"You must not say poor," returned Emmie, pressing heavily against his knee; "she is not poor at all; she was very tired, you know, and now she is rested. Perhaps Nan would have been tired too if she had stayed longer." "Ah, so she might, poor lammie," with a heavy sigh. "The world is such a tiring place," continued Emmie, moralizing in her quaint childish way. "Some one is always crying in it. If it were not for leaving Queenie alone, I think I should like to go too, and walk about the golden streets with Alice and Nan; there are such lots of children there, and it is all bright, and nobody cries and looks sad and miserable." "Let us go and look for blackberries: the Missus is so fond of blackberries," interposed the Captain, hurriedly, for Emmie's dilated eyes filled him with alarm. The child's sensitive nature was depressed by the sadness that surrounded her; a whole world of pathos, a strange involved meaning, lay behind those simple words. "The world is such a tiring place; some one is always crying in it." Alas! yes, little Emmie. Out of His bright heaven God looks down on the upturned wet faces of myriads of His creatures. What seas of tears roll between the earth and His mercy! If the concentrated pain of humanity could be condensed into a single groan, the whole universe could not bear the terror of that sound, reverberating beyond the bound of the uttermost stars, silencing the very music of heaven. Such a tiring place! True, most true, little Emmie. A place where mistakes are made and never rectified; a place where a joyous meeting is too often replaced by a sad good-bye; where hearts that cleave together are sundered; where the best loved is the soonest taken; where under the sunshine lie the shadows, and the shadows lengthen the farther we walk. Such a tiring place! since we must work and weep, and live out the life that seems to us so imperfect; since sweet blossoms fail to bring fruit, and thorns lurk underneath the roses. Yet are the letters written up, graven and indelible, on every mutilated life: "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." So one bright summer's morning, loving hands lifted little Nan and laid her in her resting-place by the lime-tree walk, and the childless parents followed hand in hand. The churchyard was crowded with sympathizing faces. Queenie was there at the head of her scholars, and Langley stood near her, leaning heavily on her brother's arm. When the service was over the children stepped up two and two, and dropped their simple offerings of rustic wreaths and flowers into the open grave. One child had fashioned a rude cross of poppies and corn, and flung it red and gleaming at the mother's feet. Gertrude took it up and kissed it, and placed it tenderly with the rest. The child, a chubby-faced creature scarcely more than an infant, looked up at her with great black eyes. "Oo' little gell will like my fowers," she lisped, as Gertrude burst into tears.