Looking over the familiar pages of “Nicholas Nickleby,” our eye lights upon a passage, almost at opening, which refers to God’s goodness and mercy. As Nickleby’s father lay on his death-bed, he embraced his wife and children, and then “solemnly commended them to One who never deserted the widow or her fatherless children.” Towards the close of Esther Summerson’s narrative in “Bleak House” we read these touching, tender words regarding Ada’s baby:—“The little child who was to have done so much was born before the turf was planted on its father’s grave. It was a boy; and I, my husband, and my guardian gave him his father’s name. The help that my dear counted on did come to her; though it came in the Eternal Wisdom for another purpose. Though to bless and restore his mother, not his father, was the errand of this baby, its power was mighty to do it. When I saw the strength of the weak little hand, and how its touch could heal my darling’s heart and raise up hopes within her, I felt a new sense of the goodness and tenderness of God.” After these illustrations of the great lessons of the goodness of God, and that there is mercy in even our hardest trials, we come next upon one which teaches the duty of patience and resignation to God’s will. Mrs. Maylie observed to Oliver Twist, with reference to the dangerous illness of Rose, that she had seen and experienced enough to “know that it is not always the youngest and best who are spared to those that love them; but this should give us comfort in our sorrow, for Heaven is just, and such things teach us impressively that there is a brighter world than this, and that the passage to it is speedy. God’s will be done!”