this offer; her daughters,
she said, must learn betimes to moderate their desires to their means.

"Yes, yes," said Mrs. Gunilla, "but I must tell you, my dear friend,
there is no rule without its exception, and if any trifles are wanted,
so--think on me."

Mrs. Gunilla was to-day in such a happy humour; she looked like somebody
who was determined to make some fellow-creature happy. The Assessor
could not get into dispute with her. She rejoiced herself in the
country, to which she should soon remove; in the spring which was at
hand, and in the greenness which was approaching. The Assessor rejoiced
himself not at all. "What had one to rejoice about in such a hateful
spring? It was quite impossible to live in such a climate, and it must
be the will of our Lord God that man should not live, or he would not
have sent such springs. How could people plant potatoes in ice? and how
otherwise could they be planted at all this year? And if people could
get no potatoes, they must die of hunger, which was then perhaps the
best part of the history of life."

On her side, Mrs. Gunilla bethought herself that she would willingly
live. "Our Lord God," she said, "would take care that people had
potatoes!" and then she looked with an expression of cordial sympathy on
the troubled and distressed countenances of the young girls.

"When Eva, dear, is as old as I," said she, patting her gently on her
white neck, "she will know nothing more of all that which so distresses
her now."

"Ah! to be sixty years old!" exclaimed Eva, smiling, though with a tear
in her eye.

"You'll get well on to sixty--well on; he, he, he, he!" said Mrs.
Gunilla, consolingly. "Heart's-dearest! it goes before one thinks of it!
But only be merry and cheerful. Amuse yourselves at----_chose_! what do
you call it? and then come and tell me all about it. Do that nicely, and
then I shall get my share of the fun though I am not there. That comes
of the so-to-be envied sixty years, Eva, dear! he, he, he, he!"

The sun set bright and glorious. Mrs. Gunilla went to the window, and
sent a little greeting towards the sun, whose beams, glancing through
the trees of the opposite churchyard, seemed to salute her in return.

"It looks as if one should have a fine day to-morrow," said Mrs. Gunilla
to herself, gently, and looking very happy.

People place youth and age opposite to each other, as the light and
shade in the day of life. But has not every day, every age, its ow