THE NORTHOCROPT LILIES.

and smooth, and solemn on the wolds, and making
more graceful than ever the drooping branches of the
trees near Northcroft Rectory; and Gertrude said to
her papa on Christmas Eve, as they talked of the
Christmas-tree which she and her sisters had dressed
for the school children the year before, she could not
grumble at Lincolnshire now, much as she wanted
sometimes to see her dear old London friends. It
was not pretty everywhere, and there were no old
ruins, no winding river near home; but there were
the hills in the distance and the far-spreading larch
woods, and then she was sure she had never been so
entirely happy as when she helped to fill mamma's
large hamper with the beautiful Northcroft lilies for
poor Nancy Joyce.
 But the little girl did not know how her deed of
kindness had been blessed and multiplied, nor how
that, into a very great many homes where the lilies
had been taken, there was lingering still this snowy
Christmas-tide, the echo of that Divine utterance
which they had so sweetly brought to careworn hearts
and doubting minds; and that as the year was dying,
and another with its untried anxieties was approaching,
many tired souls were resting in a sweet supporting
sense of safety and peace, as they thought of the lilies'
message-
 "Shall He not much more care for you ?"






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