It was a long time before I fully understood the lesson.  In a few weeks I caught one of those contagious diseases which children must have once; and it went so hard with me, that, before I was able to walk about, and go out of the house, the leaves were all gone, and the snow had covered the ground.  When spring returned I thought often of the woods, but I was too sickly to go there; and when I grew strong again, my thoughts were all occupied with an approaching event.  Several changes had occurred in the family, and others were expected, to which my friends though discontented at first, had grown quite reconciled.  It was not so with me.  There was one circumstance which affected me more than it did others, and from that I prophesied a continual succession of evils.  It seemed to me that my life was to be wholly changed, and all the joy and beauty left behind.  It was childish, I know.  I knew it then, for I would not for the world have told any one how I felt.  Still I was as much affected by it as I have ever been since at any real grief.

Late one afternoon, when my thoughts were busy with my fears, I went to the window, and looked up at the woods.  The sunshine was very bright on their tops, and the shadow very dark on the hill-side below.  Very vividly then came back to me the memory of my visit to them the year before.  I thought of the evils which I expected to meet, and of the beauty which I found there.  It was some good angel which whispered then in my thoughts, that, just as I went to the woods, full of fears and forebodings, I was approaching the expected misfortune; that I might be as happily disappointed in this as I had been in that.

I cannot tell how delighted I was with this suggestion, nor how completely it took possession of my mind.  I was gloomy and fearful no longer.  I did not, indeed, when the change came, resign what I lost by it without regret; but I was so certain of finding new enjoyments, that I resigned it cheerfully.  And when, after a few weeks’ experience had taught me that many advantages and many pleasures had come to me in consequence of those very circumstances which I had dreaded so much, I bound the lesson of the woods to my heart so firmly that there it still remains.

And let me say to you, for whom I have related this little incident of my childhood:—­do not tremble at the disappointments and trials which await you.  Do not seek to throw upon others any part of them which you may more becomingly bear yourself.  If you live always in the open sunshine, you will never know what beauty there is in the woods.  You will find the sentiment in your books, that it is the night-time only that shows us the stars; and in the gloom which must sometimes fall upon this uncertain and mortal life of ours, you may find, if you will, as much to rejoice in as to dread.  You will form plans, and indulge in hopes, which cannot be realized, and disappointment will look frowningly upon you; but if you will submit yourself to the trial like a little child, the hand that will lead you through it will point you to happier scenes than those of your own imagining.