Oh! what is happiness when fear
Starts like a pale unhidden ghost,
That steals across the banquet hall
And spills the draught we long for most?

For when 1 look at her it comes—
The fear that she may leave us soon;
So perfect in the morning light,
How can the blossom last till noon?

The soft and shining baby hair
Seems but a nimbus round the brow;
The sweet amazement of the eye
Asks 'what they do in heaven now.’

I marvel what they do there, too,
Without her in that far still land ;
I tremble lest I turn and see
Great angels in the sunbeam stand.

Great angels, whose departing wings
Shall spread a shadow in the air,
Since having earth so bright, I fear
Heaven be not heaven without her there.

I THINK the arrival of the first grandchild is one of the most important and exciting events in the everyday life of the world, especially when (as in our case) the young mother is one of a large family of brothers and sisters, and the grandparents themselves still only in ripe middle age.

See what a host of new relationships are formed by the advent of that tiny morsel of humanity: “Father,” “mother,” dearest of all earthly names, "grandpa,” “grandma”; strange do these titles sound when uttered for the first time. Then the tribe of young uncles and aunts. Fancy our little Ben an uncle! When he: realized his new dignity the fond name of “the Bab” dropped from him forever more, like the mantle of Elijah the prophet. There was a “new baby” now. She arrived early one Sunday morning, and you know the old rhyme:

“The child that’s born on the Sabbath day is lucky, and bonny, and wise, and gay.”

Late on the Saturday night, just as mother and I were going to bed, tired out after a hard day’s work, Bet’s husband violently rang the door-bell, and in a state of great excitement demanded our immediate presence at his home. His impatience would not let him stay while we hurriedly made ready, but he departed in hot haste, leaving us to follow We found when wc reached there the house all astir, doctor and nurse already in attendance.

We none of us slept that night, and, as I told you, in the eaily morning we heard the first faint wail of our little “Blossom.” She was a very fragile blossom, though, and only the greatest care and most loving watchfulness in those first days availed to keep her with us. But love can work wonders, and our little maid has grown to tall and lovely womanhood, the joy of all oui hearts.

She was named after me, for this had been a compact between Bet and 1 since our childish days; her first daughter was to he Nancy, and mine was to be Bet. Well, she fulfilled her half of the bargain, anyway, and my small namesake, at the mature age of three weeks, took her first outing in my arms. Bet and her husband were to come to our house to tea, bringing the baby, so I went over early to fetch them —really, that I might have the supreme pleasure of carrying my small niece. Bet wrapped her up before delivering her to me, in so many garments—cloaks, veils, shawls, etc.—that I was in mortal dread that she would suffocate before we reached our destination; and every few steps I had to stop and. resting my knee against a telegraph pole, open the bundle sufficiently to assure myself that the small creature who formed the kernel was still living and breathing. However, she arrived all right at her journey’s end, and was safely transferred to her grandmother’s arms.

Bet told us the night after the nurse departed, when she and her husband were left in sole charge of the baby, they had a terribly anxious time: not that there was anything wrong with the child, but they both, being young and ignorant of the ways and manners of babies, sat up all night watching her and worked themselves up into such a state of nervous anxiety that they both shed tears together. In the first place, they had no Idea that the respiration of an infant was so much quicker than their own, and they arrived at the conclusion that it was a symptom of high fever. Then, every time the child screwed up her little mouth, or smiled, they imagined convulsions coming on. You know there is a romantic old legend that says, “When a babe smiles in its sleep it is an angel whispering sweet things in its ear.” But all the old nurses scorn this story and say, “It’s the wind, just wind.” But of this Bet had no knowledge, and in her case “ignorance was not bliss.” How mother laughed at them! I can fancy I hear the: echo of that merry laugh now. But we did have a real scare the next day, and that I will tell you about.

I heard when I went home at noon to dinner that the baby was not very well, and so, as soon as I could get away from the store in the evening, I hurried over to Bet’s. When I opened her bedroom door I saw mother in a low rocking-chair at the foot of the bed, with the baby in her arms, and Bet kneeling before. her, lamp in hand, anxiously scanning the t'ny features. On catching sight of me mother burst forth in a loud voice, “Now, you’ve done it between you; you’ve killed the child!” I stood aghast and horror-stricken for a moment; then, gazing at Bet’s scared face, I knew what she meant, The day before at the tea we had the first cucumber of the season, nicely sliced, with pepper and vinegar, eked out with onions, and sending forth a most inviting smell. Mother strictly ordered Bet not to think of tasting this dainty under the most severe penalties. But Bet took the opportunity, while mother went out to replenish the teapot, of abstracting a portion of the forbidden dainty, and hastily swallowing it, at the same time slyly winking at me to keep mum. When the baby was taken sick next day, Bet, alarmed, confessed her crime to mother, and, oh iny! what a dressing down she got—both of us, in fact; Bet as principal transgressor, I as accessory to the fact. But I am thankful to say we were spared further punishment and remorse, for after wc had suffered two or three hours of anxiety, and after the administration of several minute doses of catnip, the baby recovered and we breathed freely once more.

When Baby Nan was two months old she was still so delicate that the doctor advised my brother-in-law to send mother and child to Muskoka for the rest of the summer. So Bet went off to father at Dale End, carrying her treasure with her. Winnie went with her too, for she was hardly able to take the journey alone with the baby, and though Winnie could only remain a week or two, she was very anxious to take her first peep at this lovely Muskoka. They had by no means a pleasant journey, for when they reached Severn Bridge, and had mounted the stage, they found a long bridge on the way, which they had to cross, had been burnt by bush fires, so all the passengers had to alight and walk two miles while the stage went some round-about way through the bush and rejoined them farther on. Bet said they never could have carried the baby over the burnt bridge, they were so nervous, had not some kind man, a fellow-passenger, taken her from them, and, going ahead, with encouraging words and kindly aid, landed them all safely on the other side. The roads of those days must have been terribly rough, for Winnie told us a most laughable story which happened on her return journey, a week or two later.

A man boarded the stage at Gravenhurst carrying, very carefully, a large stone jar, holding two or three gallons, the top tied over with paper. He landed it with some difficulty on to the floor of the stage, and then sat down, thinking he could hold it in an upright position with his feet. Vain hope. As soon as the horses started and the rude vehicle began to rock wildly in every direction, a steady stream of dark crimson syrup stole from the jar and spread itself insidiously around. The owner of the jar began to look rather uncomfortable, and the lady sitting next him, feeling something sticky round her feet, raised her skirts, and was amazed to find them dyed a rich claret color. At the same moment a terrific lurch sent the jar wildly careering to the other side of the stage, the soaked paper cover gave way, and a fat baby calmly asleep on its mother’s knee was suddenly baptized with two or three quarts of luscious huckleberry jam, full in its face. The commotion that followed, the gasping, half-strangled cries of the child, the indignation of the mother, and the stifled but almost uncontrollabie mirth of the other passengers, drew the attention of the driver, who dismounted and came to the back of the vehicle to find out the cause of the confusion.

Winnie said, though every passenger, more or less was what you might call “jammy,” and she herself was laughing till the tears rolled down her cheeks, she could not help feeling sorry for the poor unfortunate owner of the jar. The driver, when he saw the condition of things, commanded the man to hand over his precious jam to be emptied out on the roadside. In vain did the poor fellow try to avert this sacrifice by telling how he had toiled in the hot sun gathering the berries, the difficulties he had overcome in order to obtain the necessary sugar, the distance he had carried the jar that morning through the bush, the disappointment awaiting the children in Toronto, whose little mouths were even now watering in anticipation of the expected treat—his eloquence was all wasted on the hard-hearted driver. The fate of the jar wras scaled, it was carried forth to destruction. What a libation! Every neck w'as stretched forth to see the sacrifice, even the much aggrieved baby stopped his screaming, and opened his eyes to take a peep, while his little tongue, stretched to its farthest extent, was licking in the sweetness still adherent to mouth and nose.

“It took us some time before we ail settled down in peace and quietness again,” said Winnie, “and even then there were occasional outbursts of merriment from the more juvenile passengers.” The poor “huckleberry man,” though, wore an air of the deepest dejection, even until Toronto was reached. But this is “episodin’,” as Samantha Allen would say, so we will return to Bet and her baby.

They stayed at Dale End till September, and by this time little Miss Nancy had got so plump, and had gained such a healthy color with being out of doors all day in the fresh air of Muskoka, that when I went to the station to meet them, the night of their return to Toronto, I could not believe it was the same baby. Honestly, I suspected Bet of playing a trick on me by exchanging babies for awhile with some other passenger on the train. Our little delicate Biossom developed into that pudgy creature, w'tha face as broad as it was long, and hardly able to see out of her eyes for fatness. I was fairly amazed. “What is there Muskoka cannot do!” I said, and often since have I found occasion to repeat the exclamation.

Well, the baby continued to grow and flourish all through the following winter and spring; by the time she was a year old she was one of the sweetest children you ever looked upon—her large violet eyes, golden curls, and gentle expression, made her quite a picture, and people would turn round in the street and gaze at her with admiring looks.

She was very quiet—almost too good, for you know there is an old nurse’s superstition about very good babies, “too good to live.” The old doctor who attended Bet when she was born was profoundly astonished that she survived at all, he never thought she would ; he said it was nothing short of a miracle, and when he met any of us on the street would ask, “How is that miraculous baby?”

Her troubles were to come, though; the second summer of her life proved to be a very try ing one. The weather was hot and sultry, the city fairly stifling; the child seemed to wilt like a faded flower, and again her mother was ordered to take her off to Muskoka. This time, indeed, it was touch and go with our darling. I don’t know whether she had been kept too long in the hot city, or whether, as people say here, the second summer is the most trying one of a child’s life, it is certain that she became very ill after her arrival at Dale End, and for a few days her life hung by a thread.

Winnie again accompanied Bet. and I know that we in Toronto were terribly anxious, and it was so hard to get news. However, one morning—it was Saturday, I never forget the day—I received a letter from father saying the child was dying and Bet’s husband had better go up at once. You can imagine how we felt; and the worst of it was that he could not start on his journey till Monday morning; there was only one through train then, and Sunday intervened. What might not have happened before he could get there? I remember how I walked frantically about the house, for I fairly worshipped the child, and the hardest part of it was that I could do nothing! nothing!

To me, now looking back on the past years of my me, the most agonizing moments, the worst extremities, have been when it has been forced upon my consciousness, “there was nothing more could be done.” Oh, how the echo of these words seems to pierce the very soul! One can bear up and put on a brave face while there is hope, and something to be done; but when brought face to face with that awful nothing then is the time when we need comfort which it is beyond the power of man to give.

I remember, as I was pacing up and down the room after reading father’s letter, for it seemed impossible for me to keep still, my eyes happened to fall on a tiny white sock of the baby’s, carelessly thrown on the top of my work-basket. I snatched it up and pressed it to my lips, and then the tears burst forth, and I fell on my knees beside a chair and prayed as I had never done before that God would spare the life of the child.

Did He not hear me? Yea, verily, I say He did.

Oh! what a long Saturday that was, and Sunday too. All I could do was to collect everything I could think of that would be useful to Bet and the child, if she should be still living when her father reached her. 1 went to the station with him on Monday morning, and he promised to send us news as speedily as possible. We had not to wait so long, though j our dreadful suspense was nearly over, The next morning we received another letter from father saying the child was better. He knew what our anxiety would be and hastened to send us the good news.

It appears, from what I learned afterwards, that the day father wrote the letter to me Bet had passed a dreadful night with the little one. She was in a burning fever, and in the early morning as she lay on her mother's lap with half-closed eyes, her little mouth opening with a faint gasp at. every breath, my father thought nothing less than that her hours, nay even her very minutes, were numbered. He could not bear the sight, and, knowing what Bet’s despair would be if the worst came to pass, he made up his mind to fetch Mrs. Spencer, a kind-hearted neighbor, to stay with her, and go on himself to Port Carling in order to write to us and send the bad news. It was n this way we received the letter from him which threw us into such a state of despair.

Knowing father so well, we were fully aware that he would not have written us like that unless he had given up all hope -and so he had, for he actually believed her dying when he went for Mrs. Spencer. She, good-hearted soul, started off at once to Bet’s assistance, but to her intense relief found on her arrival at the house that the baby had taken a turn for the better.

Winnie said that after father left the child’s head and face were so burning hot that Bet took a sponge and, dipping it in cool water, held it on the little brow. A few drops trickled down from the sponge and the baby eagerly sucked them in. This made Winnie, who was kneeling in front of Bet and watching the child, suggest putting her in a warm bath, which they proceeded to do. This must have beer the turning point, for almost directly after she broke out into a profuse perspiration, her breathing became more natural, she fell into a sweet sleep, and, “thanks be to God,” her life was spared.

Poor father, though away at Port Carling, knew nothing of this happy change, and as he rowed home, full of the most gloomy forebodings, he dreaded to approach the house. As he landed he stood still and listened. What was that he heard ? A moan, no, it was Winnie’s merry laugh. The relief brought by this sound, and the reaction from his sad forebodings, seemed to take all his strength away. He managed to get up to the door, but when the girls saw his ghastly face they thought something dreadful must have happened, and they called out, “Oh! what is the matter?” They thought perhaps Benny was drowned, but he reassured them and was soon all right again.

The baby, by the time her father arrived late on the Monday evening, was very much better and able to smile at her own “dada” and enjoy the things he had brought her We in Toronto were overjoyed when we heard the glad news and could not be thankful enough.

Have you not noticed when some heavy blow seems about to fall upon us how every smaller trouble and worry sinks away into nothingness; we wonder to ourselves how such trifles could ever have caused us to complain. Yet, I am afraid, no sooner shall God have turned our sorrow into joy than we shall still go on and worry once more over all the petty annoyances we have to encounter in this mortal life.

My sister Bet never had any more children, so little Nancy grew up as the very apple of her eye. When she was just entering her teens she lost her good father, and Bet the most loving of husbands. This was a most terrible blow, the first break in our happy family band, and we felt it very keenly both for poor Bet’s sake and our own. My brother-in-law had always bee" of such a bright, happy disposition. He made many friends, but never an enemy. He was a thorough John Bull, both in looks and ways, jovial and good-hearted. The gap he made in our family circle has never been filled up. Cut off in the prime of his life, leaving his devoted wife a widow and his dearly loved child an orphan, it was hard to say7 “Thy will be done.” But God gives strength in the hour of need.

Nancy did her childish best to comfort and cheer her mother’s loneliness. They seemed to live for each other. She has grown now into lovely womanhood, and as good as she is lovely. Bet returned to us to be the stay and comfort of my father’s and mother’s declining years. She never left them again. She was daughter, mother, sister, all in one, and I have no words with which to praise her. I can only quote what father said in a letter written to us, to be read after his death, “As for Bet, the Lord will reward her.”