been too much occupied and annoyed with little things to be happy
enough. This Consecration day will be a glorious time to look back
to, when it is alone on the horizon, and we have lost sight of all
that blemishes it now. I will tell you what it will be like. I once
saw the Church, on a misty day, from a great distance. It was about
the middle of the day, and the veil of mist was hanging all round the
hill, but there stood the Church, clear and bright, and alone in the
sunshine, all the scaffold poles and unfinished roughness lost sight
of in the distance. I never saw a more beautiful sight.'

'And do you expect that distance of time will conceal all blemishes
as well as distance of place?' said Anne.

'Yes, unless I take a telescope to look at them with,' answered
Elizabeth; 'perhaps, Anne, in thirty years time, if we both live so
long, we may meet and talk over this day, and smile, and wonder that
we could have been vexed by anything at such a time.'

'You like looking forward,' said Anne; 'I suppose I am too happy, for
I am afraid to look forward; any change of any sort must bring sorrow
with it.'

'I suppose you are right,' said Elizabeth; 'that is, I believe the
safest frame of mind to be that which resigns itself to anything that
may be appointed for it, rather than that which makes schemes and
projects for itself.'

'Oh! but, Lizzie,' said Anne, 'I did not mean that. Mine is rather
an indolent frame, which does not scheme, because my present
condition is, I do believe, happier than any I could imagine upon