"I see!" said Tom. "Let us all try this year to have a promise, or an assurance, every morning. I am sure it will bring happiness." "Have you got one for to-day?" asked Jean, shyly. "Yes," said Aunt Ruth, looking up. "It is 'Certainly I will be with thee.'" "That's a ticket to a very good seat!" said Oswald, with his eyes shining. "I think your 'tickets' are a good idea, Auntie. We'll each see if we can't get some for ourselves." "But are the promises always applicable?" asked Rose. "I think I may say I have always found them so," said Aunt Ruth, "for when by a promise we get into God's presence, it is wonderful what a feast He spreads for us, 'enough and to spare'; worth all the trouble of getting in." "Is it easy to find promises?" asked Tom, "For I should never know where to look." "You would soon get used to it, especially as there are quite 30,000 promises in the Bible." "Are there, Auntie?" "Yes. Did you never hear the story of the old woman who put T.P. on pretty nearly every page of her Bible? Some one asked her what T. P. meant, and she said, with great satisfaction—'T. P., Tried and Proved. I've tried and proved every one of those promises, and found God faithful!'" "I like that!" said Oswald. "Now let's get a promise each for to-day!" "How would you like to have the same as mine?" said Aunt Ruth, "And to-morrow you can each get a fresh one for yourselves?" This met with great approval, and Jean wrote on a strip of paper and slipped it into her Bible— "Certainly I will be with thee!" CHAPTER II. WHAT THE SHEPHERD KNOWS. AUNT RUTH sat in the chimney corner. It was a cold, snowy day, and the children had come in from a walk, and said it was bitter. They gathered close to the fire, and all seemed inclined to stop there, rather than seek for employment or amusement. "The fields looked so bleak," said Rose, warming her hands for the twentieth time. "We saw a shepherd leading home his sheep, Auntie!" said Jean. "Did you? How interesting! Not driving them, then?" "No, that was what I noticed and I thought you'd perhaps have a twilight talk over that?" Jean smiled as she said it, and Aunt Ruth smiled too. "So you are beginning to look-out for spiritual lessons from everyday things?" "I like that sort of lesson," said Jean, "so much better than geography and history!" "Ah! But we cannot properly learn the spiritual, unless we are in touch with Christ in the everyday things!" "Can't we, Auntie?" asked Tom, soberly. She shook her head. "Well," she said, "directly Jean told me she had seen a shepherd leading his sheep, I thought of one of my favourite texts." "And that was?" asked Oswald. "'My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.'"