As she sang, her whole soul thrilled with the joy of glorying in such a theme, and her last thought, as she closed her eyes for the night, was about a plan of work that she meant to carry out. What could have happened in the night to so change the face of the world for her! It looked so utterly different in the morning. School was to open, and she shrank from it, dreaded it. The work looked all drudgery, and the plans she had formed the night before seemed impossibilities. The face of nature had changed wonderfully. In place of radiant sunshine there was falling a steady, dismal rain; the clouds bent low, and looked like lead; the wind was moaning in a dismal way, that felt like a wail; and nothing but umbrellas, and water-proofs, and rubber over-coats, and dreariness, were abroad. The pretty, summery school dress that Marion had laid out to wear was hung sadly back in her wardrobe, and the inevitable black alpaca came to the surface. It seemed to her the symbol of her old life of dreariness, which she imagined had gone from her. It was not that she felt utterly dismal and desolate; it was not that she had forgotten her late experiences; it was not that she did not know that she had the Friend who is "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever;" it was simply that she could not feel it, and joy in it as she had done only yesterday; and her religious life was too recent not to be swayed by feeling and impulse. The fact that there was a clear sun shining above the clouds, and a strong and firm mountain up in the sunshine, on which it was her privilege to stand, despite what was going on below, she did not understand. She did not know what effect the weather and the sense of fatigue were having on her, and she felt not only mortified, but alarmed, that her joy had so soon gone out in cloud and gloom. If she could only just run around the corner to see Eurie a minute, or up the hill to Flossy's home, how much it would help her; and the thought that she was actually looking to Flossy Shipley and Eurie Mitchell for help of any sort brought the first smile that she had indulged in that morning; she was certainly changed when she could look to them for comfort or sympathy. Is there anyone reading this account of an every day life who does not understand, by past experience, just how trying a first day at school is, when teachers and scholars have come out from the influence of a long summer vacation? Next week, or even to-morrow, they will have battled with, and, in a measure, choked the spirit of disgust, or homesickness, or weariness, with which they come back from play to work; but to-day nothing seems quite so hard in all the world as to turn from the hundred things that have interested and delighted them, and settle down to grammar, and philosophy, and algebra.