child became stronger each
day, as always happens when we deny ourselves for others.

They took long walks together in the woods that surrounded the pretty
village. Clemence had an artist's eye, and she loved to wander amid
these scenes of beauty, that had power to calm her troubled soul as
nothing else could do.

Little Johnny Brier often joined them, and Clemence, whose heart ached
for the little creature, with the white, wan face that spoke of
suffering, used to cheer him, and try to inspire him with hope for the
future.

But he would say, fastening his wistful eyes upon her, with a look that
always gave her pain:

"I like best to have you tell me of heaven. I do not believe I shall
ever be happy in this world; but, I want to try and do right, so that
when I die, I may go to live with God and his holy angels."

"But you must not indulge in such a morbid state of feeling," Clemence
would say gravely. "If your Heavenly Father sees fit to have you labor
for Him upon earth, you should not murmur nor repine, but strive humbly
for submission. You may be sure that there is something for you yet to
accomplish. God witnesses your misery, and knows of your longing to go
to Him; but, you are not yet prepared. The discipline of life is needed
to prove that you can deny yourself for the good of others. You can show
your trust in the loving hand that guides you, by striving to bear your
present trials patiently, and in His own good time He will surely send
relief."

"Do you really think that?" was the oft repeated question, and the
troubled eyes would scan Clemence's face, till her own were filled with
blinding drops. "I try so hard to be good and patient, but I can't hope
for anything better. Something seems to stop me, when I try to pray to
be made useful in this world, and it comes right out of my heart to ask,
instead, only to let me die. Sometimes I have waited outside the
graveyard, and watched a little spot under a shady tree, where no one
ever goes, and I have thought how pleasant it would be to lie down
there, with the daisies and violets to creep over me lovingly, and never
wake again to any more pain. I don't think I would like to be happy, for
you are not, dear Miss Graystone, and I don't think some people are ever
made to be. I believe God means to make them feel how bad and wicked the
world is, so they will want to leave it and go to Him. Don't you think
He means that, when He tells us about there being no mor