it dawned in her thoughts that this was a very little
matter to cry out about. What if God meant that some lives should be
"all just alike," and like nothing fresh or bonnie, and that hers should
be one? That was his affair. Hers was to use the dull gray gift he
gave--_whatever_ gift he gave--as loyally and as cheerily as she would
use treasures of gold and rose-tint. He knew what he was doing. What he
did was never forgetful or unkind. She felt--after a long time, and in a
quiet way--that she could be sure of that.

No matter about Halcombe Dike, and what was gone. No matter about the
little black aprons, and what was coming. He understood all about that.
He would take care of it.

Meantime, why could she not as well wash Moppet's face with a pleasant
word as with a cross one? darn the stockings with a smile as well as a
frown? stay and hear her mother discuss her headaches as well as run
away and think of herself? Why not give happiness since she could not
have it? be of use since nobody was of much use to her? Easier saying
than doing, to be sure, Sharley found; but she kept the idea in mind as
the winter wore away.

She was thinking about it one April afternoon, when she had stolen out
of the house for a walk in the budding woods. She had need enough of a
walk. It was four weeks now since she had felt the wide wind upon her
face; four weeks pleasantly occupied in engineering four boys through
the measles; and if ever a sick child had the capacity for making of
himself a seraph upon earth it was Moppet. It was a thin little face
which stood out against the "green mist" of the unfurling leaves as
Sharley wandered in and out with sweet aimlessness among the elms and
hickories; very thin, with its wistful eyes grown hollow; a shadow of
the old Sharley who fluttered among the plaid ribbons one October
morning. It was a saddened face--it might always be a saddened face--but
a certain pleasant, rested look had worked its way about her mouth, not
unlike the rich mellowness of a rainy sunset. Not that Sharley knew much
about sunsets yet; but she thought she did, which, as I said before,
amounts to about the same thing.

She was thinking with a wee glow of pleasure how the baby's arms clung
around her neck that morning, and how surprised her mother looked when
Methuselah cried at her taking this walk. As you were warned in the
beginning, nothing remarkable ever happened to Sharley. Since she had
begun in practice to appr