left me still selfish, still full of imperfections.

MARCH 5, 1852.-This is the sixth anniversary of James' death.
Thinking it all over after I went to bed last night, his sickness,
his death, and the weary months that followed for mother, I could not
get to sleep till long past midnight. Then Una woke, crying with the
earache, and I was up till nearly daybreak with her, poor child. I
got up jaded and depressed, almost ready to faint under the burden of
life, and dreading to meet Helen, who is doubly sad on these
anniversaries. She came down to breakfast dressed as usual in deep
mourning, and looking as spiritless as I felt. The prattle of the
children relieved the sombre silence maintained by the rest of us,
each of whom acted depressingly on the others. How things do flash
into one's mind. These words suddenly came to mine, as we sat so
gloomily at the table God had spread for us, and which He had
enlivened by the four young faces around it--

"Why should the children of a King
Go mourning all their days?"

Why, indeed? Children of a King? I felt grieved that I was so intent
on my own sorrows as to lose sight of my relationship to Him. And
then I asked myself what I could do to make the day less wearisome
and sorrowful to Helen. She came, after a time, with her work to my
room. The children took their good-by kisses and went off to school;
Ernest took his, too, and set forth on his day's work, whi1e Daisy
played quietly about the room.

"Helen, dear," I ventured at last to begin "I want you to do me a
favor to-day."