"Dear child, He knows. Canst thou not trust Him? `Dieu est ton Berger.' The Shepherd takes more care of the sheep, Phoebe, than the sheep take care of themselves. Poor, blundering creatures that we are! always apt to think, in the depth of our hearts, that God would rather not save us, and that we shall have to take a great deal of trouble to persuade Him to do it. Nay! it is the Shepherd that longs to have the lamb safe folded, and the poor silly lamb that is always straying away. Phoebe, `the Father Himself loveth thee.'" "Oh, I know! But I can't see Him, Mrs Dorothy." "I suppose He knows that, too," answered her old friend, softly. "He knows how much easier it would be to believe if we could see and feel. Maybe 'tis therefore He hath pronounced so special a blessing upon such as have not seen, and yet have believed." "Mrs Dorothy,"--and Phoebe looked up earnestly,--"don't you think living is hard work?" "I did once, my maid. But I am beyond the burden and the heat of the day now. My tools are gathered together and put away, and I am waiting for the Master to call me in home to my rest. Thou too wilt come to that, child, if thy life be long enough. And to some, even here,--to all, afterward,--it is given to see where the turns were taken in the path, and whereto the road should have led that we took not. Ah, child, one day thy heaviest cause of thankfulness may be that in this or that matter--perchance in the matter that most closely engaged thee in this life--thy Father did not give thee the desire of thine heart." "Yet that is promised as a blessing?" said Phoebe, interrogatively, looking up. "As a blessing, dear child, when thy will is God's will. Can it be any blessing, when thy will and His run contrary the one to the other?" "Then you think I should not wish to be loved!" said Phoebe, with a heavy sigh. "I think God's child will do well to leave the choice of all things to her Father." "I must leave it. He will have it." "He will have it," repeated Mrs Dorothy solemnly; "but, Phoebe, you can leave it in loving submission, or you can have it wrenched from you in judgment. Though it may be that you must loose your hold on a gem, yet you please yourself whether you yield it as a gift, or wait to have it torn away." "I see," said Phoebe. "Was there any further trouble, my dear?" "Only that," replied Phoebe. "Life seems hard. I get so tired!" "Thou art young to know that, child," said Mrs Dorothy, with a rather sad smile. "Well, I don't know," answered Phoebe, doubtfully. "I think I have always been tired. And don't you know some people rest you, and some people don't? When there is nobody that rests one-- Father used-- but--" Mrs Dorothy thought there was not much difficulty in reading the story hidden behind Phoebe's broken sentences.