THE SUNBEAM PATH.



IT had been raining all day. Nellie had watched it from nearly every window in the house, looking now to, the east and now to the west for some sign of clearing up. 

But the drops fell steadily, and she could only stay indoors and watch the water forming into little pools in the worn door stones, and dripping from the trees. 

All the "Too bads!" and "Oh dears!" did not make the day a bit brighter, and indeed they seemed to make it darker to mamma, for a restless, discontented little girl is not a very pleasant companion.

At last, Nellie tired of waiting for a change of weather. "It'll rain until it stops, I suppose," she said, very truthfully, but rather crossly, and taking up a book, she seated herself to read.

Just then, the stage drove up to the door, and a gentleman alighted, and came up to the house. Mrs. Brand went to the door; and when Nellie heard Uncle Will's voice, she dropped her book and ran to meet him; but when she got as far as the door, she stopped, and peeped shyly at him from behind it.

Uncle Will came in, and taking Nellie upon his lap, asked her if she was glad to see him. "Oh, yes; it is so rainy and lonesome, and mamma and I have been alone all day."

"Oh," said Uncle Will," that is why my little niece has such a long face."

But mamma and Uncle Will began to talk about this and that, things that did not interest Nellie, and slipping down from Uncle Will's lap, she moved restlessly about the room.

"Oh, dear!" said she, "this is the longest rain there ever was."

"I guess you forget about the flood," said Uncle Will.

Nellie meditated a minute, and decided that having all the animals in the ark must have been a great help to Noah in passing the time; and that reminded her of Carlo, and suggested his companionship as a consolation. She was not quite sure that the others would be pleased with his company, so she opened the door and gave the invitation very quietly. But Carlo knew no such caution. He had been out in the rain until he was thoroughly drenched, and he bounded into the comfortable room and gave himself a complacent shake that sent drops of muddy water over the white clothes mamma had been ironing, while his feet left tracks on the clean floor at every step.

"O Nellie! " exclaimed mamma; and the dog was hastily banished.

Then Nellie seated herself, took up her book again, and soon forgot her troubles. 

She did not know how long she had read, when a glow upon the page before her made her look up. The sun had broken through the clouds, and a stream of light was flooding the room.

"Oh, how pretty! Look at it on the floor there!" she exclaimed. "What does it seem like?"

"Like cheerful, sweet-tempered people," answered mamma. "They always seem to brighten up a room more like sunshine than anything else that I can think of.

"Nellie's face flushed. The sunlight, with mamma's words, had shown her, as if by a flash, how selfish her day had been.

"It's like a great golden road upward, a golden road up to God," said Uncle Will slowly.

"I wish that I could go up on it!" exclaimed Nellie, watching the slanting beams. "But it won't bear feet."

"Our thoughts can travel over it," said mamma.  Nellie did not answer, for she was thinking how seldom it was that her thoughts traveled over the "sunbeam path" up to God. She wondered, too, if a sweet, unselfish life could be like the sunbeams, a golden road upward. Will she forget it all when the next rainy day comes?