Chapter XV: Vera's Content

"I COULD be perfectly happy if I could live always in a cottage like that, and look-out on such a view!" sighed Vera, as she and her mother sat one evening on a stile, and looked over into a peaceful field, covered with daisies, and with a pond in front whose deep shadows were now and then broken by snowy ducks swimming across them.

Her mother smiled a little, but did not otherwise answer.

"I get so tired of the houses opposite us!" Vera went on, "And our holiday seems so soon over, and we have to go back to the dull streets and noisy trams. Don't you, mother?"

"Yes, dear, a little, sometimes; but I am sure we ought not to encourage such a feeling—"

"I can't help it," interrupted Vera, a little vehemently, "I was made so!"

Her mother gave a little laugh. "That is very comfortable," she said, archly.

"Well, then—I don't know how to help it!" pursued Vera. "I perfectly love pretty scenery, and country flowers, and blue skies, and—and—"

"Oh, stop, Vera! So do I; but now let us look at the other side. Think of the hundreds and thousands who have to live in the towns, and who have not the great treat which you and I have been given, of spending a whole fortnight in this sweet place."

"That doesn't make me more contented, it only makes me so sorry for them that I can't enjoy myself one bit."

Vera dashed two or three tears from her eyes, and looked over the pretty prospect.

"Well, dear, let us think of it like this. God, our loving Father, sees what we need. He knows all about us; all about our delight in pretty, refined things; all about how tired and weary we have been, you with your examinations, and I with the cares of home, and so He has sent us what will rest us, and help us to go on again."

"When I look at this holiday as His gift, and thank Him for it, it makes every fresh beauty more beautiful; it helps me to pray for the weary ones who have not got one, and to plan how, in our little way, we may shed brightness and pleasure round on those we do know—"

"You're always trying to do that!" said Vera, "But—"

"As to happiness being found in a country cottage," said her mother, "if we do not make happiness in our everyday life for each other, by being loving and unselfish, we should not get it, though we might live in the most beautiful scenery in the world!"

Vera put her hand in her mother's. "I'll try," she said, impulsively; and her mother, with a bright smile, added some lines of George Herbert's, she often repeated to herself:

"Not thankful when it pleaseth me,
As if Thy blessings had spare days;
But such a heart—whose pulse should be
Thy praise!"