Here were two days torn out at once from the book of life. If they could only be completely obliterated--but no, they hang over me like the leaden roof of a prison. They must be lived. I could not give them away as a charity to king or beggar, who would gladly have sat two days longer upon his throne, or on his stone at the church door. I remained in this abstraction for a long time; but then I thought of my morning prayer, and how I said to myself there was no greater unbelief than despondency--how the smallest and greatest in life are part of one great divine plan, to which we must submit, however hard it may be. Like a rider who sees a precipice before him, I drew in the reins. "Be it so, since it must be!" I cried out; "but God's earth is not the place for complaints and lamentations. Is it not a happiness to hold in my hand these lines which she has written? and is not the hope of seeing her again in a short time a greater bliss than I have ever deserved? 'Always keep the head above water,' say all good life-swimmers. As well sink at once as allow the water to run into your eyes and throat." If it is hard for us, amid these little ills of life, to keep God's providence continually in view, and if we hesitate, perhaps rightly, in every struggle, to step out of the common-places of life into the presence of the divine, then life ought to appear, to us at least, an art, if not a duty. What is more disagreeable than the child who behaves ungovernably and grows dejected and angry at every little loss and pain? On the other hand, nothing is more beautiful than the child in whose tearful eyes the sunshine of joy and innocence soon beams again, like the flower, which quivers and trembles in the spring shower, and soon after blossoms and exhales its fragrance, as the sun dries the tears upon its cheeks. A good thought speedily occurred to me, that I could live both these days with her, notwithstanding fate. For a long time I had intended to write down the dear words she had said, and the many beautiful thoughts she had confided to me; and so the days passed away in memory of the many charming hours spent, together, and in the hope of a still more beautiful future, and I was by her and with her, and lived in her, and felt the nearness of her spirit and her love more than I had ever felt them when I held her hand in mine.