MAY 24.-I celebrated my little Una's third birthday by presenting her
with a new brother. Both the children welcomed him with delight that
was itself compensation enough for all it cost me to get up such a
celebration. Martha takes a most prosaic view of this proceeding, in
which she detects malice prepense on my part. She says I shall now
have one mouth the more to fill, and two feet the more to shoe; more
disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure for visiting,
reading, music, and drawing.

Well! this is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the
other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more
feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a
soul to train for God, and the body in which it dwells is worthy all
it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see
less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom,
while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what
little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me.
Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart,
welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares,
to her life- long prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how
wondrously blest!

JUNE 5.-We begin to be woefully crowded. We need a larger house, or a
smaller household. I am afraid I secretly, down at the bottom of my
heart, wish Martha and her father could give place to my little ones.
May God forgive me if this is so It is a poor time for such emotions
when He has just given me another darling child, for whom I have as
rich and ample a love as if I had spent no affection on the other
twain. I have made myself especially kind to poor father and to