"Well, perhaps you don't understand such things, Mr. Spelt, not being a married man."

Mr. Spelt had had a wife who had killed herself by drinking all his earnings; but Mattie knew nothing about that.

"No more I am. You must explain it to me.”

"Well, you see, young people will be young people."

"Who told you that?"

"Old Mrs. Boxall says so.

And that's why

Mr. Worboise goes to see Miss Burton, I know. -I told you so," she added, as she heard

his step returning.

But Thomas bore a huge ledger under his arm, for which Mr. Stopper had sent him round to the court. Certainly, however, had Lucy been at home, he would have laid a few minutes more to the account of the errand.

"So, so!" said the tailor.

Mattie ?"

"That's it, is it,

"Yes; but we don't say anything about such

things, you know."

"Oh! of course not," answered Mr. Spelt; and the conversation ceased.

After a long pause, the child spoke again. "Is God good to you to-day, mother?" "Yes, Mattie. God is always good to us." "But he's better some days than others, isn't he?"

To this question the tailor did not know what to reply, and therefore, like a wise man, did not make the attempt. He asked her instead, as he had often occasion to do with Mattie, what she meant.

"Don't you

know what I mean, mother? Don't you know God's better to us some days than others? Yes; and he's better to some people than he is to others."

"I am sure he's always good to you and me, Mattie."

"Well, yes; generally."

"Why don't you say always ?"

"Because I'm not sure about it.

Now to-day

it's all very well. But yesterday the sun shone

in at the window a whole hour."

"And I drew down the blind to shut it out,"

said Mr. Spelt, thoughtfully.

'Well," Mattie went on, without heeding her friend's remark, "he could make the sun shine. every day, if he liked. I suppose he could,” she added, doubtfully.

"I don't think we should like it if he did,” returned Mr. Spelt; "for the drain down below smells bad in the hot weather."

"But the rain might come-at night, I mean, not in the daytime and wash it all out. Mightn't it, mother?"

"Yes; but the heat makes people ill. And if you had such hot weather as they have in some parts, as I am told, you would be glad enough of a day like this."

"Well, why haven't they a day like this when they want it ?"

"God knows," said Mr. Spelt, whose magazine was nearly exhausted, with the enemy pressing on vigorously.

"Well, that's what I

say.

God knows, and

why doesn't he help it ?"

And Mr. Spelt surrendered, if silence was surrender. Mattie did not press her advantage, however, and again the besieged plucked up heart a little.

"I fancy, perhaps, Mattie, he leaves something for us to do. You know they cut out the slopwork at the shop, and I can't do much more with that but put the pieces together. But when a repairing job comes in, I can contrive a bit then, and I like that better."

Mr. Spelt's meaning was not very clear, either to himself or to Mattie. But it involved the shadow of a great truth-that all the discords we hear in the universe around us, are God's trumpets sounding a reveillée to the sleeping human will, which, once working harmoniously with his, will soon bring all things into a pure and healthy rectitude of operation. Till a man has learned to be happy without the sunshine, and therein becomes capable of enjoying it perfectly, it is well that the shine and the shadow should be mingled, so as God only knows how to mingle them. To effect the

blessedness for which God made him, man must become a fellow-worker with God.

After a little while Mattie resumed operations.

"But you can't say, mother, that God isn't better to some people than to other people. He's surely gooder to you and me than he is to Poppie."

"Who's Poppie?" asked Mr. Spelt, sending out a flag of negotiation.

"Well, there she is-down in the gutter, I suppose, as usual," answered Mattie, without lifting her eyes.

The tailor peeped out of his house-front, and saw a barefooted child in the court below. What she was like I shall take a better opportunity of informing my reader. For at this moment the sound of strong nails tapping sharply reached the ear of Mr. Spelt and his friend. The sound came from a window just over the archway, hence at right angles to Mr. Spelt's workshop. It was very dingy with dust and smoke, allowing only the outline of a man's figure to be seen from the court. This much