record of the range of the thermometer, the question of turning or not turning an alpaca skirt, the working out of a game of solitaire--these things are absorbing experiences. No wonder we who are poor, or even we who work hard at philanthropy or art or responsibility to manufacture our little interests--no wonder we envy such sky-blue natures. Certainly there were persons in Old Chester who envied Miss Lydia; at least, they envied her her unfailing joyousness--but they never envied her her empty purse. Which was like envying a rose its color, but despising the earth from which by some divine chemistry the color came. Miss Lydia's eyes might smart from the smoke puffing out into her room, but she was able to laugh at the sight of her bleared visage in the narrow mirror over the mantel. Nor did the fact that the mirror was mottled and misty with age, the frame tarnished almost to blackness, cause her the slightest pang. What difference does it make in this world of life and death and joy and sorrow, if things are shabby? The fact is, the secret of happiness is the _sense of proportion_; eliminate, by means of that sense, trouble about the unimportant, and we would all be considerably happier than kings. Miss Lydia possessed this heaven-born sense, as well as the boundless wealth of interest (for to him that hath shall be given). "I don't want to brag," she used to say, "but I've got my health and my friends; so what on earth more do I want?" And one hesitated to point out a little thing like a shabby mirror, or even a smoky chimney. When the chimney smoked, Miss Lydia merely took her rocking-chair and her sewing out into a small room that served as a kitchen--and then what difference did the smoking make? And as it turned out, one shadowy April day, it was the best thing she could have done, because, when Dr. Lavendar dropped in to see her, she could make him a cup of tea at once, without having to leave him alone. She was a little, bustling figure, rather dusty and moth-eaten, with a black frizette, always a little to one side, and eager, gentle, blue eyes. "What's the news?" she said. She had given Dr. Lavendar an apple, and put on the kettle, and taken up her hemming. "I never saw anybody so fond of sewing," the old man ruminated, eating his apple. "I believe you'd sew in your grave." "I believe I would. Dear me! I am so sorry for the poor women who don't like to sew. Amelia Dilworth told me that Mrs. Neddy can't bear to take a needle in her hand. So Milly does Ned's mending just as she did before he was married." "Aren't you sorry for the poor men that don't like to sew?" Dr. Lavendar said, looking about for a place to deposit his core--("Oh, drop it on the floor; I'll sweep it up sometime," Miss Lydia told him; but he disposed of it by eating it).