinners though we are. We cannot tell His
meaning always, but we may be very sure that He has only a good meaning.
You do not know it, Adaly, but there was once a dear one, whom I loved
perhaps too well;--she was the mother of my poor Reuben; God only knows
how I loved her! But He took her from me.'--Oh, how the hand of New Papa
griped on mine, when he said this!--'He took her from me, my child; He
has carried her to His home. He is just. Learn to love Him, Adaly. The
love we give to Him we can carry with us always. He does not die and
leave us. He is everywhere. The birds are messengers of His, when they
sing; the flowers you love come from His bounty: oh, Adaly, can you not,
will you not, love Him?'

"'I do! I do!' I said.

"He looked me full in the face, (I shall never forget how he looked,)
'Ah, Adaly, is this a fantasy of yours,' said he, 'or is it true? Could
you give up the world and all its charms, could you forego the
admiration and the love of all others, if only He who is the Saviour of
us all would smile upon you?'

"I felt I could,--I felt I could, papa.

"But then, directly after, he repeated to me some of those dreary things
I had been used to hear in th