“‘God will be with you always, my dear husband,’ she wrote. ‘His Holy Spirit will be your support and stay in all trials, and will lead you to the eternal home in our Father’s own good time—’ The pencil had evidently dropped from her fingers then; but she had told me enough. “‘Lord, give to me the guidance of Thy Holy Spirit,’ was my daily prayer, when once the hardness of my heart was melted, and I had sought my Saviour’s forgiveness and pardoning love. That prayer was not uttered in vain. In His own good time God sent His Comforter to me; and I trust that I have learned the lesson He taught me during those dark and desolate days. We are always failing, always slipping, always needing new lessons and new strength to learn them; but I think there is one great life-long lesson that I shall not have to learn again. “When I had learned it first, I put upon the marble slab over the grave that held my all the words I have never since wished unsaid—‘Thy will be done.’” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XIX. COMING CHANGES. SO the winter days wore happily away, the bond between the Squire and his little adopted son growing ever stronger and stronger; and by slow yet sure degrees the sunshine began to take the golden radiance of spring, the buds upon the bare trees swelled with the stirring life within them, the hedges showed a filmy network of tender green, and the shy wild flowers began to peep out from sheltered sunny corners, smiling up at the sunshine from beneath the protecting roots of great trees, or nodding their heads in friendly greeting to passers-by from cosey nooks in the south slope of a sheltered bank. Bertie and his friend the Squire welcomed the spring, as all the world does to a greater or less extent. The winter had been a very happy time for them both; but the promise of spring seemed to them to be charged with gladness and brightness for all. Once when they were crossing the park together, the Squire looked down at his little companion and said,— “This is the first time that spring has been spring to me for fifteen long years.” Bertie, who was hunting for primroses in a mossy bank, looked up quickly. “The years were like one long winter to me,” continued the Squire, looking out straight before him; and then, lifting his hat for a moment, he added, reverently, “But, thank God! that has all passed now.” Bertie came and took one of the hands of his so-called father and laid his cheek against it. He knew quite well that this was the Squire’s way of telling him that his coming there had been a source of comfort and happiness. “I came here in the spring, didn’t I?” he asked. “I think I’ve been here nearly a year—David says so.” “Yes, it is going on now for a year—a year in April since you were washed ashore. Has it been a happy year to you, my child?”