APRIL 30.-Mother has just gone. Her visit has done me a world of good. She found out something to like in father at once, and then something good in Martha. She says father's sufferings are real, not fancied; that his error is not knowing where to locate his disease, and is starving one week and over-eating the next. She charged me not to lay up future misery for myself by misjudging him now, and to treat him as a daughter ought without the smallest regard to his appreciation of it. Then as to Martha, she declares that I have no idea how much she does to reduce our expenses, to keep the house in order and to relieve us from care. "But, mother," I said, "did you notice what horrid butter we have? And it is all her doing." "But the butter won't last forever," she replied. "Don't make yourself miserable about such a trifle. For my part, it is a great relief to me to know that with your delicate health you have this tower of strength to lean on." "But my health is not delicate, mother." "You certainly look pale and thin." "Oh, well," I said, whereupon she fell to giving me all sorts of advice about getting up on step-ladders, and climbing on chairs, and sewing too much and all that. JUNE 15.-The weather, or something, makes me rather languid and stupid. I begin to think that Martha is not an entire nuisance in the house. I have just been to see Mrs. Campbell. In answer to my routine of lamentations, she took up a book and read me what was called, as nearly as I can remember, "Four steps that lead to peace." "Be desirous of doing the will of another rather than thine own." "Choose always to have less, rather than more." "Seek always the lowest place, and to be inferior to every one." "Wish always, and pray, that the will of God may be wholly fulfilled in thee." I was much struck with these directions; but I said, despondently: "If peace can only be found at the end of such hard roads, I am sure I shall always be miserable." "Are you miserable now?" she asked. "Yes, just now I am. I do not mean that I have no happiness; I mean that I am in a disheartened mood, weary of going round and round in circles, committing the same sins, uttering the same confessions, and making no advance." "My dear," she said, after a time, "have you a perfectly distinct, settled view of what Christ is to the human soul?" "I do not know. I understand, of course, more or less perfectly, that my salvation depends on Him alone; it is His gift." "But do you see, with equal clearness, that your sanctification must be as fully His gift, as your salvation is?" "No," I said, after a little thought. "I have had a feeling that He has done His part, and now I must do mine." "My dear," she said, with much tenderness and feeling, "then the first thing you have to do is to learn Christ." "But how?" "On your knees, my child, on your knees!" She was tired, and I came away; and I have indeed been on my knees.