THE NORTHCROFT LILIES.

 How differently everything looked now to Nancy I
The bright May sunshine which so short a time ago
had seemed to mock her dulness as it showed more
clearly the wrinkles on her mother's face and the
poverty of the little room, smiled like a glad rejoicing
friend, as it glanced on the pure white lilies in the
tray before her. Nancy was a London girl, and knew
nothing of country pleasures, or perhaps the flowers
might have told her more than they did. She had no
idea of solemn forest shades where even in the hottest
summer noons the air is cold and fresh; her weary
feet had never climbed up some high down over
springy turf, with delicious wild thyme sending up a
fragrant greeting at every step; she could not imagine
how it would be to reach the top and breathe the in-
vigorating air, and let the eye roam over a boundless
view of sea and land, till mere existence seemed a
pleasure. It had never been her delight to see the
rich, newly-ploughed earth, or watch the progress of
the growing corn,-" first the blade, then the ear, till
the full corn in the ear," waved to and fro in the sun-
shine like a sea of gold. Breezy commons, where
billowy fern and bright furze bushes make a shelter for
the fragile harebell and tiny milkwort, were quite un-
known to her; nor had she ever sat by some quiet
stream, "clear and cool," and as it wended its way
through green pastures and valleys, watched its surface
gently stirred by the breath of the soft summer wind.
No of all these delights (far too little valued when
they can be had), Nancy in the close London court
was quite ignorant, so that to her the lilies said nothing
of their home in Northcroft woods, where the sunlight
streamed between oaks and larches, and shone on the
bright dog-violets by the sides of the wood-paths.
Yet they did speak, too, besides that God-sent message