It was certainly, in spite of all her anxiety about Amy, a very enjoyable change to the bright, cheerful, Christian atmosphere of Dr. Eastwood's house, and the bracing influence of the outdoor exercise in which the others made her participate. She felt as if it were wrong to enjoy it so much, when Amy, she knew, was dying, and Stella as yet in so precarious a condition. But God sometimes gives, in very trying circumstances, a buoyancy and cheerfulness of feeling quite independent of the circumstances, which seem specially sent to communicate a strength that will be greatly needed in approaching days of trial,--a pleasant "land of Beulah," before the watchers stand quite on the shore of "the dark river." And it can never be right sullenly to close the heart in determined sadness against the cheering influences of God's light, and air, and bright sunshine; nor can we usually, if we would, act so foolishly and ungratefully. That happy week at Oakvale often seemed to Lucy a sort of oasis of sunshine, as compared with the depressing weeks that preceded and followed it. Oakvale looked scarcely less beautiful now that the surrounding hills wore their white mantle of snow, contrasting with the intense blue of the winter sky and the dark green of the pines, while the little river lay, a strip of glittering ice, under the trees, leafless now, which overshadowed its ceaseless ripple in the warm summer days. The young party had pleasant sleigh-rides to see old favourite spots in their winter aspect, and Fred joined the younger children in their skating and snowballing, though he enjoyed much more the walks in which he accompanied his sister and her friend. Mary and he got on as well as Lucy had expected, although she was disappointed that, after their visit was over, she could not draw from him any enthusiastic praise of Miss Eastwood; at which she would have been a little vexed, but for the reflection that Fred, unlike most people, never said the half of what he thought. He did not, however, leave Oakvale without a promise to renew his visit during the summer vacation.