And so, though oftentimes her heart felt breaking, Hilary labored on; sat the long day patiently at her desk; interested herself in the young people over whom she ruled; became Miss Balquidder's right hand in all sorts of schemes which that good woman was forever carrying out for the benefit of her fellow-creatures; and at leisure times occupied herself with Johanna, or with Elizabeth and the baby, trying to think it was a very beautiful and happy world, with love still in it, and a God of love ruling over it--only, only-- Women are very humble in their cruelest pride. Many a day she felt as if she could have crawled a hundred miles in the dust--like some Catholic pilgrim--just to get one sight of Robert Lyon. Autumn came--lovely and lingering late. It was November, and yet the air felt mild as May, and the sunshine had that peculiar genial brightness which autumnal sunshine alone possesses; even as, perhaps, late happiness has in it a holy calm and sweetness which no youthful ecstasy can ever boast. The day happened to be Hilary's birthday. She had taken a holiday, which she, Johanna, Elizabeth, and the baby, had spent in Richmond Park, watching the rabbits darting about under the brown fern, and the deer grazing contentedly hard by. They had sat a long time under one of the oak trees with which the Park abounds, listening for the sudden drop, drop of an occasional acorn among the fallen leaves; or making merry with the child, as a healthy, innocent, playful child always can make good women merry. Still, Master Henry was not a remarkable specimen of infanthood, and had never occupied more than his proper nepotal corner in Hilary's heart. She left him chiefly to Elizabeth, and to his aunt Johanna, in whom the grandmotherly character had blossomed out in full perfection. And when these two became engrossed in his infant majesty. Hilary sat a little apart, unconsciously folding her hands and fixing her eyes on vacancy; becoming fearfully alive to the sharp truth, that of all griefs, a strong love unreturned or unfulfilled is the grief which most blights a woman's life. Say, rather, any human life; but it is worst to a woman, because she must necessarily endure passively. So enduring, it is very difficult to recognize the good hand of God therein. Why should He ordain longings, neither selfish nor unholy, which yet are never granted; tenderness which expends itself in vain; sacrifices which are wholly unheeded; and sufferings which seem quite thrown away? That is, if we dared allege of any thing in the moral or in the material world, where so much loveliness, so much love, appear continually wasted, that it is really "thrown away." We never know through what divine mysteries of compensation the Great Father of the universe may be carrying out his sublime plan; and those three words, "God is love," ought to contain, to every doubting soul, the solution of all things.