The other day, tired and dispirited, we took our journey homeward in a car about half full of people, who, like ourselves, were spiritless and weary. An old apple woman sat in one corner, an elderly gentleman, with immense whiskers and a gold headed cane, read the paper in another. In the middle, frigid as a breath from Greenland’s icy mountains, erect and stiff, sat a fashionable lady, and dotted here and there were young and middle-aged men and women, with business written all over their faces and forms. Into this assembly, all as unsympathetic as so many sphinxes, suddenly entered, with clatter and bustle and sparkle and ripple of voices, and little crescendo and diminuendo peals of laughter, a half a dozen school girls. They were glowing with health and overflowing with fun, and by the very sunshine of their presence, in a half moment or so, they wrought a metamorphosis in that car. The apple woman forgot that she was going home to dry bread and cold potatoes; the gold headed cane man put his paper down and looked benevolent; the lady of ice melted perceptibly, and we asked mentally to be forgiven for having felt irritable. There is a blessing in fun.

These be the heavenly bodies in the firmament of our home & life.