When you have had your own separate, individual room for years, with every dainty belonging that is possible for a luxurious taste to provide, it is a bit of a trial to give it up and be satisfied with a cot at one end of a long, barnlike place, with no chance for solitude, and only one mirror and one pitcher and basin to serve the needs of three persons.  It can be borne, however, as every small trial in this world may, if there is a cheerful spirit and a strong, loving heart to fall back on.  Besides, most things may be improved if you know how to go about the task.  The chief thing is first to accept the situation, and then bravely to undertake the changing it for the better.

“Doctor,” said the mother, as her husband brushed his thin gray hair in front of his chiffonier, while the merry sound of their children’s voices came floating down to them through open doors, “thank the dear Lord for me in my stead when you sit in the pew to-day.  I’ll be with you in my thoughts.  It’s such a blessed thing that our little middle girl is at home with us.”

The doctor sighed.  That bill in his pocket was burning like fire in his soul.  He was not a cent nearer meeting it than he had been on Friday, and to-morrow was but twenty-four hours off.  Yesterday he had tried to borrow from a cousin, but in vain.

“I fail to see a blessing anywhere, Charlotte,” he said.  “Things couldn’t well be worse.  This is a dark bit of the road.”  He checked himself.  Why had he saddened her?  It was not his custom.

“When things are at the very worst, Jack, I’ve always noticed that they take a turn for the better.  ’It may not be my way; it may not be thy way; but yet in His own way the Lord will provide.’” Mrs. Wainwright spoke steadily and cheerfully.  Her thin cheeks flushed with feeling.  Her tones were strong.  Her smile was like a sunbeam.  Doctor Wainwright’s courage rose.

“Anyway, darling wife, you are the best blessing a man ever had.”  He stooped and kissed her like a lover.

Presently the whole family, Grace walking proudly at her father’s side, took their way across the fields to church.

Perhaps you may have seen lovely Sunday mornings, but I don’t think there is a place in the whole world where Sunday sunshine is as clear, Sunday stillness as full of rest, Sunday flowers as fragrant, as in our hamlet among the hills, our own dear Highland.  Far and near the roads wind past farms and fields, with simple, happy homes nestling under the shadow of the mountains.  You hear the church bells, and their sound is soft and clear as they break the golden silence.  Groups of people, rosy-cheeked children, and sturdy boys and pleasant looking men and women pass you walking to church, exchanging greetings.  Carriage loads of old and young drive on, all going the same way.  It makes me think of a verse in the Psalm which my old Scottish mother loved: 

    “I joyed when to the house of God
      ‘Go up,’ they said to me,
    ’Jerusalem, within thy gates
      Our feet shall standing be.’”