But there is no use in trying to engraft an opposite nature on one's own. What I am, that I must be, except as God changes me into His own image. And everything brings me back to that, as my supreme desire. I see more and more that I must be myself what I want my children to be, and that I cannot make myself over even for their sakes. This must be His work, and I wonder that it goes on so slowly; that all the disappointments, sorrows, sicknesses I have passed through, have left me still selfish, still full of imperfections. MARCH 5, 1852.-This is the sixth anniversary of James' death. Thinking it all over after I went to bed last night, his sickness, his death, and the weary months that followed for mother, I could not get to sleep till long past midnight. Then Una woke, crying with the earache, and I was up till nearly daybreak with her, poor child. I got up jaded and depressed, almost ready to faint under the burden of life, and dreading to meet Helen, who is doubly sad on these anniversaries. She came down to breakfast dressed as usual in deep mourning, and looking as spiritless as I felt. The prattle of the children relieved the sombre silence maintained by the rest of us, each of whom acted depressingly on the others. How things do flash into one's mind. These words suddenly came to mine, as we sat so gloomily at the table God had spread for us, and which He had enlivened by the four young faces around it-- "Why should the children of a King Go mourning all their days?" Why, indeed? Children of a King? I felt grieved that I was so intent on my own sorrows as to lose sight of my relationship to Him. And then I asked myself what I could do to make the day less wearisome and sorrowful to Helen. She came, after a time, with her work to my room. The children took their good-by kisses and went off to school; Ernest took his, too, and set forth on his day's work, while Daisy played quietly about the room. "Helen, dear," I ventured at last to begin "I want you to do me a favor to-day." "Yes," she said, languidly. "I want you to go to see Mrs. Campbell. This is the day for her beef-tea, and she will be looking out for one of us. "You must not ask me to go to-day," Helen answered. "I think I must, dear. When other springs of comfort dry up, there is one always left to us. And that; as mother often said, is usefulness." "I do try to be useful," she said. "Yes, you are very kind to me and to the children. If you were my own sister you could not do more. But these little duties do not relieve that aching void in your heart which yearns so for relief." "No," she said, quickly, "I have no such yearning. I just want to settle down as I am now." "Yes, I suppose that is the natural tendency of sorrow. But there is great significance in the prayer for 'a heart at leisure from itself, to soothe and sympathize.'"