in them,
and the answer came slowly.

"I can't do it--I can't make yesterday over again."

[Illustration: _"I can't make yesterday over again."_]

It was the hopeless task that in one form or another we all undertake,
and with which many darken their whole lives because they will not learn
that it is an impossible one. Yesterday's roses died with the day,
yesterday's manna was only for yesterday's need, but there are new
flowers and new food for to-day from the same gracious hand that
bestowed the other, if only we will go cheerfully and trustingly
forward. The treasures and pleasures we have had are for memory and
thanksgiving, but the moment we sit down beside them to grieve or to try
to reconstruct them out of their ruins we have changed them from a
blessing to a hindrance. We cannot make yesterday over again.

[Illustration]

A CHILD'S PUZZLE

* * * * *

Meg had been playing in the garden all the morning, and when mama called
her in she had earth on her hands, and smuts on her face, and she looked
such a grubby little thing.

Mama smiled. "You have been having a good time, Meg," she said.

And she put a tin bason with some soap and warm water in it on a
chair where Meg could reach.

"Now, then, wash your hands and face, dear. Dada will soon be in for
dinner."

But Meg pouted. "I don't want to wash," she said. "I am not dirty."

Mama waited a little, but when she saw that Meg did not begin to wash,
she said, quite gravely:

"You cannot sit at the table, as you are, dear. If you do not wash, then
you must go without your dinner."

Meg stood a minute, then, as she saw that mama was quite firm, she put
her hands into the water and began to wash and scrub them.

Lucy is older than Meg, and she had looked on all the time to see what
Meg would do. When Lucy saw her begin to wash and be good, she
said:--

"Why is it, mama, that you and dada can do just as you like about
everything, but we children have to do as you tell us all the time? I
don't think it is fair. I wish we could do as we like, too."

Mania did not speak for a moment. In her heart she said, "Lord help me
to make this plain to my little girls."

"Did Meg have to wash?" she asked them.

"Yes," said Lucy. "If not, she would have to--"

"Bear the punishment," said mama. "You say, Lucy, that dada and I do
just what we choose, and that is quite true. But if we choose to do
wrong, then we have to be pun