"Yes, thank God, as you say, my darling!" replied Old Wheels. "To the old the thought comes naturally--and often thankfully. But to the young! no, no! It is not natural to hope for the time to come. You have a bright life before you, my dear, and you must not despond. Why, I, nearly two generations older than the little flower lying on my bosom, do not wish yet for the rest you sigh for! I want to live and see my flower bright and blooming, not drooping as it is now. Come, cheer up, little flower!" Old Wheels forced himself to speak cheerfully. "Cheer up, and gladden me with smiles. Here's an old man who wants them, and whose heart warms at the sight of them. Here am I, old winter! Come, young spring-flower, give me a glimpse of sunshine." Lily looked into the old man's eyes, and smiled, and although there was sadness in the smile, he professed himself satisfied with the effort. "That's right, and now let us talk about something else. Let me see. What was I saying? O, about Felix. He is getting along well. Do you know, Lily, that though he has never spoken of it, I believe he endured hardships when he first came to London? But he bore them bravely, and battled through them, never losing heart. Does this interest you, Lily?" "Yes; go on." "Felix is a good man, high-minded, honourable, just. He knows how to suffer in silence, as do all brave natures, my dear. Men are often changed by circumstances, my dear; but I am sure Felix would not be. But natures are so different, my dear. Some are like the sea-sand, running in and out with the waves, never constant. Others are like the rocks against which the waves beat and dash, as they do at Land's End. It would do you, my darling, good to go for change of air and scene to the west, and breathe the purer air that comes across the sea. Perhaps we will manage it by-and-by--you and I alone. I was a young man when I was there, but it is the same now as it was then; it is only we who change. Felix laughed at us the other day--laughed at you, and me, and himself, and everybody else in the world. 'Go where you will,' he said, 'you find us crawling over the face of the earth, wrapt up in ourselves, each man thinking only of himself and his desires, and making so little of the majesty of nature as to believe himself of more importance than all the marvels of the heaven and earth.' But he was not quite right, and I told him so. I told him--no, I should rather say, I reminded him--that every man did not live only for himself. That in the lives of many men and women might be found such noble examples of right-doing and self-sacrifice as were worthy to be placed side by side with the goodness and the majesty of things. 'Right,' he answered at once, 'nature does not suffer--we do.' Then he asked me to account for the suffering that often lies in right-doing. I could not do this, of course. I tried to maintain the side I took in the argument by saying that the suffering springs out of our