THE NORTHOCOFT LILIES.

 At sixteen life looks very bright before us; we are
 quick to see, and feel, and realize; and just in pro-
 portion as we enjoy what is pleasant, so do we feel
 what is painful. We feel it is hard to have the
 brightness of life clouded; we question, Why is it so?
 And unless, with childlike faith, we place trusting
 hands in our heavenly Father's, and learn to love and
 follow Him, and seek first his will before our own, we
 are liable to faint and fall by the way, and either give
 up effort and grow despondent, or else recklessly take
 the reins of government into our own hands, and in
 the end make ourselves and every one else miserable,
 and miss the good which life always brings with it to
 those who take it as a talent to be used and accounted
 for, and not a light and vain thing for which we are
 not responsible.
 Then, leaving the dear old Gloucestershire village
 to come to London had been a trial quite as great to
 Miss Brooke as it had been to the Laytons to leave
 London for Lincolnshire, and the many different kinds
 and degrees of poverty struck her painfully with the
 conviction of her own inability to relieve; the girls,
 too, in her Sunday-school class were so wonderfully
 sharp and quick, and so inclined to be self-opinionated,
 that sometimes she felt her daily task exceedingly
 heavy, and she had yet to learn the full meaning of
 the words, Cast thy burden upon the Lord."
 As ten o'clock struck that May evening, Mary put
away her pencils, replaced her precious lilies in water,
and took up her little lamp to look round the house,
and see all safe for the night. On her return with the
key-basket in her hand, she went into the study.
Mr. Brooke was there reading; he looked grave as
usual, but a kind arm encircled his daughter's waist
as she came and leant over his shoulder,