ppier than the rich, in such
weather as this, at least."

"Because they are useful, Alice; go busy yourself about some
physical labour for an hour or two, then come back to me, and I
predict your face will be as sunshiny as ever. I am in earnest--you
need not look so incredulous!"

"What shall I do?" asked the young girl laughing. "I don't know how
to do a single thing in domestic matters. Mother says I shall never
work. It would spoil my fairy fingers, I presume, a terrible
consequence!"

"But seriously Alice, you are not so entirely incapable of doing
anything, are you?"

"I am positively, but I can learn if I choose. I believe I will
sweep my room and put it in order, as a beginning. That will be
something new: now I will try my best!" Alice sprang from her chair,
and tripped from the apartment quite pleased with the idea. A smile
broke over Miss Clinton's features, after her niece had left her
alone. "How easily Alice might be trained to better things, by love
and gentleness," she said half aloud. "Oh! if she would only love
me, and turn to me fondly. How I would delight to breathe a genial
prayer over the buds of promise in her youthful heart, and fan them
to warmer life." More than an hour flew by, as Mary Clinton sat in
thought, devising plans to awaken her favourite to a true sense of
her duties--to a knowledge of her capabilities for happiness and
usefulness. We may be useful with a heart full of sadness; but we
can rarely taste of happiness, unless we are desirous to benefit
some one besides ourselves. A quietness came over the lonely one as
she mused--a spirit of beautiful repose; for she forgot all thoughts
of her own enjoyment, in caring for another.

"You are quite a physician, Aunt Mary, to a mind diseased,"
exclaimed Alice, breaking her revery as she came in with a smiling
face, after the performance of her unaccustomed labour. "I am quite
in tune again now. I believe there is a little philosophy in being
busy occasionally, after all."

"There is really," replied Miss Clinton, raising her deep blue eyes
to Alice's face, with their pleasant expression; "and there is also
philosophy in recreation--in abandoning yourself for a time to
innocent gayety. An hour of enjoyment is refreshing and beneficial."

"Why, Aunt Mary!" said Alice in some surprise, "I had no idea that
you thought so. You are always so industrious and quiet, I imagined
you disapproved of the merriment of ordinary people. When we h