"Ah, Rhoda!" piped Helen's treble, "we were children together, were we not? Oh! what sorrows I've gone through, and how I have been longing to talk to you!" Before Miss Farren could reply, a feeble wail arose from the adjoining room. The baby had lost no time in announcing its presence, and Helen hurried in to the cradle. Dim as the light was, her mother must have detected the annoyance on Rhoda's face. Or perhaps her quick instinct served her instead of sight, for she hastened to say-- "It doesn't often cry, poor little mite! But it has been ailing to-day." There was only one flight of stairs in the house. As Rhoda slowly ascended them, the loud, steady ticking of the old clock brought back many a childish memory. Would the hours pass as swiftly and brightly as they had done in earlier years? She sighed as she thought of all the small miseries that would make time hang heavily on her hands. It never even occurred to her then that "No true life is long." A fretful spirit will spin hours out of minutes, and weeks out of days. "I told you, Rhoda, my dear, that we had given your room to Helen. I said so in a letter, didn't I?" remarked Mrs. Farren, leading the way into the chamber that she had prepared for her daughter. "This is nearly as good. And I felt sure that you would not grudge the larger room to that poor thing and her child." "What is to be, must be," Rhoda replied. "Don't stop to unpack anything," continued her mother, trying not to notice the gloomy answer. "Come downstairs again as soon as you can. There's a good fire, and a bit of something nice for tea. It's a kind of day that takes the light and colour out of everything," she added, with a slight shiver. "I'll never grumble at the weather that God sends; yet I'm always glad when we've got through November." It was Rhoda who had brought the damp mist indoors. It was Rhoda--God forgive her--who had taken the light and colour out of everything. In looking back upon our lives, we must always see the dark spots where we cast our shadow on another's path--a path which, perhaps, ran very close beside our own. It may be that our dear ones, enfolded in the sunlight of Paradise, have forgotten the gloom that we once threw over their earthly way. But we never can. When Rhoda went down into the old parlour, she found it glowing with fire and candle light. Her father had come in from the wet fields and the sheepfolds, and was waiting to give her a welcome. Red curtains shut out the foggy evening; red lights danced on the well-spread table. The baby, lying open-eyed on Helen's lap, had its thumb in its mouth, and seemed disposed for quiet contemplation. The black retriever, stretched upon the hearth-rug, had finished a hard day's barking, and was taking his well-earned repose. They gave her the best chair and the warmest seat. All that household love could do was done; and she began to thaw a little under its influence.