MAKING THE BEST OF IT. 407 



*' Once upon a time" (our grandmother saw and told the 

 incident) a fire broke out in a country town ; two or three 

 houses were burned, many others were in danger. In the 

 midst of the excitement an old lady, Aunt Patsey, she was 

 called, ran out from one of the threatened dwellings, bear- 

 ing under one arm an old cracked toilet pitcher, under the 

 other the basin belonging to it. She ran here and there, 

 at last darted across the street, and set her precious load 

 down on our grandmother's door-step. ' ' There ! Thank 

 the Lord, that's safe, any how!" she panted. Then she 

 vanished, and directly was seen to emerge from her house 

 again, bearing the remainder of that valuable toilet set and 

 her comb and brush. Too excited to remember where she 

 had deposited her first load. Aunt Patsey finally placed the 

 second in the gutter, and sat down on the curb to guard it, 

 with a satisfied expression on her face, and a murmured 

 " Thank the Lord! " even though she saw her house, with 

 all its valuable contents, burning to the ground before her 

 eyes. For the time, crazed with fright and excitement, 

 she was contented to have saved the old toilet set, where 

 she might have saved the old family silver plate. 



Sisters, are all the Aunt Patseys dead yet? 



Learn ye to sacrifice the lower things to the higher. 



' ' Make the best of it " in this way, and add to the sys- 

 tematic thinning out of household duties a resolve to be 

 bright and cheerful, and to search out blessings rather than 

 the reverse, and then you need not fear being unhappy in 

 the new home, or finding its few drawbacks too heavy to 

 be borne. After all they are only such as are found more 

 or less in every country home where means or neighbors 

 are restricted, except that the genial glow of a mild climate 

 is always present in Florida. 



