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Title: Friends and Neighbors, or Two Ways of Living in the World

Author: T. S. Arthur

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FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS;

OR, Two Ways of Living in the World.

EDITED BY T. S. ARTHUR.

PHILADELPHIA:

1856






PREFACE.





WE were about preparing a few words of introduction to this volume,
the materials for which have been culled from the highways and
byways of literature, where our eyes fell upon these fitting
sentiments, the authorship of which we are unable to give. They
express clearly and beautifully what was in our own mind:--

"If we would only bring ourselves to look at the subjects that
surround as in their true flight, we should see beauty where now
appears deformity, and listen to harmony where we hear nothing but
discord. To be sure there is a great deal of vexation and anxiety in
the world; we cannot sail upon a summer sea for ever; yet if we
preserve a calm eye and a steady hand, we can so trim our sails and
manage our helm, as to avoid the quicksands, and weather the storms
that threaten shipwreck. We are members of one great family; we are
travelling the same road, and shall arrive at the same goal. We
breathe the same air, are subject to the same bounty, and we shall,
each lie down upon the bosom of our common mother. It is not
becoming, then, that brother should hate brother; it is not proper
that friend should deceive friend; it is not right that neighbour
should deceive neighbour. We pity that man who can harbour enmity
against his fellow; he loses half the enjoyment of life; he
embitters his own existence. Let us tear from our eyes the coloured
medium that invests every object with the green hue of jealousy and
suspicion; turn, a deal ear to scandal; breathe the spirit of
charity from our hearts; let the rich gushings of human kindness
swell up as a fountain, so that the golden age will become no
fiction and islands of the blessed bloom in more than Hyperian
beauty."

It is thus that friends and neighbours should live. This is the
right way. To aid in the creation of such true harmony among men,
has the book now in your hand, reader, been compiled. May the truths
that glisten on its pages be clearly reflected in your mind; and the
errors it points out be shunned as the foes of yourself and
humanity.






CONTENTS.





GOOD IN ALL
HUMAN PROGRESS
MY WASHERWOMAN
FORGIVE AND FORGET
OWE NO MAN ANYTHING
RETURNING GOOD FOR EVIL
PUTTING YOUR HAND IN YOUR NEIGHBOUR'S POCKET
KIND WORDS
NEIGHBOURS' QUARRELS
GOOD WE MIGHT DO
THE TOWN LOT
THE SUNBEAM AND THE RAINDROP
A PLEA FOR SOFT WORDS
MR. QUERY'S INVESTIGATIONS
ROOM IN THE WORLD
WORDS
THE THANKLESS OFFICE.
LOVE
"EVERY LITTLE HELPS"
LITTLE THINGS
CARELESS WORDS
HOW TO BE HAPPY
CHARITY--ITS OBJECTS
THE VISION OF BOATS
REGULATION OF THE TEMPER
MANLY GENTLENESS
SILENT INFLUENCE
ANTIDOTE FOR MELANCHOLY
THE SORROWS OF A WEALTHY CITIZEN
"WE'VE ALL OUR ANGEL SIDE"
BLIND JAMES
DEPENDENCE
TWO RIDES WITH THE DOCTOR
KEEP IN STEP
JOHNNY COLE
THE THIEF AND HIS BENEFACTOR
JOHN AND MARGARET GREYLSTON
THE WORLD WOULD BE THE BETTER FOR IT
TWO SIDES TO A STORY
LITTLE KINDNESSES
LEAVING OFF CONTENTION BEFORE IT BE MEDDLED WITH
"ALL THE DAY IDLE"
THE BUSHEL OF CORN
THE ACCOUNT
CONTENTMENT BETTER THAN WEALTH
RAINBOWS EVERYWHERE






FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS.

GOOD IN ALL.





THERE IS GOOD IN ALL. Yes! we all believe it: not a man in the depth
of his vanity but will yield assent. But do you not all, in
practice, daily, hourly deny it? A beggar passes you in the street:
dirty, ragged, importunate. "Ah! he has a _bad_ look," and your
pocket is safe. He starves--and he steals. "I thought he was _bad_."
You educate him in the State Prison. He does not improve even in
this excellent school. "He is," says the gaoler, "thoroughly _bad_."
He continues his course of crime. All that is bad in him having by
this time been made apparent to himself, his friends, and the world,
he has only to confirm the decision, and at length we hear when he
has reached his last step. "Ah! no wonder--there was never any
_Good_ in him. Hang him!"

Now much, if not all this, may be checked by a word.

If you believe in Good, _always appeal to it._ Be sure whatever
there is of Good--is of God. There is never an utter want of
resemblance to the common Father. "God made man in His own image."
"What! yon reeling, blaspheming creature; yon heartless cynic; yon
crafty trader; yon false statesman?" Yes! All. In every nature there
is a germ of eternal happiness, of undying Good. In the drunkard's
heart there is a memory of something better--slight, dim: but
flickering still; why should you not by the warmth of your charity,
give growth to the Good that is in him? The cynic, the miser, is not
all self. There is a note in that sullen instrument to make all
harmony yet; but it wants a patient and gentle master to touch the
strings.

You point to the words "There is _none_ good." The truths do not
oppose each other. "There is none good--_save one._" And He breathes
in all. In our earthliness, our fleshly will, our moral grasp, we
are helpless, mean, vile. But there is a lamp ever burning in the
heart: a guide to the source of Light, or an instrument of torture.
We can make it either. If it burn in an atmosphere of purity, it
will warm, guide, cheer us. If in the midst of selfishness, or under
the pressure of pride, its flame will be unsteady, and we shall soon
have good reason to trim our light, and find new oil for it.

There is Good in All--the impress of the Deity. He who believes not
in the image of God in man, is an infidel to himself and his race.
There is no difficulty about discovering it. You have only to appeal
to it. Seek in every one the _best_ features: mark, encourage,
educate _them._ There is no man to whom some circumstance will not
be an argument.

And how glorious in practice, this faith! How easy, henceforth, all
the labours of our law-makers, and how delightful, how practical the
theories of our philanthropists! To educate the _Good_--the good in
_All_: to raise every man in his own opinion, and yet to stifle all
arrogance, by showing that all possess this Good. _In_ themselves,
but not _of_ themselves. Had we but faith in this truth, how soon
should we all be digging through the darkness, for this Gold of
Love--this universal Good. A Howard, and a Fry, cleansed and
humanized our prisons, to find this Good; and in the chambers of all
our hearts it is to be found, by labouring eyes and loving hands.

Why all our harsh enactments? Is it from experience of the strength
of vice in ourselves that we cage, chain, torture, and hang men? Are
none of us indebted to friendly hands, careful advisers; to the
generous, trusting guidance, solace, of some gentler being, who has
loved us, despite the evil that is in _us_--for our little Good, and
has nurtured that Good with smiles and tears and prayers? O, we know
not how like we are to those whom we despise! We know not how many
memories of kith and kin the murderer carries to the gallows--how
much honesty of heart the felon drags with him to the hulks.

There is Good in All. Dodd, the forger, was a better man than most
of us: Eugene Aram, the homicide, would turn his foot from a worm.
Do not mistake us. Society demands, requires that these madmen
should be rendered harmless. There is no nature dead to all Good.
Lady Macbeth would have slain the old king, Had he not resembled her
father as he slept.

It is a frequent thought, but a careless and worthless one, because
never acted on, that the same energies, the same will to great
vices, had given force to great virtues. Do we provide the
opportunity? Do we _believe_ in Good? If we are ourselves deceived
in any one, is not all, thenceforth, deceit? if treated with
contempt, is not the whole world clouded with scorn? if visited with
meanness, are not all selfish? And if from one of our frailer
fellow-creatures we receive the blow, we cease to believe in women.
Not the breast at which we have drank life--not the sisterly hands
that have guided ours--not the one voice that has so often soothed
us in our darker hours, will save the sex: All are massed in one
common sentence: all bad. There may be Delilahs: there are many
Ruths. We should not lightly give them up. Napoleon lost France when
he lost Josephine. The one light in Rembrandt's gloomy life was his
sister.

And all are to be approached at some point. The proudest bends to
some feeling--Coriolanus conquered Rome: but the husband conquered
the hero. The money-maker has influences beyond his gold--Reynolds
made an exhibition of his carriage, but he was generous to
Northcote, and had time to think of the poor Plympton
schoolmistress. The cold are not all ice. Elizabeth slew Essex--the
queen triumphed; the woman _died._

There is Good in All. Let us show our faith in it. When the lazy
whine of the mendicant jars on your ears, think of his unaided,
unschooled childhood; think that his lean cheeks never knew the
baby-roundness of content that ours have worn; that his eye knew no
youth of fire--no manhood of expectancy. Pity, help, teach him. When
you see the trader, without any pride of vocation, seeking how he
can best cheat you, and degrade himself, glance into the room behind
his shop and see there his pale wife and his thin children, and
think how cheerfully he meets that circle in the only hour he has
out of the twenty-four. Pity his narrowness of mind; his want of
reliance upon the God of Good; but remember there have been
Greshams, and Heriots, and Whittingtons; and remember, too, that in
our happy land there are thousands of almshouses, built by the men
of trade alone. And when you are discontented with the great, and
murmur, repiningly, of Marvel in his garret, or Milton in his
hiding-place, turn in justice to the Good among the great. Read how
John of Lancaster loved Chaucer and sheltered Wicliff. There have
been Burkes as well as Walpoles. Russell remembered Banim's widow,
and Peel forgot not Haydn.

Once more: believe that in every class there is Good; in every man,
Good. That in the highest and most tempted, as well as in the
lowest, there is often a higher nobility than of rank. Pericles and
Alexander had great, but different virtues, and although the
refinement of the one may have resulted in effeminacy, and the
hardihood of the other in brutality, we ought to pause ere we
condemn where we should all have fallen.

Look only for the Good. It will make you welcome everywhere, and
everywhere it will make you an instrument to good. The lantern of
Diogenes is a poor guide when compared with the Light God hath set
in the heavens; a Light which shines into the solitary cottage and
the squalid alley, where the children of many vices are hourly
exchanging deeds of kindness; a Light shining into the rooms of
dingy warehousemen and thrifty clerks, whose hard labour and hoarded
coins are for wife and child and friend; shining into prison and
workhouse, where sin and sorrow glimmer with sad eyes through rusty
bars into distant homes and mourning hearths; shining through heavy
curtains, and round sumptuous tables, where the heart throbs audibly
through velvet mantle and silken vest, and where eye meets eye with
affection and sympathy; shining everywhere upon God's creatures, and
with its broad beams lighting up a virtue wherever it falls, and
telling the proud, the wronged, the merciless, or the despairing,
that there is "Good in All."






HUMAN PROGRESS.





WE are told to look through nature
  Upward unto Nature's God;
We are told there is a scripture
  Written on the meanest sod;
That the simplest flower created
  Is a key to hidden things;
But, immortal over nature,
  Mind, the lord of nature, springs!

Through _Humanity_ look upward,--
  Alter ye the olden plan,--
Look through man to the Creator,
  Maker, Father, God of Man!
Shall imperishable spirit
  Yield to perishable clay?
No! sublime o'er Alpine mountains
  Soars the Mind its heavenward way!

Deeper than the vast Atlantic
  Rolls the tide of human thought;
Farther speeds that mental ocean
  Than the world of waves o'er sought!
Mind, sublime in its own essence
  Its sublimity can lend
To the rocks, and mounts, and torrents,
  And, at will, their features bend!

Some within the humblest _floweret_
  "Thoughts too deep for tears" can see;
Oh, the humblest man existing
  Is a sadder theme to me!
Thus I take the mightier labour
  Of the great Almighty hand;
And, through man to the Creator,
  Upward look, and weeping stand.

Thus I take the mightier labour,
  --Crowning glory of _His_ will;
And believe that in the meanest
  Lives a spark of Godhead still:
Something that, by Truth expanded,
  Might be fostered into worth;
Something struggling through the darkness,
  Owning an immortal birth!

From the Genesis of being
  Unto this imperfect day,
Hath Humanity held onward,
  Praying God to aid its way!
And Man's progress had been swifter,
  Had he never turned aside,
To the worship of a symbol,
  Not the spirit signified!

And Man's progress had been higher,
  Had he owned his brother man,
Left his narrow, selfish circle,
  For a world-embracing plan!
There are some for ever craving,
  Ever discontent with place,
In the eternal would find briefness,
  In the infinite want space.

If through man unto his Maker
  We the source of truth would find,
It must be through man enlightened,
  Educated, raised, refined:
That which the Divine hath fashioned
  Ignorance hath oft effaced;
Never may we see God's image
  In man darkened--man debased!

Something yield to Recreation,
  Something to Improvement give;
There's a Spiritual kingdom
  Where the Spirit hopes to live!
There's a mental world of grandeur,
  Which the mind inspires to know;
Founts of everlasting beauty
  That, for those who seek them, flow!

Shores where Genius breathes immortal--
  Where the very winds convey
Glorious thoughts of Education,
  Holding universal sway!
Glorious hopes of Human Freedom,
  Freedom of the noblest kind;
That which springs from Cultivation,
  Cheers and elevates the mind!

Let us hope for Better Prospects,
  Strong to struggle for the night,
We appeal to Truth, and ever
  Truth's omnipotent in might;
Hasten, then, the People's Progress,
  Ere their last faint hope be gone;
Teach the Nations that their interest
  And the People's good, ARE ONE.






MY WASHERWOMAN.





SOME people have a singular reluctance to part with money. If waited
on for a bill, they say, almost involuntarily, "Call to-morrow,"
even though their pockets are far from being empty.

I once fell into this bad habit myself; but a little incident, which
I will relate, cured me. Not many years after I had attained my
majority, a poor widow, named Blake, did my washing and ironing. She
was the mother of two or three little children, whose sole
dependence for food and raiment was on the labour of her hands.

Punctually, every Thursday morning, Mrs. Blake appeared with my
clothes, "white as the driven snow;" but not always, as punctually,
did I pay the pittance she had earned by hard labour.

"Mrs. Blake is down stairs," said a servant, tapping at my room-door
one morning, while I was in the act of dressing myself.

"Oh, very well," I replied. "Tell her to leave my clothes. I will
get them when I come down."

The thought of paying the seventy-five cents, her due, crossed my
mind. But I said to myself,--"It's but a small matter, and will do
as well when she comes again."

There was in this a certain reluctance to part with money. My funds
were low, and I might need what change I had during the day. And so
it proved. As I went to the office in which I was engaged, some
small article of ornament caught my eye in a shop window.

"Beautiful!" said I, as I stood looking at it. Admiration quickly
changed into the desire for possession; and so I stepped in to ask
the price. It was just two dollars.

"Cheap enough," thought I. And this very cheapness was a further
temptation.

So I turned out the contents of my pockets, counted them over, and
found the amount to be two dollars and a quarter.

"I guess I'll take it," said I, laying the money on the shopkeeper's
counter.

"I'd better have paid Mrs. Blake." This thought crossed my mind, an
hour afterwards, by which time the little ornament had lost its
power of pleasing. "So much would at least have been saved."

I was leaving the table, after tea, on the evening that followed,
when the waiter said to me,

"Mrs. Blake is at the door, and wishes to see you."

I felt a little worried at hearing this; for I had no change in my
pockets, and the poor washerwoman had, of course, come for her
money.

"She's in a great hurry," I muttered to myself, as I descended to
the door.

"You'll have to wait until you bring home my clothes next week, Mrs.
Blake. I haven't any change, this evening."

The expression of the poor woman's face, as she turned slowly away,
without speaking, rather softened my feelings.

"I'm sorry," said I, "but it can't be helped now. I wish you had
said, this morning, that you wanted money. I could have paid you
then."

She paused, and turned partly towards me, as I said this. Then she
moved off, with something so sad in her manner, that I was touched
sensibly.

"I ought to have paid her this morning, when I had the change about
me. And I wish I had done so. Why didn't she ask for her money, if
she wanted it so badly?"

I felt, of course, rather ill at ease. A little while afterwards I
met the lady with whom I was boarding.

"Do you know anything about this Mrs. Blake, who washes for me?" I
inquired.

"Not much; except that she is very poor, and has three children to
feed and clothe. And what is worst of all, she is in bad health. I
think she told me, this morning, that one of her little ones was
very sick."

I was smitten with a feeling of self-condemnation, and soon after
left the room. It was too late to remedy the evil, for I had only a
sixpence in my pocket; and, moreover, did not know where to find
Mrs. Blake.

Having purposed to make a call upon some young ladies that evening,
I now went up into my room to dress. Upon my bed lay the spotless
linen brought home by Mrs. Blake in the morning. The sight of it
rebuked me; and I had to conquer, with some force, an instinctive
reluctance, before I could compel myself to put on a clean shirt,
and snow-white vest, too recently from the hand of my unpaid
washerwoman.

One of the young ladies upon whom I called was more to me than a
mere pleasant acquaintance. My heart had, in fact, been warming
towards her for some time; and I was particularly anxious to find
favour in her eyes. On this evening she was lovelier and more
attractive than ever, and new bonds of affection entwined themselves
around my heart.

Judge, then, of the effect produced upon me by the entrance of her
mother--at the very moment when my heart was all a-glow with love,
who said, as she came in--

"Oh, dear! This is a strange world!"

"What new feature have you discovered now, mother?" asked one of her
daughters, smiling.

"No new one, child; but an old one that looks more repulsive than
ever," was replied. "Poor Mrs. Blake came to see me just now, in
great trouble."

"What about, mother?" All the young ladies at once manifested
unusual interest.

Tell-tale blushes came instantly to my countenance, upon which the
eyes of the mother turned themselves, as I felt, with a severe
scrutiny.

"The old story, in cases like hers," was answered. "Can't get her
money when earned, although for daily bread she is dependent on her
daily labour. With no food in the house, or money to buy medicine
for her sick child, she was compelled to seek me to-night, and to
humble her spirit, which is an independent one, so low as to ask
bread for her little ones, and the loan of a pittance with which to
get what the doctor has ordered her feeble sufferer at home."

"Oh, what a shame!" fell from the lips of Ellen, the one in whom my
heart felt more than a passing interest; and she looked at me
earnestly as she spoke.

"She fully expected," said the mother, "to get a trifle that was due
her from a young man who boards with Mrs. Corwin; and she went to
see him this evening. But he put her off with some excuse. How
strange that any one should be so thoughtless as to withhold from
the poor their hard-earned pittance! It is but a small sum at best,
that the toiling seamstress or washerwoman can gain by her wearying
labour. That, at least, should be promptly paid. To withhold it an
hour is to do, in many cases, a great wrong."

For some minutes after this was said, there ensued a dead silence. I
felt that the thoughts of all were turned upon me as the one who had
withheld from poor Mrs. Blake the trifling sum due her for washing.
What my feelings were, it is impossible for me to describe; and
difficult for any one, never himself placed in so unpleasant a
position, to imagine.

My relief was great when the conversation flowed on again, and in
another channel; for I then perceived that suspicion did not rest
upon me. You may be sure that Mrs. Blake had her money before ten
o'clock on the next day, and that I never again fell into the error
of neglecting, for a single week, my poor washerwoman.






FORGIVE AND FORGET.





THERE'S a secret in living, if folks only knew;
An Alchymy precious, and golden, and true,
More precious than "gold dust," though pure and refined,
For its mint is the heart, and its storehouse the mind;
Do you guess what I mean--for as true as I live
That dear little secret's--forget and forgive!

When hearts that have loved have grown cold and estranged,
And looks that beamed fondness are clouded and changed,
And words hotly spoken and grieved for with tears
Have broken the trust and the friendship of years--
Oh! think 'mid thy pride and thy secret regret,
The balm for the wound is--forgive and forget!

Yes! look in thy spirit, for love may return
And kindle the embers that still feebly burn;
And let this true whisper breathe high in thy heart,
_'Tis better to love than thus suffer apart_--

Let the Past teach the Future more wisely than yet,
For the friendship that's true can forgive and forget.

And now, an adieu! if you list to my lay
May each in your thoughts bear my motto away,
'Tis a crude, simple ryhme, but its truth may impart
A joy to the gentle and loving of heart;
And an end I would claim far more practical yet
In behalf of the Rhymer--_forgive and forget!_






OWE NO MAN ANYTHING.





THUS says an Apostle; and if those who are able to "owe no man
anything" would fully observe this divine obligation, many, very
many, whom their want of punctuality now compels to live in
violation of this precept, would then faithfully and promptly render
to every one their just dues.

"What is the matter with you, George?" said Mrs. Allison to her
husband, as he paced the floor of their little sitting-room, with an
anxious, troubled expression of countenance.

"Oh! nothing of much consequence: only a little worry of business,"
replied Mr. Allison.

"But I know better than that, George. I know it is of consequence;
you are not apt to have such a long face for nothing. Come, tell me
what it is that troubles you. Have I not a right to share your
griefs as well as your joys?"

"Indeed, Ellen, it is nothing but business, I assure you; and as I
am not blessed with the most even temper in the world, it does not
take much you know to upset me: but you heard me speak of that job I
was building for Hillman?"

"Yes. I think you said it was to be five hundred dollars, did you
not?"

"I did; and it was to have been cash as soon as done. Well, he took
it out two weeks ago; one week sooner than I promised it. I sent the
bill with it, expecting, of course, he would send me a check for the
amount; but I was disappointed. Having heard nothing from him since,
I thought I would call on him this morning, when, to my surprise, I
was told he had gone travelling with his wife and daughter, and
would not be back for six weeks or two months. I can't tell you how
I felt when I was told this."

"He is safe enough for it I suppose, isn't he, George?"

"Oh, yes; he is supposed to be worth about three hundred thousand.
But what good is that to me? I was looking over my books this
afternoon, and, including this five hundred, there is just fifteen
hundred dollars due me now, that I ought to have, but can't get it.
To a man doing a large business it would not be much; but to one
with my limited means, it is a good deal. And this is all in the
hands of five individuals, any one of whom could pay immediately,
and feel not the least inconvenience from it."

"Are you much pressed for money just now, George?"

"I have a note in bank of three hundred, which falls due to-morrow,
and one of two hundred and fifty on Saturday. Twenty-five dollars at
least will be required to pay off my hands; and besides this, our
quarter's rent is due on Monday, and my shop rent next Wednesday.
Then there are other little bills I wanted to settle, our own wants
to be supplied, &c."

"Why don't you call on those persons you spoke of; perhaps they
would pay you?"

"I have sent their bills in, but if I call on them so soon I might
perhaps affront them, and cause them to take their work away; and
that I don't want to do. However, I think I shall have to do it, let
the consequence be what it may."

"Perhaps you could borrow what you need, George, for a few days."

"I suppose I could; but see the inconvenience and trouble it puts me
to. I was so certain of getting Hillman's money to meet these two
notes, that I failed to make any other provision."

"That would not have been enough of itself."

"No, but I have a hundred on hand; the two together would have paid
them, and left enough for my workmen too."

As early as practicable the next morning Mr. Allison started forth
to raise the amount necessary to carry him safely through the week.
He thought it better to try to collect some of the amounts owing to
him than to borrow. He first called on a wealthy merchant, whose
annual income was something near five thousand.

"Good morning, Mr. Allison," said he, as that individual entered his
counting-room. "I suppose you want some money."

"I should like a little, Mr. Chapin, if you please."

"Well, I intended coming down to see you, but I have been so busy
that I have not been able. That carriage of mine which you did up a
few weeks ago does not suit me altogether."

"What is the matter with it?"

"I don't like the style of trimming, for one thing; it has a common
look to me."

"It is precisely what Mrs. Chapin ordered. You told me to suit her."

"Yes, but did she not tell you to trim it like General Spangler's?"

"I am very much mistaken, Mr. Chapin, if it is not precisely like
his."

"Oh! no; his has a much richer look than mine."

"The style of trimming is just the same, Mr. Chapin; but you
certainly did not suppose that a carriage trimmed with worsted lace,
would look as well as one trimmed with silk lace?"

"No, of course not; but there are some other little things about it
that don't suit me. I will send my man down with it to-day, and he
will show you what they are. I would like to have it to-morrow
afternoon, to take my family out in. Call up on Monday, and we will
have a settlement."

Mr. Allison next called at the office of a young lawyer, who had
lately come into possession of an estate valued at one hundred
thousand dollars. Mr. Allison's bill was three hundred dollars,
which his young friend assured him he would settle immediately, only
that there was a slight error in the way it was made out, and not
having the bill with him, he could not now correct it.

He would call on Mr. Allison with it, sometime during the next week,
and settle it.

A Custom-House gentleman was next sought, but his time had been so
much taken up with his official duties, that he had not yet been
able to examine the bill. He had no doubt but it was all correct;
still, as he was not accustomed to doing business in a loose way, he
must claim Mr. Allison's indulgence a few days longer.

Almost disheartened, Mr. Allison entered the store of the last
individual who was indebted to him for any considerable amount, not
daring to hope that he would be any more successful with him than
with the others he had called on. But he was successful; the bill,
which amounted to near one hundred and fifty dollars, was promptly
paid, Mr. Allison's pocket, in consequence, that much heavier, and
his heart that much lighter. Fifty dollars was yet lacking of the
sum requisite for that day. After calling on two or three
individuals, this amount was obtained, with the promise of being
returned by the middle of the next week.

"I shall have hard work to get through to-day, I know," said he to
himself, as he sat at his desk on the following morning.

"Two hundred and fifty dollars to be raised by borrowing. I don't
know where I can get it."

To many this would be a small sum, but Mr. Allison was peculiarly
situated. He was an honest, upright mechanic, but he was poor. It
was with difficulty he had raised the fifty dollars on the day
previous. Although he had never once failed in returning money at
the time promised, still, for some reason or other, everybody
appeared unwilling to lend him. It was nearly two O'clock and he was
still a hundred dollars short.

"Well," said he to himself, "I have done all I could, and if Hall
won't renew the note for the balance, it will have to be protested.
I'll go and ask him, though I have not much hope that he will do
it."

As he was about leaving his shop for that purpose, a gentleman
entered who wished to buy a second-hand carriage. Mr. Allison had
but one, and that almost new, for which he asked a hundred and forty
dollars.

"It is higher than I wished to go," remarked the gentleman. "I ought
to get a new one for that price."

"So you can, but not like this. I can sell you a new one for a
hundred and twenty-five dollars. But what did you expect to pay for
one?"

"I was offered one at Holton's for seventy-five; but I did not like
it. I will give you a hundred for yours."

"It is too little, indeed, sir: that carriage cost three hundred
dollars when it was new. It was in use a very short time. I allowed
a hundred and forty dollars for it myself."

"Well, sir, I would not wish you to sell at a disadvantage, but if
you like to, accept of my offer I'll take it. I'm prepared to pay
the cash down."

Mr. Allison did not reply for some minutes. He was undecided as to
what was best.

"Forty dollars," said he to himself, "is a pretty heavy discount. I
am almost tempted to refuse his offer and trust to Hall's renewing
the note. But suppose he won't--then I'm done for. I think, upon the
whole, I had better accept it. I'll put it at one hundred and
twenty-five, my good friend," said he, addressing the customer.

"No, sir; one hundred is all I shall give."

"Well, I suppose you must have it, then; but indeed you have got a
bargain."

"It is too bad," muttered Allison to himself, as he left the bank
after having paid his note. "There is just forty dollars thrown
away. And why? Simply because those who are blessed with the means
of discharging their debts promptly, neglect to do so."

"How did you make out to-day, George?" asked his wife, as they sat
at the tea-table that same evening.

"I met my note, and that was all."

"Did you give your men anything?"

"Not a cent. I had but one dollar left after paying that. I was
sorry for them, but I could not help them. I am afraid Robinson's
family will suffer, for there has been sickness in his house almost
constantly for the last twelvemonth. His wife, he told me the other
day, had not been out; of her bed for six weeks. Poor fellow! He
looked quite dejected when I told him I had nothing for him."

At this moment; the door-bell rang and a minute or two afterwards, a
young girl entered the room in which Mr. and Mrs. Allison were
sitting. Before introducing her to our readers, we will conduct them
to the interior of an obscure dwelling, situated near the outskirts
of the city. The room is small, and scantily furnished, and answers
at once for parlour, dining-room, and kitchen. Its occupants, Mrs.
Perry and her daughter, have been, since the earliest dawn of day,
intently occupied with their needles, barely allowing themselves
time to partake of their frugal meal.

"Half-past three o'clock!" ejaculated the daughter, her eyes
glancing, as she spoke, at the clock on the mantelpiece. "I am
afraid we shall not get this work done in time for me to take it
home before dark, mother."

"We must try hard, Laura, for you know we have not a cent in the
house, and I told Mrs. Carr to come over to-night, and I would pay
her what I owe her for washing. Poor thing! I would not like to
disappoint her, for I know she needs it."

Nothing more was said for near twenty minutes, when Laura again
broke the silence.

"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed, "what a pain I have in my side!" And for
a moment she rested from her work, and straightened herself in her
chair, to afford a slight relief from the uneasiness she
experienced. "I wonder, mother, if I shall always be obliged to sit
so steady?"

"I hope not, my child; but bad as our situation is, there are
hundreds worse off than we. Take Annie Carr, for instance--how would
you like to exchange places with her?"

"Poor Annie! I was thinking of her awhile go, mother. How hard it
must be for one so young to be so afflicted as she is!"

"And yet, Laura, she never complains; although for five years she
has never left her bed, and has often suffered, I know, for want of
proper nourishment."

"I don't think she will suffer much longer, mother. I stopped in to
see her the other day, and I was astonished at the change which had
taken place in a short time. Her conversation, too, seems so
heavenly, her faith in the Lord so strong, that I could not avoid
coming to the conclusion that a few days more, at the most, would
terminate her wearisome life."

"It will be a happy release for her, indeed, my daughter. Still, it
will be a sore trial for her mother."

It was near six when Mrs. Perry and her daughter finished the work
upon which they were engaged.

"Now Laura, dear," said the mother, "get back as soon as you can,
for I don't like you to be out after night, and more than that, if
Mrs. Carr comes, she won't want to wait."

About twenty minutes after the young girl had gone, Mrs. Carr
called. "Pray, be seated, my dear friend," said Mrs. Perry, "my
daughter has just gone to Mrs. Allison's with some work, and as soon
as she returns I can pay you."

"I think I had better call over again, Mrs. Perry," answered the
poor woman; "Mary begged me not to stay long."

"Is Annie any worse, then?"

"Oh, yes, a great deal; the doctor thinks she will hardly last till
morning."

"Well, Mrs. Carr, death can be only gain to her."

"Very true; still, the idea of losing her seems dreadful to me."

"How does Mary get on at Mrs. Owring's?"

"Not very well; she has been at work for her just one month to-day;
and although she gave her to understand that her wages would be at
least a dollar and a quarter a week, yet to-night, when she settled
with her, she wouldn't give her but three dollars, and at the same
time told her that if she didn't choose to work for that she could
go."

"What do you suppose was the reason for her acting so?"

"I don't know, indeed, unless it is because she does not get there
quite as early as the rest of her hands; for you see I am obliged to
keep her a little while in the morning to help me to move Annie
while I make her bed. Even that little sum, small it was, would have
been some help to us, but it had all to go for rent. My landlord
would take no denial. But I must go; you think I can depend on
receiving your money to-night?"

"I do. Mrs. Allison is always prompt in paying for her work as soon
as it is done. I will not trouble you to come again for it, Mrs.
Carr. Laura shall bring it over to you."

Let us now turn to the young girl we left at Mr. Allison's, whom our
readers, no doubt, recognise as Laura Perry.

"Good evening, Laura," said Mrs. Allison, as she entered the room;
"not brought my work home already! I did not look for it till next
week. You and your mother, I am afraid, confine yourselves too
closely to your needles for your own good. But you have not had your
tea? sit up, and take some."

"No, thank you, Mrs. Allison; mother will be uneasy if I stay long."

"Well, Laura, I am sorry, but I cannot settle with you to-night.
Tell your mother Mr. Allison was disappointed in collecting
to-day, or she certainly should have had it. Did she say how much it
was?"

"Two dollars, ma'am."

"Very well: I will try and let her have it next week."

The expression of Laura's countenance told too plainly the
disappointment she felt. "I am afraid Mrs. Perry is in want of that
money," remarked the husband after she had gone.

"Not the least doubt of it," replied his wife. "She would not have
sent home work at this hour if she had not been. Poor things! who
can tell the amount of suffering and wretchedness that is caused by
the rich neglecting to pay promptly."

"You come without money, Laura," said her mother, as she entered the
house.

"How do you know that, mother?" she replied, forcing a smile.

"I read it in your countenance. Is it not so?"

"It is: Mr. Allison was disappointed in collecting--what will we do,
mother?"

"The best we can, my child. We will have to do without our beef for
dinner to-morrow; but then we have plenty of bread; so we shall not
starve."

"And I shall have to do without my new shoes. My old ones are too
shabby to go to church in; so I shall have to stay at home."

"I am sorry for your disappointment, my child, but I care more for
Mrs. Carr than I do for ourselves. She has been here, and is in a
great deal of trouble. The doctor don't think Annie will live till
morning, and Mrs. Owrings hag refused to give Mary more than three
dollars for her month's work, every cent of which old Grimes took
for rent. I told her she might depend on getting what I owed her,
and that I would send you over with it when you returned. You had
better go at once and tell her, Laura; perhaps she may be able to
get some elsewhere."

"How much is it, mother?"

"Half a dollar."

"It seems hard that she can't get that small sum."

With a heavy heart Laura entered Mrs. Carr's humble abode.

"Oh how glad I am that you have come, my dear!" exclaimed the poor
woman. "Annie has been craving some ice cream all day; it's the only
thing she seems to fancy. I told her she should have it as soon as
you came."

Mrs. Carr's eyes filled with tears as Laura told of her ill success.
"I care not for myself," she said "but for that poor suffering
child."

"Never mind me, mother," replied Annie. "It was selfish in me to
want it, when I know how hard you and Mary are obliged to work for
every cent you get. But I feel that I shall not bother you much
longer; I have a strange feeling here now." And she placed her hand
upon her left side.

"Stop!" cried Laura; "I'll try and get some ice cream for you
Annie." And off she ran to her mother's dwelling. "Mother," said
she, as she entered the house, "do you recollect that half dollar
father gave me the last time he went to sea?"

"Yes, dear."

"Well, I think I had better take it and pay Mrs. Carr. Annie is very
bad, and her mother says she has been wanting some ice cream all
day."

"It is yours, Laura, do as you like about it."

"It goes hard with me to part with it, mother, for I had determined
to keep it in remembrance of my father. It is just twelve years
to-day since he went away. But poor Annie--yes, mother, I will take
it."

So saying, Laura went to unlock the box which contained her
treasure, but unfortunately her key was not where she had supposed
it was. After a half hour's search she succeeded in finding it.
Tears coursed down her cheeks like rain as she removed from the
corner of the little box, where it had lain for so many years, this
precious relic of a dear father, who in all probability, was buried
beneath the ocean. Dashing them hastily away, she started again for
Mrs. Carr's. The ice cream was procured on the way, and, just as the
clock struck eight, she arrived at the door. One hour has elapsed
since she left. But why does she linger on the threshold? Why but
because the sounds of weeping and mourning have reached her ears,
and she fears that all is over with her poor friend, Her fears are
indeed true, for the pure spirit of the young sufferer has taken its
flight to that blest land where hunger and thirst are known no more.
Poor Annie! thy last earthly wish, a simple glass of ice-cream, was
denied thee--and why? We need not pause to answer: ye who have an
abundance of this world's goods, think, when ye are about to turn
from your doors the poor seamstress or washerwoman, or even those
less destitute than they, without a just recompense for their
labour, whether the sufferings and privations of some poor creatures
will not be increased thereby.






RETURNING GOOD FOR EVIL.





OBADIAH LAWSON and Watt Dood were neighbours; that is, they lived
within a half mile of each other, and no person lived between their
respective farms, which would have joined, had not a little strip of
prairie land extended itself sufficiently to keep them separated.
Dood was the oldest settler, and from his youth up had entertained a
singular hatred against Quakers; therefore, when he was informed
that Lawson, a regular disciple of that class of people had
purchased the next farm to his, he declared he would make him glad
to move away again. Accordingly, a system of petty annoyances was
commenced by him, and every time one of Lawson's hogs chanced to
stray upon Dood's place, he was beset by men and dogs, and most
savagely abused. Things progressed thus for nearly a year, and the
Quaker, a man of decidedly peace principles, appeared in no way to
resent the injuries received at the hands of his spiteful neighbour.
But matters were drawing to a crisis; for Dood, more enraged than
ever at the quiet of Obadiah, made oath that he would do something
before long to wake up the spunk of Lawson. Chance favoured his
design. The Quaker had a high-blooded filly, which he had been very
careful in raising, and which was just four years old. Lawson took
great pride in this animal, and had refused a large sum of money for
her.

One evening, a little after sunset, as Watt Dood was passing around
his cornfield, he discovered the filly feeding in the little strip
of prairie land that separated the two farms, and he conceived the
hellish design of throwing off two or three rails of his fence, that
the horse might get into his corn during the night. He did so, and
the next morning, bright and early, he shouldered his rifle and left
the house. Not long after his absence, a hired man, whom he had
recently employed, heard the echo of his gun, and in a few minutes
Dood, considerably excited and out of breath, came hurrying to the
house, where he stated that he had shot at and wounded a buck; that
the deer attacked him, and he hardly escaped with his life.

This story was credited by all but the newly employed hand, who had
taken a dislike to Watt, and, from his manner, suspected that
something was wrong. He therefore slipped quietly away from the
house, and going through the field in the direction of the shot, he
suddenly came upon Lawson's filly, stretched upon the earth, with a
bullet hole through the head, from which the warm blood was still
oozing.

The animal was warm, and could not have been killed an hour. He
hastened back to the dwelling of Dood, who met him in the yard, and
demanded, somewhat roughly, where he had been.

"I've been to see if your bullet made sure work of Mr. Lawson's
filly," was the instant retort.

Watt paled for a moment, but collecting himself, he fiercely
shouted,

"Do you dare to say I killed her?"

"How do you know she is dead?" replied the man.

Dood bit his lip, hesitated a moment, and then turning, walked into
the house.

A couple of days passed by, and the morning of the third one had
broken, as the hired man met friend Lawson, riding in search of his
filly.

A few words of explanation ensued, when, with a heavy heart, the
Quaker turned his horse and rode home, where he informed the people
of the fate of his filly. No threat of recrimination escaped him; he
did not even go to law to recover damages; but calmly awaited his
plan and hour of revenge. It came at last.

Watt Dood had a Durham heifer, for which he had paid a heavy price,
and upon which he counted to make great gains.

One morning, just as Obadiah was sitting down, his eldest son came
in with the information that neighbour Dood's heifer had broken down
the fence, entered the yard, and after eating most of the cabbages,
had trampled the well-made beds and the vegetables they contained,
out of all shape--a mischief impossible to repair.

"And what did thee do with her, Jacob?" quietly asked Obadiah.

"I put her in the farm-yard."

"Did thee beat her?"

"I never struck her a blow."

"Right, Jacob, right; sit down to thy breakfast, and when done
eating I will attend to the heifer."

Shortly after he had finished his repast, Lawson mounted a horse,
and rode over to Dood's, who was sitting under the porch in front of
his house, and who, as he beheld the Quaker dismount, supposed he
was coming to demand pay for his filly, and secretly swore he would
have to law for it if he did.

"Good morning, neighbour Dood; how is thy family?" exclaimed
Obadiah, as he mounted the steps and seated himself in a chair.

"All well, I believe," was the crusty reply.

"I have a small affair to settle with you this morning, and I came
rather early."

"So I suppose," growled Watt.

"This morning, my son found thy Durham heifer in my garden, where
she has destroyed a good deal."

"And what did he do with her?" demanded Dood, his brow darkening.

"What would thee have done with her, had she been my heifer in thy
garden?" asked Obadiah.

"I'd a shot her!" retorted Watt, madly, "as I suppose you have done;
but we are only even now. Heifer for filly is only 'tit for tat.'"

"Neighbour Dood, thou knowest me not, if thou thinkest I would harm
a hair of thy heifer's back. She is in my farm-yard, and not even a
blow has been struck her, where thee can get her at any time. I know
thee shot my filly; but the evil one prompted thee to do it, and I
lay no evil in my heart against my neighbours. I came to tell thee
where thy heifer is, and now I'll go home."

Obadiah rose from his chair, and was about to descend the steps,
when he was stopped by Watt, who hastily asked,

"What was your filly worth?"

"A hundred dollars is what I asked for her," replied Obediah.

"Wait a moment!" and Dood rushed into the house, from whence he soon
returned, holding some gold in his hand. "Here's the price of your
filly; and hereafter let there be a pleasantness between us."

"Willingly, heartily," answered Lawson, grasping the proffered hand
of the other; "let there be peace between us."

Obadiah mounted his horse, and rode home with a lighter heart, and
from that day to this Dood has been as good a neighbour as one could
wish to have; being completely reformed by the RETURNING GOOD FOR
EVIL.

PUTTING YOUR HAND IN YOUR NEIGHBOUR'S POCKET.

"DO you recollect Thomas, who lived with us as waiter about two
years ago, Mary?" asked Mr. Clarke, as he seated himself in his
comfortable arm-chair, and slipped his feet into the nicely-warmed,
embroidered slippers, which stood ready for his use.

"Certainly," was the reply of Mrs. Clarke. "He was a bright, active
fellow, but rather insolent."

"He has proved to be a regular pickpocket," continued her husband,
"and is now on his way to Blackwell's Island."

"A very suitable place for him. I hope he will be benefited by a few
months' residence there," returned the lady.

"Poor fellow!" exclaimed Mr. Joshua Clarke, an uncle of the young
couple, who was quietly reading a newspaper in another part of the
room. "There are many of high standing in the world, who deserve to
go to Blackwell's Island quite as much as he does."

"You are always making such queer speeches, Uncle Joshua," said his
niece. "I suppose you do not mean that there are pickpockets among
respectable people?"

"Indeed, there are, my dear niece. Your knowledge of the world must
be very limited, if you are not aware of this. Putting your hand in
your neighbour's pocket, is one of the most fashionable
accomplishments of the day."

Mrs. Clarke was too well acquainted with her uncle's peculiarities
to think of arguing with him. She therefore merely smiled, and said
to her husband:--

"Well, Henry, I am glad that neither you nor myself are acquainted
with this fashionable accomplishment."

"Not acquainted with it!" exclaimed the old gentleman. "I thought
you knew yourselves better. Why, you and Henry are both regular
pickpockets!"

"I wonder that you demean yourself by associating with us!" was the
playful reply.

"Oh, you are no worse than the rest of the world; and, besides, I
hope to do you some good, when you grow older and wiser. At present,
Henry's whole soul is absorbed in the desire to obtain wealth."

"In a fair and honourable way, uncle," interrupted Mr. Clarke, "and
for honourable purposes."

"Certainly," replied Uncle Joshua, "in the common acceptation of the
words _fair_ and _honourable_. But, do you never, in your mercantile
speculations, endeavour to convey erroneous impressions to the minds
of those with whom you are dealing? Do you not sometimes suppress
information which would prevent your obtaining a good bargain? Do
you never allow your customers to purchase goods under false ideas
of their value and demand in the market? If you saw a man, less
skilled in business than yourself, about to take a step injurious to
him, but advantageous to you, would you warn him of his danger--thus
obeying the command to love your neighbour as yourself?"

"Why, uncle, these questions are absurd. Of course, when engaged in
business, I endeavour to do what is for my own advantage--leaving
others to look out for themselves."

"Exactly so. You are perfectly willing to put your hand in your
neighbour's pocket and take all you can get, provided he is not wise
enough to know that your hand is there."

"Oh, for shame, Uncle Joshua! I shall not allow you to talk to Henry
in this manner," exclaimed Mrs. Clarke perceiving that her husband
looked somewhat irritated. "Come, prove your charge against me. In
what way do I pick my neighbour's pockets?"

"You took six shillings from the washerwoman this morning," coolly
replied Uncle Joshua.

"_Took_ six shillings from the washerwoman! Paid her six shillings,
you mean, uncle. She called for the money due for a day's work, and
I gave it to her."

"Yes, but not till you had kept her waiting nearly two hours. I
heard her say, as she left the house, 'I have lost a day's work by
this delay, for I cannot go to Mrs. Reed's at this hour; so I shall
be six shillings poorer at the end of the week.'"

"Why did she wait, then? She could have called again. I was not
ready to attend to her at so early an hour."

"Probably she needed the money to-day. You little know the value of
six shillings to the mother of a poor family, Mary; but, you should
remember that her time is valuable, and that it is as sinful to
deprive her of the use of it, as if you took money from her purse."

"Well, uncle, I will acknowledge that I did wrong to keep the poor
woman waiting, and I will endeavour to be more considerate in
future. So draw your chair to the table, and take a cup of tea and
some of your favourite cakes."

"Thank you, Mary; but I am engaged to take tea with your old friend,
Mrs. Morrison. Poor thing! she has not made out very well lately.
Her school has quite run down, owing to sickness among her scholars;
and her own family have been ill all winter; so that her expenses
have been great."

"I am sorry to hear this," replied Mrs. Clarke. "I had hoped that
her school was succeeding. Give my love to her, uncle, and tell her
I will call upon her in a day or two."

Uncle Joshua promised to remember the message, and bidding Mr. and
Mrs. Clarke good evening, he was soon seated in Mrs. Morrison's neat
little parlour, which, though it bore no comparison with the
spacious and beautifully furnished apartments he had just left, had
an air of comfort and convenience which could not fail to please.

Delighted to see her old friend, whom she also, from early habit,
addressed by the title of Uncle Joshua, although he was no relation,
Mrs. Morrison's countenance, for awhile beamed with that cheerful,
animated expression which it used to wear in her more youthful days;
but an expression of care and anxiety soon over shadowed it, and, in
the midst of her kind attentions to her visiter, and her
affectionate endearment to two sweet children, who were playing
around the room, she would often remain thoughtful and abstracted
for several minutes.

Uncle Joshua was an attentive observer, and he saw that something
weighed heavily upon her mind. When tea was over, and the little
ones had gone to rest, he said, kindly,

"Come, Fanny, draw your chair close to my side, and tell me all your
troubles, as freely as you used to do when a merry-hearted
school-girl. How often have listened to the sad tale of the pet
pigeon, that had flown away, or the favourite plant killed by the
untimely frost. Come, I am ready, now as then, to assist you with my
advice, and my purse, too, if necessary."

Tears started to Mrs. Morrison's eyes, as she replied.

"You were always a kind friend to me, Uncle Joshua, and I will
gladly confide my troubles to you. You know that after my husband's
death I took this house, which, though small, may seem far above my
limited income, in the hope of obtaining a school sufficiently large
to enable me to meet the rent, and also to support myself and
children. The small sum left them by their father I determined to
invest for their future use. I unwisely intrusted it to one who
betrayed the trust, and appropriated the money to some wild
speculation of his own. He says that he did this in the hope of
increasing my little property. It may be so, but my consent should
have been asked. He failed and there is little hope of our ever
recovering more, than a small part of what he owes us. But, to
return to my school. I found little difficulty in obtaining
scholars, and, for a short time, believed myself to be doing well,
but I soon found that a large number of scholars did not insure a
large income from the school. My terms were moderate, but still I
found great difficulty in obtaining what was due to me at the end of
the term.

"A few paid promptly, and without expecting me to make unreasonable
deductions for unpleasant weather, slight illness, &c., &c. Others
paid after long delay, which often put me to the greatest
inconvenience; and some, after appointing day after day for me to
call, and promising each time that the bill should be settled
without fail, moved away, I knew not whither, or met me at length
with a cool assurance that it was not possible for them to pay me at
present--if it was ever in their power they would let me know."

"Downright robbery!" exclaimed Uncle Joshua. "A set of pickpockets!
I wish they were all shipped for Blackwell's Island."

"There are many reasons assigned for not paying," continued Mrs.
Morrison. "Sometimes the children had not learned as much as the
parents expected. Some found it expedient to take their children
away long before the expiration of the term, and then gazed at me in
astonishment when I declared my right to demand pay for the whole
time for which they engaged. One lady, in particular, to whose
daughter I was giving music lessons, withdrew the pupil under
pretext of slight indisposition, and sent me the amount due for a
half term. I called upon her, and stated that I considered the
engagement binding for twenty-four lessons, but would willingly wait
until the young lady was quite recovered. The mother appeared to
assent with willingness to this arrangement, and took the proffered
money without comment. An hour or two after I received a laconic
epistle stating that the lady had already engaged another teacher,
whom she thought preferable--that she had offered me the amount due
for half of the term, and I had declined receiving it--therefore she
should not offer it again. I wrote a polite, but very plain, reply
to this note, and enclosed my bill for the whole term, but have
never heard from her since."

"Do you mean to say that she actually received the money which you
returned to her without reluctance, and gave you no notice of her
intention to employ another teacher?" demanded the old gentleman.

"Certainly; and, besides this, I afterwards ascertained that the
young lady was actually receiving a lesson from another teacher,
when I called at the house--therefore the plea of indisposition was
entirely false. The most perfect satisfaction had always been
expressed as to the progress of the pupil, and no cause was assigned
for the change."

"I hope you have met with few cases as bad as this," remarked Uncle
Joshua. "The world must be in a worse state than even I had
supposed, if such imposition is common."

"This may be an extreme case," replied Mrs. Morrison, "but I could
relate many others which are little better. However, you will soon
weary of my experience in this way, Uncle Joshua, and I will
therefore mention but one other instance. One bitter cold day in
January, I called at the house of a lady who had owed me a small
amount for nearly a year, and after repeated delay had reluctantly
fixed this day as the time when she would pay me at least a part of
what was due. I was told by the servant who opened the door that the
lady was not at home.

"What time will she be in?" I inquired.

"Not for some hours," was the reply.

Leaving word that I would call again towards evening, I retraced my
steps, feeling much disappointed at my ill success, as I had felt
quite sure of obtaining the money. About five o'clock I again
presented myself at the door, and was again informed that the lady
was not at home.

"I will walk in, and wait for her return," I replied.

The servant appeared somewhat startled at this, but after a little
delay ushered me into the parlour. Two little boys, of four and six
years of age, were playing about the room. I joined in their sports,
and soon became quite familiar with them. Half an hour had passed
away, when I inquired of the oldest boy what time he expected his
mother?

"Not till late," he answered, hesitatingly.

"Did she take the baby with her this cold day?" I asked.

"Yes, ma'am," promptly replied the girl, who, under pretence of
attending to the children, frequently came into the room.

The youngest child gazed earnestly in my face, and said, smilingly,

"Mother has not gone away, she is up stairs. She ran away with baby
when she saw you coming, and told us to say she had gone out. I am
afraid brother will take cold, for there is no fire up stairs."

"It is no such thing," exclaimed the girl and the eldest boy. "She
is not up stairs, ma'am, or she would see you."

But even as they spoke the loud cries of an infant were heard, and a
voice at the head of the stairs calling Jenny.

The girl obeyed, and presently returned with the child in her arms,
its face, neck, and hands purple with cold.

"Poor little thing, it has got its death in that cold room," she
said. "Mistress cannot see you, ma'am, she is sick and gone to bed."

"This last story was probably equally false with the other, but I
felt that it was useless to remain, and with feelings of deep regret
for the poor children who were so early taught an entire disregard
for truth, and of sorrow for the exposure to cold to which I had
innocently subjected the infant, I left the house. A few days after,
I heard that the little one had died with croup. Jenny, whom I
accidentally met in the street, assured me that he took the cold
which caused his death from the exposure on the afternoon of my
call, as he became ill the following day. I improved the opportunity
to endeavour to impress upon the mind of the poor girl the sin of
which she had been guilty, in telling a falsehood even in obedience
to the commands of her mistress; and I hope that what I said may be
useful to her.

"The want of honesty and promptness in the parents of my pupils
often caused me great inconvenience, and I frequently found it
difficult to meet my rent when it became due. Still I have struggled
through my difficulties without contracting any debts until this
winter, but the sickness which has prevailed in my school has so
materially lessened my income, and my family expenses have, for the
same reason, been so much greater, that I fear it will be quite
impossible for me to continue in my present situation."

"Do not be discouraged," said Uncle Joshua; "I will advance whatever
sum you are in immediate need of, and you may repay me when it is
convenient to yourself. I will also take the bills which are due to
you from various persons, and endeavour to collect them. Your
present term is, I suppose, nearly ended. Commence another with this
regulation:--That the price of tuition, or at least one-half of it,
shall be paid before the entrance of the scholar. Some will complain
of this rule, but many will not hesitate to comply with it, and you
will find the result beneficial. And now I would leave you, Fanny,
for I have another call to make this evening. My young friend,
William Churchill, is, I hear, quite ill, and I feel desirous to see
him. I will call upon you in a day or two, and then we will have
another talk about your affairs, and see what can be done for you.
So good night, Fanny; go to sleep and dream of your old friend."

Closing the door after Uncle Joshua, Mrs. Morrison returned to her
room with a heart filled with thankfulness that so kind a friend had
been sent to her in the hour of need; while the old gentleman walked
with rapid steps through several streets until he stood at the door
of a small, but pleasantly situated house in the suburbs of the
city. His ring at the bell was answered by a pretty,
pleasant-looking young woman, whom he addressed as Mrs. Churchill,
and kindly inquired for her husband.

"William is very feeble to-day, but he will be rejoiced to see you,
sir. His disease is partly owing to anxiety of mind, I think, and
when his spirits are raised by a friendly visit, he feels better."

Uncle Joshua followed Mrs. Churchill to the small room which now
served the double purpose of parlour and bedroom. They were met at
the door by the invalid, who had recognised the voice of his old
friend, and had made an effort to rise and greet him. His sunken
countenance, the hectic flush which glowed upon his cheek, and the
distressing cough, gave fearful evidence that unless the disease was
soon arrested in its progress, consumption would mark him for its
victim.

The friendly visiter was inwardly shocked at his appearance, but
wisely made no allusion to it, and soon engaged him in cheerful
conversation. Gradually he led him to speak openly of his own
situation,--of his health, and of the pecuniary difficulties with
which he was struggling. His story was a common one. A young family
were growing up around him, and an aged mother and invalid sister
also depended upon him for support. The small salary which he
obtained as clerk in one of the most extensive mercantile
establishments in the city, was quite insufficient to meet his
necessary expenses. He had, therefore, after being constantly
employed from early morning until a late hour in the evening,
devoted two or three hours of the night to various occupations which
added a trifle to his limited income. Sometimes he procured copying
of various kinds; at others, accounts, which he could take to his
own house, were intrusted to him. This incessant application had
gradually ruined his health, and now for several weeks he had been
unable to leave the house.

"Have you had advice from an experienced physician, William?"
inquired Uncle Joshua. The young man blushed, as he replied, that he
was unwilling to send for a physician, knowing that he had no means
to repay his services.

"I will send my own doctor to see you," returned his friend. "He can
help you if any one can, and as for his fee I will attend to it, and
if you regain your health I shall be amply repaid.--No, do not thank
me," he continued, as Mr. Churchill endeavoured to express his
gratitude. "Your father has done me many a favour, and it would be
strange if I could not extend a hand to help his son when in
trouble. And now tell me, William, is not your salary very small,
considering the responsible situation which you have so long held in
the firm of Stevenson & Co.?"

"It is," was the reply; "but I see no prospect of obtaining more. I
believe I have always given perfect satisfaction to my employer,
although it is difficult to ascertain the estimation in which he
holds me, for he is a man who never praises. He has never found
fault with me, and therefore I suppose him satisfied, and indeed I
have some proof of this in his willingness to wait two or three
months in the hope that I may recover from my present illness before
making a permanent engagement with a new clerk. Notwithstanding
this, he has never raised my salary, and when I ventured to say to
him about a year ago, that as his business had nearly doubled since
I had been with him, I felt that it would be but just that I should
derive some benefit from the change, he coolly replied that my
present salary was all that he had ever paid a clerk, and he
considered it a sufficient equivalent for my services. He knows very
well that it is difficult to obtain a good situation, there are so
many who stand ready to fill any vacancy, and therefore he feels
quite safe in refusing to give me, more."

"And yet," replied Uncle Joshua, "he is fully aware that the
advantage resulting from your long experience and thorough
acquaintance with his business, increases his income several hundred
dollars every year, and this money he quietly puts into his own
pocket, without considering or caring that a fair proportion of it
should in common honesty go into yours. What a queer world we live
in! The poor thief who robs you of your watch or pocket-book, is
punished without delay; but these wealthy defrauders maintain their
respectability and pass for honest men, even while withholding what
they know to be the just due of another.

"But cheer up, William, I have a fine plan for you, if you can but
regain your health. I am looking for a suitable person to take
charge of a large sheep farm, which I propose establishing on the
land which I own in Virginia. You acquired some knowledge of farming
in your early days. How would you like to undertake this business?
The climate is delightful, the employment easy and pleasant; and it
shall be my care that your salary is amply sufficient for the
support of your family."

Mr. Churchill could hardly command his voice sufficiently to express
his thanks, and his wife burst into tears, as she exclaimed,

"If my poor husband had confided his troubles to you before, he
would not have been reduced to this feeble state."

"He will recover," said the old gentleman. "I feel sure, that in one
month, he will look like a different man. Rest yourself, now,
William, and to-morrow I will see you again."

And, followed by the blessings and thanks of the young couple, Uncle
Joshua departed.

"Past ten o'clock," he said to himself, as he paused near a
lamp-post and looked at his watch. "I must go to my own room."

As he said this he was startled by a deep sigh from some one near,
and on looking round, saw a lad, of fourteen or fifteen years of
age, leaning against the post, and looking earnestly at him.

Uncle Joshua recognised the son of a poor widow, whom he had
occasionally befriended, and said, kindly,

"Well, John, are you on your way home from the store? This is rather
a late hour for a boy like you."

"Yes, sir, it is late. I cannot bear to return home to my poor
mother, for I have bad news for her to-night. Mr. Mackenzie does not
wish to employ me any more. My year is up to-day."

"Why, John, how is this? Not long ago your employer told me that he
was perfectly satisfied with you; indeed, he said that he never
before had so trusty and useful a boy."

"He has always appeared satisfied with me, sir, and I have
endeavoured to serve him faithfully. But he told me to-day that he
had engaged another boy."

Uncle Joshua mused for a moment, and then asked,

"What was he to give you for the first year, John?"

"Nothing, sir. He told my mother that my services would be worth
nothing the first year, but the second he would pay me fifty
dollars, and so increase my salary as I grew older. My poor mother
has worked very hard to support me this year, and I had hoped that I
would be able to help her soon. But it is all over now, and I
suppose I must take a boy's place again, and work another year for
nothing."

"And then be turned off again. Another set of pickpockets," muttered
his indignant auditor.

"Pickpockets!" exclaimed the lad. "Did any one take your watch just
now, sir? I saw a man look at it as you took it out. Perhaps we can
overtake him. I think he turned into the next street."

"No, no, my boy. My watch is safe enough. I am not thinking of
street pickpockets, but of another class whom you will find out as
you grow older. But never mind losing your place, John. My nephew is
in want of a boy who has had some experience in your business, and
will pay him a fair salary--more than Mr. Mackenzie agreed to give
you for the second year. I will mention you to him, and you may call
at his store to-morrow at eleven o'clock, and we will see if you
will answer his purpose."

"Thank you, Sir, I am sure I thank you; and mother will bless you
for your kindness," replied the boy, his countenance glowing with
animation; and with a grateful "good night," he darted off in the
direction of his own home.

"There goes a grateful heart," thought Uncle Joshua, as he gazed
after the boy until he turned the corner of the street and
disappeared. "He has lost his situation merely because another can
be found who will do the work for nothing for a year, in the vain
hope of future recompense. I wish Mary could have been with me this
evening; I think she would have acknowledged that there are many
respectable pickpockets who deserve to accompany poor Thomas to
Blackwell's Island;" and thus soliloquizing, Uncle Joshua reached
the door of his boarding-house, and sought repose in his own room.






KIND WORDS.





WE have more than once, in our rapidly written reflections, urged
the policy and propriety of kindness, courtesy, and good-will
between man and man. It is so easy for an individual to manifest
amenity of spirit, to avoid harshness, and thus to cheer and gladden
the paths of all over whom he may have influence or control, that it
is really surprising to find any one pursuing the very opposite
course. Strange as it may appear, there are among the children of
men, hundreds who seem to take delight in making others unhappy.
They rejoice at an opportunity of being the messengers of evil
tidings. They are jealous or malignant; and in either case they
exult in inflicting a wound. The ancients, in most nations, had a
peculiar dislike to croakers, prophets of evil, and the bearers of
evil tidings. It is recorded that the messenger from the banks of
the Tigris, who first announced the defeat of the Roman army by the
Persians, and the death of the Emperor Julian, in a Roman city of
Asia Minor, was instantly buried under a heap of stones thrown upon
him by an indignant populace. And yet this messenger was innocent,
and reluctantly discharged a painful duty. But how different the
spirit and the motive of volunteers in such cases--those who exult
in an opportunity of communicating bad news, and in some degree
revel over the very agony which it produces. The sensitive, the
generous, the honourable, would ever be spared from such painful
missions. A case of more recent occurrence may be referred to as in
point. We allude to the murder of Mr. Roberts, a farmer of New
Jersey, who was robbed and shot in his own wagon, near Camden. It
became necessary that the sad intelligence should be broken to his
wife and family with as much delicacy as possible. A neighbour was
selected for the task, and at first consented. But, on
consideration, his heart failed him. He could not, he said,
communicate the details of a tragedy so appalling and he begged to
be excused. Another, formed it was thought of sterner stuff, was
then fixed upon: but he too, rough and bluff as he was in his
ordinary manners, possessed the heart of a generous and sympathetic
human being, and also respectfully declined. A third made a like
objection, and at last a female friend of the family was with much
difficulty persuaded, in company with another, to undertake the
mournful task. And yet, we repeat, there are in society, individuals
who delight in contributing to the misery of others--who are eager
to circulate a slander, to chronicle a ruin, to revive a forgotten
error, to wound, sting, and annoy, whenever they may do so with
impunity. How much better the gentle, the generous, the magnanimous
policy! Why not do everything that may be done for the happiness of
our fellow creatures, without seeking out their weak points,
irritating their half-healed wounds, jarring their sensibilities, or
embittering their thoughts! The magic of kind words and a kind
manner can scarcely be over-estimated. Our fellow creatures are more
sensitive than is generally imagined. We have known cases in which a
gentle courtesy has been remembered with pleasure for years. Who
indeed cannot look back into "bygone time," and discover some smile,
some look or other demonstration of regard or esteem, calculated to
bless and brighten every hour of after existence! "Kind words," says
an eminent writer, "do not cost much. It does not take long to utter
them. They never blister the tongue or lips on their passage into
the world, or occasion any other kind of bodily suffering; and we
have never heard of any mental trouble arising from this quarter.
Though they do not cost much, yet they accomplish much. 1. They help
one's own good nature and good will. One cannot be in a habit of
this kind, without thereby pecking away something of the granite
roughness of his own nature. Soft words will soften his own soul.
Philosophers tell us that the angry words a man uses in his passion
are fuel to the flame of his wrath, and make it blaze the more
fiercely. Why, then, should not words of the opposite character
produce opposite results, and that most blessed of all passions of
the soul, kindness, be augmented by kind words? People that are for
ever speaking kindly, are for ever disinclining themselves to
ill-temper. 2. Kind words make other people good-natured. Cold words
freeze people, and hot words scorch them, and sarcastic words
irritate them, and bitter words make them bitter, and wrathful words
make them wrathful. And kind words also produce their own image on
men's souls; and a beautiful image it is. They soothe, and quiet,
and comfort the hearer. They shame him out of his sour, morose,
unkind feelings; and he has to become kind himself. There is such a
rush of all other kinds of words in our days, that it seems
desirable to give kind words a chance among them. There are vain
words, idle words, hasty words, spiteful words, silly words, and
empty words. Now kind words are better than the whole of them; and
it is a pity that, among the improvements of the present age, birds
of this feather might not have more of a chance than they have had
to spread their wings."

It is indeed! Kind words should be brought into more general use.
Those in authority should employ them more frequently, when
addressing the less fortunate among mankind. Employers should use
them in their intercourse with their workmen. Parents should utter
them on every occasion to their children. The rich should never
forget an opportunity of speaking kindly to the poor. Neighbours and
friends should emulate each other in the employment of mild, gentle,
frank, and kindly language. But this cannot be done unless each
endeavours to control himself. Our passions and our prejudices must
be kept in check. If we find that we have a neighbour on the other
side of the way, who has been more fortunate in a worldly sense than
we have been, and if we discover a little jealousy or envy creeping
into our opinions and feelings concerning said neighbour--let us be
careful, endeavour to put a rein upon our tongues, and to avoid the
indulgence of malevolence or ill-will. If we, on the other hand,
have been fortunate, have enough and to spare, and there happens to
be in our circle some who are dependent upon us, some who look up to
us with love and respect--let us be generous, courteous, and
kind--and thus we shall not only discharge a duty, but prove a
source of happiness to others.






NEIGHBOURS' QUARRELS.





MOST people think there are cares enough in the world, and yet many
are very industrious to increase them:--One of the readiest ways of
doing this is to quarrel with a neighbour. A bad bargain may vex a
man for a week, and a bad debt may trouble him for a month; but a
quarrel with his neighbours will keep him in hot water all the year
round.

Aaron Hands delights in fowls, and his cocks and hens are always
scratching up the flowerbeds of his neighbour William Wilkes, whose
mischievous tom-cat every now and then runs off with a chicken. The
consequence is, that William Wilkins is one half the day occupied in
driving away the fowls, and threatening to screw their long ugly
necks off; while Aaron Hands, in his periodical outbreaks,
invariably vows to skin his neighbour's cat, as sure as he can lay
hold of him.

Neighbours! Neighbours! Why can you not be at peace? Not all the
fowls you can rear, and the flowers you can grow, will make amends
for a life of anger, hatred, malice, and uncharitableness. Come to
some kind-hearted understanding one with another, and dwell in
peace.

Upton, the refiner, has a smoky chimney, that sets him and all the
neighbourhood by the ears. The people around abuse him without
mercy, complaining that they are poisoned, and declaring that they
will indict him at the sessions. Upton fiercely sets them at
defiance, on the ground that his premises were built before theirs,
that his chimney did not come to them, but that they came to his
chimney.

Neighbours! Neighbours! practise a little more forbearance. Had half
a dozen of you waited on the refiner in a kindly spirit, he would
years ago have so altered his chimney, that it would not have
annoyed you.

Mrs. Tibbets is thoughtless--if it were not so she would never have
had her large dusty carpet beaten, when her neighbour, who had a
wash, was having her wet clothes hung out to dry. Mrs. Williams is
hasty and passionate, or she would never have taken it for granted
that the carpet was beaten on purpose to spite her, and give her
trouble. As it is, Mrs. Tibbets and Mrs. Williams hate one another
with a perfect hatred.

Neighbours! Neighbours! bear with one another. We are none of us
angels, and should not, therefore, expect those about us to be free
from faults.

They who attempt to out-wrangle a quarrelsome neighbour, go the
wrong way to work. A kind word, and still more a kind deed, will be
more likely to be successful. Two children wanted to pass by a
savage dog: the one took a stick in his hand and pointed it at him,
but this only made the enraged creature more furious than before.
The other child adopted a different plan; for by giving the dog a
piece of his bread and butter, he was allowed to pass, the subdued
animal wagging his tail in quietude. If you happen to have a
quarrelsome neighbour, conquer him by civility and kindness; try the
bread and butter system, and keep your stick out of sight. That is
an excellent Christian admonition, "A soft answer turneth away
wrath, but grievous words stir up anger."

Neighbours' quarrels are a mutual reproach, and yet a stick or a
straw is sufficient to promote them. One man is rich, and another
poor; one is a churchman, another a dissenter; one is a
conservative, another a liberal; one hates another because he is of
the same trade, and another is bitter with his neighbour because he
is a Jew or a Roman Catholic.

Neighbours! Neighbours! live in love, and then while you make others
happy, you will be happier yourselves.

  "That happy man is surely blest,
  Who of the worst things makes the best;
  Whilst he must be of temper curst,
  Who of the best things makes the worst."

"Be ye all of one mind," says the Apostle, "having compassion one of
another; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous; not rendering
evil for evil, or railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing.
"To a rich man I would say, bear with and try to serve those who are
below you; and to a poor one--

  "Fear God, love peace, and mind your labour;
  And never, never quarrel with your neighbour."






GOOD WE MIGHT DO.





WE all might do good
  Where we often do ill;
There is always the way,
  If we have but the will;
Though it be but a word
  Kindly breathed or supprest,
It may guard off some pain,
  Or give peace to some breast.

We all might do good
  In a thousand small ways--
In forbearing to flatter,
  Yet yielding _due_ praise--
In spurning ill humour,
  Reproving wrong done,
And treating but kindly
  Each heart we have won.

We all might do good,
  Whether lowly or great,
For the deed is not gauged
  By the purse or estate;
If it be but a cup
  Of cold water that's given,
Like "the widow's two mites,"
  It is something for Heaven.






THE TOWN LOT.





ONCE upon a time it happened that the men who governed the municipal
affairs of a certain growing town in the West, resolved, in grave
deliberation assembled, to purchase a five-acre lot at the north end
of the city--recently incorporated--and have it improved for a park
or public square. Now, it also happened, that all the saleable
ground lying north of the city was owned by a man named Smith--a
shrewd, wide-awake individual, whose motto was "Every man for
himself," with an occasional addition about a certain gentleman in
black taking "the hindmost."

Smith, it may be mentioned, was secretly at the bottom of this
scheme for a public square, and had himself suggested the matter to
an influential member of the council; not that he was moved by what
is denominated public spirit--no; the spring of action in the case
was merely "private spirit," or a regard for his own good. If the
council decided upon a public square, he was the man from whom the
ground would have to be bought; and he was the man who could get his
own price therefor.

As we have said, the park was decided upon, and a committee of two
appointed whose business it was to see Smith, and arrange with him
for the purchase of a suitable lot of ground. In due form the
committee called upon the landholder, who was fully prepared for the
interview.

"You are the owner of those lots at the north end?" said the
spokesman of the committee.

"I am," replied Smith, with becoming gravity.

"Will you sell a portion of ground, say five acres, to the city?"

"For what purpose?" Smith knew very well for what purpose the land
was wanted.

"We have decided to set apart about five acres of ground, and
improve it as a kind of park, or public promenade."

"Have you, indeed? Well, I like that," said Smith, with animation.
"It shows the right kind of public spirit."

"We have, moreover, decided that the best location will be at the
north end of the town."

"Decidedly my own opinion," returned Smith.

"Will you sell us the required acres?" asked one of the councilmen.

"That will depend somewhat upon where you wish to locate the park."

The particular location was named.

"The very spot," replied Smith, promptly, "upon which I have decided
to erect four rows of dwellings."

"But it is too far out for that," was naturally objected.

"O, no; not a rod. The city is rapidly growing in that direction. I
have only to put up the dwellings referred to, and dozens will, be
anxious to purchase lots, and build all around them. Won't the
ground to the left of that you speak of answer as well?"

But the committee replied in the negative. The lot they had
mentioned was the one decided upon as most suited for the purpose,
and they were not prepared to think of any other location.

All this Smith understood very well. He was not only willing, but
anxious for the city to purchase the lot they were negotiating for.
All he wanted was to get a good round price for the same--say four
or five times the real value. So he feigned indifference, and threw
difficulties in the way.

A few years previous to this time, Smith had purchased a
considerable tract of land at the north of the then flourishing
village, at fifty dollars an acre. Its present value was about three
hundred dollars an acre. After a good deal of talk on both sides,
Smith finally agreed to sell the particular lot pitched upon. The
next thing was to arrange as to price.

"At what do you hold this ground per acre?"

It was some time before Smith answered this question. His eyes were
cast upon the floor, and earnestly did he enter into debate with
himself as to the value he should place upon the lot. At first he
thought of five hundred dollars per acre. But his cupidity soon
caused him to advance on that sum, although, a month before, he
would have caught at such an offer. Then he advanced to six, to
seven, and to eight hundred. And still he felt undecided.

"I can get my own price," said he to himself. "The city has to pay,
and I might just as well get a large sum as a small one."

"For what price will you sell?" The question was repeated.

"I must have a good price."

"We are willing to pay what is fair and right."

"Of course. No doubt you have fixed a limit to which you will go."

"Not exactly that," said one of the gentlemen.

"Are you prepared to make an offer?"

"We are prepared to hear your price, and to make a report thereon,"
was replied.

"That's a very valuable lot of ground," said Smith.

"Name your price," returned one of the committeemen, a little
impatiently.

Thus brought up to the point, Smith, after thinking hurriedly for a
few moments, said--

"One thousand dollars an acre."

Both the men shook their heads in a very positive way. Smith said
that it was the lowest he would take; and so the conference ended.

At the next meeting of the city councils, a report on the town lot
was made, and the extraordinary demand of Smith canvassed. It was
unanimously decided not to make the proposed purchase.

When this decision reached the landholder, he was considerably
disappointed. He wanted money badly, and would have "jumped at" two
thousand dollars for the five acre lot, if satisfied that it would
bring no more. But when the city came forward as a purchaser, his
cupidity was subjected to a very strong temptation. He believed that
he could get five thousand dollars as easily as two; and quieted his
conscience by the salvo--"An article is always worth what it will
bring."

A week or two went by, and Smith was about calling upon one of the
members of the council, to say that, if the city really wanted the
lot he would sell at their price, leaving it with the council to act
justly and generously, when a friend said to him,

"I hear that the council had the subject of a public square under
consideration again this morning."

"Indeed!" Smith was visibly excited, though he tried to appear calm.

"Yes; and I also hear that they have decided to pay the extravagant
price you asked for a lot of ground at the north end of the city."

"A thousand dollars an acre?"

"Yes."

"Its real value, and not cent more," said Smith.

"People differ about that. How ever, you are lucky," the friend
replied. "The city is able to pay."

"So I think. And I mean they shall pay."

Before the committee, to whom the matter was given in charge, had
time to call upon Smith, and close with him for the lot, that
gentleman had concluded in his own mind that it would be just as
easy to get twelve hundred dollars an acre as a thousand. It was
plain that the council were bent upon having the ground, and would
pay a round sum for it. It was just the spot for a public square;
and the city must become the owner. So, when he was called upon, by
the gentlemen, and they said to him,

"We are authorized to pay you your price," he promptly answered,
"The offer is no longer open. You declined it when it was made. My
price for that property is now twelve hundred dollars an acre."

The men offered remonstrance; but it was of no avail. Smith believed
that he could get six thousand dollars for the ground as easily as
five thousand. The city must have the lot, and would pay almost any
price.

"I hardly think it right, Mr. Smith," said one of his visiters, "for
you to take such an advantage. This square is for the public good."

"Let the public pay, then," was the unhesitating answer. "The public
is able enough."

"The location of this park, at the north end of the city, will
greatly improve the value of your other property."

This Smith understood very well. But he replied,

"I am not so sure of that. I have some very strong doubts on the
subject. It's my opinion, that the buildings I contemplated erecting
will be far more to my advantage. Be that as it may, however, I am
decided in selling for nothing less than six thousand dollars."

"We are only authorized to pay five thousand," replied the
committee. "If you agree to take that sum, will close the bargain on
the spot."

Five thousand dollars was a large sum of money, and Smith felt
strongly tempted to close in with the liberal offer. But six
thousand loomed up before his imagination still more temptingly.

"I can get it," said he to himself; "and the property is worth what
it will bring."

So he positively declined to sell it at a thousand dollars per acre.

"At twelve hundred you will sell?" remarked one of the committee, as
they were about retiring.

"Yes. I will take twelve hundred the acre. That is the lowest rate,
and I am not anxious even at that price. I can do quite as well by
keeping it in my own possession. But, as you seem so bent on having
it, I will not stand in your way. When will the council meet again?"

"Not until next week."

"Very well. If they then accept my offer, all will be right. But,
understand me; if they do not accept, the offer no longer remains
open. It is a matter of no moment to me which way the thing goes."

It was a matter of moment to Smith, for all this assertion--a matter
of very great moment. He had several thousand dollars to pay in the
course of the next few months on land purchases, and no way to meet
the payments, except by mortgages, or sales of property; and, it may
naturally be concluded, that he suffered considerable uneasiness
during the time which passed until the next meeting of the council.

Of course, the grasping disposition shown by Smith, became the town
talk; and people said a good many hard things of him. Little,
however, did he care, so that he secured six thousand dollars for a
lot not worth more than two thousand.

Among other residents and property holders in the town, was a
simple-minded, true-hearted, honest man, named Jones. His father had
left him a large farm, a goodly portion of which, in process of
time, came to be included in the limits of the new city; and he
found a much more profitable employment in selling building lots
than in tilling the soil. The property of Mr. Jones lay at the west
side of the town.

Now, when Mr. Jones heard of the exorbitant demand made by Smith for
a five acre lot, his honest heart throbbed with a feeling of
indignation.

"I couldn't have believed it of him," said he. "Six thousand
dollars! Preposterous! Why, I would give the city a lot of twice the
size, and do it with pleasure."

"You would?" said a member of the council, who happened to hear this
remark.

"Certainly I would."

"You are really in earnest?"

"Undoubtedly. Go and select a public square from any of my
unappropriated land on the west side of the city, and I will pass
you the title as a free gift to-morrow, and feel pleasure in doing
so."

"That is public spirit," said the councilman.

"Call it what you will. I am pleased in making the offer."

Now, let it not be supposed that Mr. Jones was shrewdly calculating
the advantage which would result to him from having a park at the
west side of the city. No such thought had yet entered his mind. He
spoke from the impulse of a generous feeling.

Time passed on, and the session day of the council came round--a day
to which Smith had looked forward with no ordinary feelings of
interest, that were touched at times by the coldness of doubt, and
the agitation of uncertainty. Several times he had more than half
repented of his refusal to accept the liberal offer of five thousand
dollars, and of having fixed so positively upon six thousand as the
"lowest figure."

The morning of the day passed, and Smith began to grow uneasy. He
did not venture to seek for information as to the doings of the
council, for that would be to expose the anxiety he felt in the
result of their deliberations. Slowly the afternoon wore away, and
it so happened that Smith did not meet any one of the councilmen;
nor did he even know whether the council was still in session or
not. As to making allusion to the subject of his anxious interest to
any one, that was carefully avoided; for he knew that his exorbitant
demand was the town talk--and he wished to affect the most perfect
indifference on the subject.

The day closed, and not a whisper about the town lot had come to the
ears of Mr. Smith. What could it mean? Had his offer to sell at six
thousand been rejected? The very thought caused his heart to grow
heavy in his bosom. Six, seven, eight o'clock came, and still it was
all dark with Mr. Smith. He could bear the suspense no longer, and
so determined to call upon his neighbour Wilson, who was a member of
the council, and learn from him what had been done.

So he called on Mr. Wilson.

"Ah, friend Smith," said the latter; "how are you this evening?"

"Well, I thank you," returned Smith, feeling a certain oppression of
the chest. "How are you?"

"Oh, very well."

Here there was a pause. After which Smith said, "About that ground
of mine. What did you do?"

"Nothing," replied Wilson, coldly.

"Nothing, did you say?" Smith's voice was a little husky.

"No. You declined our offer; or, rather, the high price fixed by
yourself upon the land."

"You refused to buy it at five thousand, when it was offered," said
Smith.

"I know we did, because your demand was exorbitant."

"Oh, no, not at all," returned Smith quickly.

"In that we only differ," said Wilson. "However, the council has
decided not to pay you the price you ask."

"Unanimously?"

"There was not a dissenting voice."

Smith began to feel more and more uncomfortable.

"I might take something less," he ventured to say, in a low,
hesitating voice.

"It is too late now," was Mr. Wilson's prompt reply.

"Too late! How so?"

"We have procured a lot."

"Mr. Wilson!" Poor Smith started to his feet in chagrin and
astonishment.

"Yes; we have taken one of Jones's lots on the west side of the
city. A beautiful ten acre lot."

"You have!" Smith was actually pale.

"We have; and the title deeds are now being made out."

It was some time before Smith had sufficiently recovered from the
stunning effect of this unlooked-for intelligence, to make the
inquiry,

"And pray how much did Jones ask for his ten acre lot."

"He presented it to the city as a gift," replied the councilman.

"A gift! What folly!"

"No, not folly--but true worldly wisdom; though I believe Jones did
not think of advantage to himself when he generously made the offer.
He is worth twenty thousand dollars more to-day than he was
yesterday, in the simple advanced value of his land for building
lots. And I know of no man in this town whose good fortune affects
me with more pleasure."

Smith stole back to his home with a mountain of disappointment on
his heart. In his cupidity he had entirely overreached himself, and
he saw that the consequences were to react upon all his future
prosperity. The public square at the west end of the town would draw
improvements in that direction, all the while increasing the wealth
of Mr. Jones, while lots at the north end would remain at present
prices, or, it might be, take a downward range.

And so it proved. In ten years, Jones was the richest man in the
town, while half of Smith's property had been sold for taxes. The
five acre lot passed from his hands, under the hammer, in the
foreclosure of a mortgage, for one thousand dollars!

Thus it is that inordinate selfishness and cupidity overreach
themselves; while the liberal man deviseth liberal things, and is
sustained thereby.






THE SUNBEAM AND THE RAINDROP.





A SUNBEAM and a raindrop met together in the sky
One afternoon in sunny June, when earth was parched and dry;
Each quarrelled for the precedence ('twas so the story ran),
And the golden sunbeam, warmly, the quarrel thus began:--

"What were the earth without me? I come with beauty bright,
She smiles to hail my presence, and rejoices in my light;
I deck the hill and valley with many a lovely hue,
I give the rose its blushes, and the violet its blue.

"I steal within the window, and through the cottage door,
And my presence like a blessing gilds with smiles the broad earth o'er;
The brooks and streams flow dancing and sparkling in my ray,
And the merry, happy children in the golden sunshine play."

Then the tearful raindrop answered--"Give praise where praise is due,
The earth indeed were lonely without a smile from you;
But without my visits, also, its beauty would decay,
The flowers droop and wither, and the streamlets dry away.

"I give the flowers their freshness, and you their colours gay,
My jewels would not sparkle, without your sunny ray.
Since each upon the other so closely must depend,
Let us seek the earth together, and our common blessings blend."

The raindrops, and the sunbeams, came laughing down to earth,
And it woke once more to beauty, and to myriad tones of mirth;
The river and the streamlet went dancing on their way,
And the raindrops brightly sparkled in the sunbeam's golden ray.

The drooping flowers looked brighter, there was fragrance in the air,
The earth seemed new created, there was gladness everywhere;
And above the dark clouds, gleaming on the clear blue arch of Heaven,
The Rainbow, in its beauty, like a smile of love was given.

'Twas a sweet and simple lesson, which the story told, I thought,
Not alone and single-handed our kindliest deeds are wrought;
Like the sunbeam and the raindrop, work together, while we may,
And the bow of Heaven's own promise shall smile upon our way.






A PLEA FOR SOFT WORDS.





STRANGE and subtle are the influences which affect the spirit and
touch the heart. Are there bodiless creatures around us, moulding
our thoughts into darkness or brightness, as they will? Whence,
otherwise, come the shadow and the sunshine, for which we can
discern no mortal agency?

Oftener, As we grow older, come the shadows; less frequently the,
sunshine. Ere I took up my pen, I was sitting with a pleasant
company of friends, listening to music, and speaking, with the rest,
light words.

Suddenly, I knew not why, my heart was wrapt away in an atmosphere
of sorrow. A sense of weakness and unworthiness weighed me down, and
I felt the moisture gather to my eyes and my lips tremble, though
they kept the smile.

All my past life rose up before me, and all my short-comings--all,
my mistakes, and all my wilful wickedness, seemed pleading
trumpet-tongued against me.

I saw her before me whose feet trod with mine the green holts and
meadows, when the childish thought strayed not beyond the near or
the possible. I saw her through the long blue distances, clothed in
the white beauty of an angel; but, alas! she drew her golden hair
across her face to veil from her vision the sin-darkened creature
whose eyes dropped heavily to the hem of her robe!

O pure and beautiful one, taken to peace ere the weak temptation had
lifted itself up beyond thy stature, and compelled thee to listen,
to oppose thy weakness to its strength, and to fall--sometimes, at
least, let thy face shine on me from between the clouds. Fresh from
the springs of Paradise, shake from thy wings the dew against my
forehead. We two were coming up together through the sweet land of
poesy and dreams, where the senses believe what the heart hopes; our
hands were full of green boughs, and our laps of cowslips and
violets, white and purple. We were talking of that more beautiful
world into which childhood was opening out, when that spectre met
us, feared and dreaded alike by the strong man and the little child,
and one was taken, and the other left.

One was caught away sinless to the bosom of the Good Shepherd, and
one was left to weep pitiless tears, to eat the bread of toil, and
to think the bitter thoughts of misery,--left "to clasp a phantom
and to find it air." For often has the adversary pressed me sore,
and out of my arms has slid ever that which my soul pronounced good:
slid out of my arms and coiled about my feet like a serpent,
dragging me back and holding me down from all that is high and
great.

Pity me, dear one, if thy sweet sympathies can come out of the
glory, if the lovelight of thy beautiful life can press through the
cloud and the evil, and fold me again as a garment; pity and plead
for me with the maiden mother whose arms in human sorrow and human
love cradled our blessed Redeemer.

She hath known our mortal pain and passion--our more than mortal
triumph--she hath heard the "blessed art thou among women." My
unavailing prayers goldenly syllabled by her whose name sounds from
the manger through all the world, may find acceptance with Him who,
though our sins be as scarlet, can wash them white as wool.

Our hearts grew together as one, and along the headlands and the
valleys one shadow went before us, and one shadow followed us, till
the grave gaped hungry and terrible, and I was alone. Faltering in
fear, but lingering in love, I knelt by the deathbed--it was the
middle night, and the first moans of the autumn came down from the
hills, for the frost specks glinted on her golden robes, and the
wind blew chill in her bosom. Heaven was full of stars, and the
half-moon scattered abroad her beauty like a silver rain. Many have
been the middle nights since then, for years lie between me and that
fearfulest of all watches; but a shadow, a sound, or a thought,
turns the key of the dim chamber, and the scene is reproduced.

I see the long locks on the pillow, the smile on the ashen lips, the
thin, cold fingers faintly pressing my own, and hear the broken
voice saying, "I am going now. I am not afraid. Why weep ye? Though
I were to live the full time allotted to man, I should not be more
ready, nor more willing than now." But over this there comes a
shudder and a groan that all the mirthfulness of the careless was
impotent to drown.

Three days previous to the death-night, three days previous to the
transit of the soul from the clayey tabernacle to the house not;
made with hands--from dishonour to glory--let me turn theme over as
so many leaves.

The first of the November mornings, but the summer had tarried late,
and the wood to the south of our homestead lifted itself like a
painted wall against the sky--the squirrel was leaping nimbly and
chattering gayly among the fiery tops of the oaks or the dun foliage
of the hickory, that shot up its shelving trunk and spread its
forked branches far over the smooth, moss-spotted boles of the
beeches, and the limber boughs of the elms. Lithe and blithe he was,
for his harvest was come.

From the cracked beech-burs was dropping the sweet, angular fruit,
and down from the hickory boughs with every gust fell a shower of
nuts--shelling clean and silvery from their thick black hulls.

Now and then, across the stubble-field, with long cars erect, leaped
the gray hare, but for the most part he kept close in his burrow,
for rude huntsmen were on the hills with their dogs, and only when
the sharp report of a rifle rung through the forest, or the hungry
yelping of some trailing hound startled his harmless slumber, might
you see at the mouth of his burrow the quivering lip and great timid
eyes.

Along the margin of the creek, shrunken now away from the blue and
gray and yellowish stones that made its cool pavement, and projected
in thick layers from the shelving banks, the white columns of
gigantic sycamores leaped earthward, their bases driven, as it
seemed, deep into the ground--all their convolutions of roots buried
out, of view. Dropping into the stagnant waters below, came one by
one the broad, rose-tinted leaves, breaking the shadows of the
silver limbs.

Ruffling and widening to the edges of the pools went the circles, as
the pale, yellow walnuts plashed into their midst; for here, too,
grew the parent trees, their black bark cut and jagged and broken
into rough diamond work.

That beautiful season was come when

"Rustic girls in hoods
Go gleaning through the woods."

Two days after this, we said, my dear mate and I, we shall have a
holiday, and from sunrise till sunset, with our laps full of ripe
nuts and orchard fruits, we shall make pleasant pastime.

Rosalie, for so I may call her, was older than I, with a face of
beauty and a spirit that never flagged. But to-day there was
heaviness in her eyes, and a flushing in her cheek that was deeper
than had been there before.

Still she spoke gayly, and smiled the old smile, for the gaunt form
of sickness had never been among us children, and we knew not how
his touch made the head sick and the heart faint.

The day looked forward to so anxiously dawned at last; but in the
dim chamber of Rosalie the light fell sad. I must go alone.

We had always been together before, at work and in play, asleep and
awake, and I lingered long ere I would be persuaded to leave her;
but when she smiled and said the fresh-gathered nuts and shining
apples would make her glad, I wiped her forehead, and turning
quickly away that she might not see my tears, was speedily wading
through winrows of dead leaves.

The sensations of that day I shall never forget; a vague and
trembling fear of some coming evil, I knew not what, made me often
start as the shadows drifted past me, or a bough crackled beneath my
feet.

From the low, shrubby hawthorns, I gathered the small red apples,
and from beneath the maples, picked by their slim golden stems the
notched and gorgeous leaves. The wind fingered playfully my hair,
and clouds of birds went whirring through the tree-tops; but no
sight nor sound could divide my thoughts from her whose voice had so
often filled with music these solitary places.

I remember when first the fear distinctly defined itself. I was
seated on a mossy log, counting the treasures which I had been
gathering, when the clatter of hoof-strokes on the clayey and
hard-beaten road arrested my attention, and, looking up--for the
wood thinned off in the direction of the highway, and left it
distinctly in view--I saw Doctor H----, the physician, in attendance
upon my sick companion. The visit was an unseasonable one. She, whom
I loved so, might never come with me to the woods any more.

Where the hill sloped to the roadside, and the trees, as I said,
were but few, was the village graveyard. No friend of mine, no one
whom I had ever known or loved, was buried there--yet with a child's
instinctive dread of death, I had ever passed its shaggy solitude
(for shrubs and trees grew there wild and unattended) with a hurried
step and averted face.

Now, for the first time in my life, I walked voluntarily
thitherward, and climbing on a log by the fence-side, gazed long and
earnestly within. I stood beneath a tall locust-tree, and the small,
round leaves; yellow now as the long cloud-bar across the sunset,
kept dropping, and dropping at my feet, till all the faded grass was
covered up. There the mattock had never been struck; but in fancy I
saw the small Heaves falling and drifting about a new and
smooth-shaped mound--and, choking with the turbulent outcry in my
heart, I glided stealthily homeward--alas! to find the boding shape
I had seen through mists and, shadows awfully palpable. I did not
ask about Rosalie. I was afraid; but with my rural gleanings in my
lap, opened the door of her chamber. The physician had preceded me
but a moment, and, standing by the bedside, was turning toward the
lessening light the little wasted hand, the one on which I had
noticed in the morning a small purple spot. "Mortification!" he
said, abruptly, and moved away, as though his work were done.

There was a groan expressive of the sudden and terrible
consciousness which had in it the agony of agonies--the giving up of
all. The gift I had brought fell from my relaxed grasp, and, hiding
my face in the pillow, I gave way to the passionate sorrow of an
undisciplined nature.

When at last I looked up, there was a smile on her lips that no
faintest moan ever displaced again.

A good man and a skilful physician was Dr. H----, but his infirmity
was a love of strong drink; and, therefore, was it that he softened
not the terrible blow which must soon have fallen. I link with his
memory no reproaches now, for all this is away down in the past; and
that foe that sooner or later biteth like a serpent, soon did his
work; but then my breaking heart judged him, hardly. Often yet, for
in all that is saddest memory is faithfulest, I wake suddenly out of
sleep, and live over that first and bitterest sorrow of my life; and
there is no house of gladness in the world that with a whisper will
not echo the moan of lips pale with the kisses of death.

Sometimes, when life is gayest about me, an unseen hand leads me
apart, and opening the door of that still chambers I go in--the
yellow leaves are at my feet again, and that white band between me
and the light.

I see the blue flames quivering and curling close and the
smouldering embers on the hearth. I hear soft footsteps and sobbing
voices and see the clasped hands and placid smile of her who, alone
among us all, was untroubled; and over the darkness and the pain I
hear voice, saying, "She is not dead, but sleepeth." Would, dear
reader, that you might remember, and I too all ways, the importance
of soft and careful words. One harsh or even thoughtlessly chosen
epithet, may bear with it a weight which shall weigh down some heart
through all life. There are for us all nights of sorrow, in which we
feel their value. Help us, our Father, to remember it!






MR. QUERY'S INVESTIGATION.





"HE is a good man, suppose, and an excellent doctor," said Mrs.
Salina Simmons, with a dubious shake of her head but----"

"But what, Mrs. Simmons?"

"They say he _drinks!_"

"No, impossible!" exclaimed Mr. Josiah Query, with emphasis.

"Impossible? I hope so," said Mrs. Simmons. "And--mind you, I don't
say he _drinks_, but that such is the report. And I have it upon
tolerably good authority, too, Mr. Query."

"What authority?"

"Oh, I couldn't tell that: for you know I never like to make
mischief. I can only say that the _report_ is--he drinks."

Mr. Josiah Query scratched his head.

"Can it be that Dr. Harvey drinks?" he murmured. "I thought him pure
Son of Temperance. And his my family physician, too! I must look
into this matter forthwith. Mrs. Simmons, you still decline slating
who is your authority for this report?"

Mrs. Simmons was firm; her companion could gain no satisfaction. She
soon compelled him to promise that he would not mention her name, if
he spoke of the affair elsewhere, repeating her remark that she
never liked to make mischief.

Dr. Harvey was a physician residing in a small village, where he
shared the profits of practice with another doctor, named Jones. Dr.
Harvey was generally liked and among his friends was Mr. Josiah
Query, whom Mrs. Simmons shocked with the bit of gossip respecting
the doctor's habits of intemperance. Mr. Query was a good-hearted
man, and he deemed it his duty to inquire into the nature of the
report, and learn if it had any foundation in truth. Accordingly, be
went to Mr. Green, who also employed the doctor in his family.

"Mr. Green," said he, "have you heard anything about this report of
Dr. Harvey's intemperance?"

"Dr. Harvey's intemperance?" cried Mr. Green, astonished.

"Yes--a flying report."

"No, I'm sure I haven't."

"Of course, then, you don't know whether it is true or not?"

"What?"

"That he drinks."

"I never heard of it before. Dr. Harvey is my family physician, and
I certainly would not employ a man addicted to the use of ardent
spirits."

"Nor I," said Mr. Query "and for this reason, and for the doctor's
sake, too, I want to know the truth of the matter. I don't really
credit it myself; but I thought it would do no harm to inquire."

Mr. Query next applied to Squire Worthy for information.

"Dear me!" exclaimed the squire, who was a nervous man; "does Dr.
Harvey drink?"

"Such is the rumour; how true it is, I can't say."

"And what if he should give one of my family a dose of arsenic
instead of the tincture of rhubarb, some time, when he is
intoxicated? My mind is made up now. I shall send for Dr. Jones in
future."

"But, dear sir," remonstrated Mr. Query. "I don't say the report is
true."

"Oh, no; you wouldn't wish to commit yourself. You like to know the
safe side, and so do I. I shall employ Dr. Jones."

Mr. Query turned sorrowfully away.

"Squire Worthy must have bad suspicions of the doctor's intemperance
before I came to him," thought he; "I really begin to fear that
there is some foundation for the report. I'll go to Mrs. Mason; she
will know."

Mr. Query found Mrs. Mason ready to listen to and believe any
scandal. She gave her head a significant toss, as if she knew more
about the report than she chose to confess.

Mr. Query begged of her to explain herself.

"Oh, _I_ sha'n't say anything," exclaimed Mrs. Mason; "I've no ill
will against Dr. Harvey, and I'd rather cut off my right hand than
injure him."

"But is the report true?"

"True, Mr. Query? Do you suppose _I_ ever saw Dr. Harvey drunk? Then
how can you expect me to know? Oh, I don't wish to say anything
against the man, and I won't."

After visiting Mrs. Mason, Mr. Query went to half a dozen others to
learn the truth respecting Dr. Harvey's habits. Nobody would confess
that they knew anything, about his drinking; but Mr. Smith "was not
as much surprised as others might be;" Mr. Brown "was sorry if the
report was true," adding, that the best of men had their faults.
Miss Single had frequently remarked the doctor's florid complexion,
and wondered if his colour was natural; Mr. Clark remembered that
the doctor appeared unusually gay, on the occasion of his last visit
to his family; Mrs. Rogers declared that, when she came to reflect,
she believed she had once or twice smelt the man's breath; and Mr.
Impulse had often seen him riding at an extraordinary rate for a
sober Gentleman. Still Mr. Query was unable to ascertain any
definite facts respecting the unfavourable report.

Meanwhile, with his usual industry, Dr. Harvey went about his
business, little suspecting the scandalous gossip that was
circulating to his discredit. But he soon perceived he was very
coldly received by some of his old friends, and that others employed
Dr. Jones. Nobody sent for him, and he might have begun to think
that the health of the town was entirely re-established, had he not
observed that his rival appeared driven with business, and that he
rode night and day.

One evening Dr. Harvey sat in his office, wondering what could have
occasioned the sudden and surprising change in his affairs, when,
contrary to his expectations, he received a call to visit a sick
child of one of his old friends, who had lately employed his rival.
After some hesitation, and a struggle between pride and a sense of
duty, he resolved to respond to the call, and at the same time
learn, if possible, why he had been preferred to Dr. Jones, and why
Dr. Jones had on other occasions been preferred to him.

"The truth is, Dr. Harvey," said Mr. Miles, "we thought the child
dangerously ill, and as Dr. Jones could not come immediately, we
concluded to send for you."

"I admire your frankness," responded Dr. Harvey, smiling; "and shall
admire it still more, if you will inform me why you have lately
preferred Dr. Jones to me. Formerly I had the honour of enjoying
your friendship and esteem, and you have frequently told me
yourself, that you would trust no other physician."

"Well," replied Mr. Miles, "I am a plain man, and never hesitate to
tell people what they wish to know. I sent for Dr. Jones instead of
you, I confess not that I doubted your skill--"

"What then?"

"It is a delicate subject, but I will, nevertheless, speak out.
Although I had the utmost confidence in your skill and
faithfulness--I--you know, I--in short, I don't like to trust a
physician who drinks."

"Sir!" cried the astonished doctor.

"Yes--drinks," pursued Mr. Miles. "It is plain language, but I am a
plain man. I heard of your intemperance, and thought it unsafe--that
is, dangerous--to employ you."

"My intemperance!" ejaculated Dr. Harvey.

"Yes, sir! and I am sorry to know it. But the fact that you
sometimes drink a trifle too much is now a well known fact, and is
generally talked of in the village."

"Mr. Miles," cried the indignant doctor, "this is scandalous--it is
false! Who is your authority for this report?"

"Oh, I have heard it from several mouths but I can't say exactly who
is responsible for the rumour."

And Mr. Miles went on to mention several names, as connected with
the rumour, and among which was that of Mr. Query.

The indignant doctor immediately set out on a pilgrimage of
investigation, going from one house to another, in search of the
author of the scandal.

Nobody, however, could state where it originated, but it was
universally admitted that the man from whose lips it was first
heard, was Mr. Query.

Accordingly Dr. Harvey hastened to Mr. Query's house, and demanded
of that gentleman what he meant by circulating such scandal.

"My dear doctor," cried Mr. Query, his face beaming with conscious
innocence, "_I_ haven't been guilty of any mis-statement about you,
I can take my oath. I heard that there was a report of your
drinking, and all I did was to tell people I didn't believe it, nor
know anything about it, and to inquire were it originated. Oh, I
assure you, doctor, I haven't slandered you in any manner."

"You are a poor fool!" exclaimed Dr. Harvey, perplexed and angry.
"If you had gone about town telling everybody that you saw me drunk,
daily, you couldn't have slandered me more effectually than you
have."

"Oh, I beg your pardon," cried Mr. Query, very sad; "but I thought I
was doing you a service!"

"Save me from my friends!" exclaimed the doctor, bitterly. "An
_enemy_ could not have done me as much injury as you have done. But
I now insist on knowing who first mentioned the report to you."

"Oh, I am not at liberty to say that."

"Then I shall hold you responsible for the scandal--for the base
lies you have circulated. But if you are really an honest man, and
my friend, you will not hesitate to tell me where this report
originated."

After some reflection, Mr. Query, who stood in mortal fear of the
indignant doctor, resolved to reveal the secret, and mentioned the
name of his informant, Mrs. Simmons. As Dr. Harvey had not heard her
spoken of before, as connected with the report of his intemperance,
he knew very well that Mr. Query's "friendly investigations" had
been the sole cause of his loss of practice. However, to go to the
roots of this Upas tree of scandal, he resolved to pay an immediate
visit to Mrs. Simmons.

This lady could deny nothing; but she declared that she had not
given the rumour as a fact, and that she had never spoken of it
except to Mr. Query. Anxious to throw the responsibility of the
slander upon others, she eagerly confessed that, on a certain
occasion upon entering a room in which were Mrs. Guild and Mrs.
Harmless, she overheard one of these ladies remark that "Dr. Harvey
drank more than ever," and the other reply, that "she had heard him
say he could not break himself, although he knew his health suffered
in consequence."

Thus set upon the right track, Dr. Harvey visited Mrs. Guild and
Mrs. Harmless without delay.

"Mercy on us!" exclaimed those ladies, when questioned respecting
the matter, "we perfectly remember talking about your _drinking
coffee_, and making such remarks as you have heard through Mrs.
Simmons. But with regard to your _drinking liquor_, we never heard
the report until a week ago, and never believed it at all."

As what these ladies had said of his _coffee-drinking_ propensities
was perfectly true, Dr. Harvey readily acquitted them of any designs
against his character for sobriety, and well satisfied with having
at last discovered the origin of the rumour, returned to the
friendly Mr. Query.

The humiliation of this gentleman was so deep, that Dr. Harvey
avoided reproaches, and confined himself to a simple narrative of
his discoveries.

"I see, it is all my fault," said Mr. Query. "And I will do anything
to remedy it. I never could believe you drank--and now I'll go and
tell everybody that the report _was_ false."

"Oh! bless you," cried the doctor, "I wouldn't have you do so for
the world. All I ask of you, is to say nothing whatever on the
subject, and if you ever again hear a report of the kind, don't make
it a subject of friendly investigation."

Mr. Query promised; and, after the truth was known, and, Dr. Harvey
had regained the good-will of the community, together with his share
of medical practice, he never had reason again to exclaim--"Save me
from my friends!" And Mr. Query was in future exceedingly careful
how he attempted to make friendly investigations.






ROOM IN THE WORLD.





THERE is room in the world for the wealthy and great,
For princes to reign in magnificent state;
For the courtier to bend, for the noble to sue,
If the hearts of all these are but honest and true.

And there's room in the world for the lowly and meek,
For the hard horny hand, and the toil-furrow'd cheek;
For the scholar to think, for the merchant to trade,
So these are found upright and just in their grade.

But room there is none for the wicked; and nought
For the souls that with teeming corruption are fraught.
The world would be small, were its oceans all land,
To harbour and feed such a pestilent band.

Root out from among ye, by teaching the mind,
By training the heart, this chief curse of mankind!
'Tis a duty you owe to the forthcoming race--
Confess it in time, and discharge it with grace!






WORDS.





"THE foolish thing!" said my Aunt Rachel, speaking warmly, "to get
hurt at a mere word. It's a little hard that people can't open their
lips but somebody is offended."

"Words are things!" said I, smiling.

"Very light things! A person must be tender indeed, that is hurt by
a word."

"The very lightest thing may hurt, if it falls on a tender place."

"I don't like people who have these tender places," said Aunt
Rachel. "I never get hurt at what is said to me. No--never! To be
ever picking and mincing, and chopping off your words--to be afraid
to say this or that--for fear somebody will be offended! I can't
abide it."

"People who have these tender places can't help it, I suppose. This
being so, ought we not to regard their weakness?" said I. "Pain,
either of body or mind, is hard to bear, and we should not inflict
it causelessly."

"People who are so wonderfully sensitive," replied Aunt Rachel,
growing warmer, "ought to shut themselves up at home, and not come
among sensible, good-tempered persons. As far as I am concerned, I
can tell them, one and all, that I am not going to pick out every
hard word from a sentence as carefully as I would seeds from a
raisin. Let them crack them with their teeth, if they are afraid to
swallow them whole."

Now, for all that Aunt Rachel went on after this strain, she was a
kind, good soul, in the main, and, I could see, was sorry for having
hurt the feelings of Mary Lane. But she didn't like to acknowledge
that she was in the wrong; that would detract too much from the
self-complacency with which she regarded herself. Knowing her
character very well, I thought it best not to continue the little
argument about the importance of words, and so changed the subject.
But, every now and then, Aunt Rachel would return to it, each time
softening a little towards Mary. At last she said,

"I'm sure it was a little thing. A very little thing. She might have
known that nothing unkind was intended on my part."

"There are some subjects, aunt," I replied, "to which we cannot bear
the slightest allusion. And a sudden reference to them is very apt
to throw us off of our guard. What you said to Mary has, in all
probability touched some weakness of character, or probed some wound
that time has not been able to heal. I have always thought her a
sensible, good-natured girl."

"And so have I. But I really cannot think that she has showed her
good sense or good nature in the present case. It is a very bad
failing this, of being over sensitive; and exceedingly annoying to
one's friends."

"It is, I know; but still, all of, us have a weak point, and to her
that is assailed, we are very apt to betray our feelings."

"Well, I say now, as I have always said--I don't like to have
anything to do with people who have these weak points. This being
hurt by a word, as if words were blows, is something that does not
come within the range of my sympathies."

"And yet, aunt," said I, "all have weak points. Even you are not
entirely free from them."

"Me!" Aunt Rachel bridled.

"Yes; and if even as light a thing as a word were to fall upon them,
you would suffer pain."

"Pray, sir," said Aunt Rachel, with much dignity of manner; she was
chafed by my words, light as they were, "inform me where these
weaknesses, of which you are pleased to speak, lie."

"Oh, no; you must excuse me. That would be very much out of place.
But I only stated a general fact that appertains to all of us."

Aunt Rachel looked very grave. I had laid the weight of words upon a
weakness of her character, and it had given her pain. That weakness
was a peculiarly good opinion of herself. I had made no allegation
against her; and there was none in my mind. My words simply
expressed the general truth that we all have weaknesses, and
included her in their application. But she imagined that I referred
to some particular defect or fault, and mail-proof as she was
against words, they had wounded her.

For a day or two Aunt Rachel remained more sober than was her wont.
I knew the cause, but did not attempt to remove from her mind any
impression my words had made. One day, about a week after, I said to
her,

"Aunt Rachel, I saw Mary Lane's mother this morning."

"Ah?" The old lady looked up at me inquiringly.

"I don't wonder your words hurt the poor girl," I added.

"Why? What did I say?" quickly asked Aunt Rachel.

"You said that she was a jilt."

"But I was only jest, and she knew it. I did not really mean
anything. I'm surprised that Mary should be so foolish."

"You will not be surprised when you know all," was my answer.

"All? What all? I'm sure I wasn't in earnest. I didn't mean to hurt
the poor girl's feelings." My aunt looked very much troubled.

"No one blames you, Aunt Rachel," said I. "Mary knows you didn't
intend wounding her."

"But why should she take a little word go much to heart? It must
have had more truth in it than I supposed."

"Did you know that Mary refused an offer of marriage from Walter
Green last week?"

"Why no! It can't be possible! Refused Walter Green?"

"They've been intimate for a long time."

"I know."

"She certainly encouraged him."

"I think it more than probable."

"Is it possible, then, that she did really jilt the young man?"
exclaimed Aunt Rachel.

"This has been said of her," I replied. "But so far as I can learn,
she was really attached to him, and sufferred great pain in
rejecting his offer. Wisely she regarded marriage as the most
important event of her life, and refused to make so solemn a
contract with one in whose principles she had not the fullest
confidence."

"But she ought not to have encouraged Walter, if she did not intend
marrying him," said Aunt Rachel, with some warmth.

"She encouraged him so long as she thought well of him. A closer
view revealed points of character hidden by distance. When she saw
these her feelings were already deeply involved. But, like a true
woman, she turned from the proffered hand, even though while in
doing so her heart palpitated with pain. There is nothing false
about Mary Lane. She could no more trifle with a lover than she
could commit a crime. Think, then, how almost impossible it would be
for her to hear herself called, under existing circumstances, even
in sport, a jilt, without being hurt. Words sometimes have power to
hurt more than blows. Do you not see this, now, Aunt Rachel?"

"Oh, yes, yes. I see it; and I saw it before," said the old lady.
"And in future I will be more careful of my words. It is pretty late
in life to learn this lesson--but we are never too late to learn.
Poor Mary! It grieves me to think that I should have hurt her so
much."

Yes, words often have in them a smarting force, and we cannot be too
guarded how we use them. "Think twice before you speak once," is a
trite but wise saying. We teach it to our children very carefully,
but are too apt to forget that it has not lost its application to
ourselves.






THE THANKLESS OFFICE.





"AN object of real charity," said Andrew Lyon to his wife, as a poor
woman withdrew from the room in which they were seated.

"If ever there was a worthy object she is one, returned Mrs. Lyon.
"A widow, with health so feeble that even ordinary exertion is too
much for her; yet obliged to support, with the labour of her own
hands, not only herself, but three young children. I do not wonder
that she is behind with her rent."

"Nor I," said Mr. Lyon, in a voice of sympathy. "How much, did she
say, was due to her landlord?"

"Ten dollars."

"She will not be able to pay it."

"I fear not. How can she? I give her all my extra sewing, and have
obtained work for her from several ladies; but with her best efforts
she can barely obtain food and decent clothing for herself and
babes."

"Does it not seem hard," remarked Mr. Lyon, "that one like Mrs.
Arnold, who is so earnest in her efforts to take care of herself and
family, should not receive a helping hand from some one of the many
who could help her without feeling the effort? If I didn't find it
so hard to make both ends meet, I would pay off her arrears of rent
for her, and feel happy in so doing."

"Ah!" exclaimed the kind-hearted wife, "how much I wish that we were
able to do this! But we are not."

"I'll tell you what we can do," said Mr. Lyon, in a cheerful voice;
"or rather what _I_ can do. It will be a very light matter for say
ten persons to give a dollar apiece, in order to relieve Mrs. Arnold
from her present trouble. There are plenty who would cheerfully
contribute, for this good purpose; all that is wanted is some one to
take upon himself the business of making the collections. That task
shall be mine."

"How glad I am, James, to hear you say so!" smilingly replied Mrs.
Lyon. "Oh, what a relief it will be to poor Mrs. Arnold. It will
make her heart as light as a feather. That rent has troubled her
sadly. Old Links, her landlord, has been worrying her about it a
good deal, and, only a week ago, threatened to put her things in the
street, if she didn't pay up."

"I should have thought of this before," remarked Andrew Lyon. "There
are hundreds of people who are willing enough to give if they were
only certain in regard to the object. Here is one worthy enough in
every way. Be it my business to present her claims to benevolent
consideration. Let me see. To whom shall I go? There are Jones, and
Green, and Tompkins. I can get a dollar from each of them. That will
be three dollars,--and one from myself, will make four. Who else is
there? Oh, Malcolm! I'm sure of a dollar from him; and also from
Smith, Todd, and Perry."

Confident in the success of his benevolent scheme, Mr. Lyon started
forth, early on the very next day, for the purpose of obtaining, by
subscription, the poor widow's rent. The first person he called on
was Malcolm.

"Ah, friend Lyon!" said Malcolm, smiling blandly, "Good morning!
What can I do for you, to-day?"

"Nothing for me, but something for a poor widow, who is behind with
her rent," replied Andrew Lyon. "I want just one dollar from you,
and as much more from some eight or nine as benevolent as yourself."

At the word poor widow the countenance of Malcolm fell, and when his
visiter ceased, he replied, in a changed and husky voice, clearing
his throat two or three times as he spoke.

"Are you sure she is deserving, Mr. Lyon?" The man's manner had
become exceedingly grave.

"None more so," was the prompt answer. "She is in poor health, and
has three children to support with the product of her needle. If any
one needs assistance, it is Mrs. Arnold."

"Oh! Ah! The widow of Jacob Arnold?"

"The same," replied Andrew Lyon.

Malcolm's face did not brighten with a feeling of heart-warm
benevolence. But he turned slowly away, and opening his
money-drawer, _very slowly_ toyed with his fingers amid its
contents. At length he took therefrom a dollar bill, and said, as he
presented it to Lyon,--signing involuntarily as he did so,--

"I suppose I must do my part. But we are called upon so often."

The ardour of Andrew Lyon's benevolent feelings suddenly cooled at
this unexpected reception. He had entered upon his work under the
glow of a pure enthusiasm; anticipating a hearty response the moment
his errand was made known.

"I thank you in the widow's name," said he, as he took the dollar.
When he turned from Mr. Malcolm's store, it was with a pressure on
his feelings, as if he had asked the coldly-given favour for
himself.

It was not without an effort that Lyon compelled himself to call
upon Mr. Green, considered the "next best man" on his list. But he
entered his place of business with far less confidence than he had
felt when calling upon Malcolm. His story told, Green, without a
word or smile, drew two half dollars from his pocket and presented
them.

"Thank you," said Lyon.

"Welcome," returned Green.

Oppressed with a feeling of embarrassment, Lyon stood for a few
moments. Then bowing, he said,

"Good morning."

"Good morning," was coldly and formally responded.

And thus the alms-seeker and alms-giver parted.

"Better be at his shop, attending to his work," muttered Green to
himself, as his visiter retired. "Men ain't very apt to get along
too well in the world who spend their time in begging for every
object of charity that happens to turn up. And there are plenty of
such, dear knows. He's got a dollar out of me; may it do him, or the
poor widow he talked so glibly about, much good."

Cold water had been poured upon the feelings of Andrew Lyon. He had
raised two dollars for the poor widow, but, at what a sacrifice for
one so sensitive as himself! Instead of keeping on in his work of
benevolence, he went to his shop, and entered upon the day's
employment. How disappointed he felt;--and this disappointment was
mingled with a certain sense of humiliation, as if he had been
asking alms for himself.

"Catch me at this work again!" he said half aloud, as his thoughts
dwelt upon what had so recently occurred. "But this is not right,"
he added, quickly. "It is a weakness in me to feel so. Poor Mrs.
Arnold must be relieved; and it is my duty to see that she gets
relief. I had no thought of a reception like this. People can talk
of benevolence; but putting the hand in the pocket is another affair
altogether. I never dreamed that such men as Malcolm and Green could
be insensible to an appeal like the one I made."

"I've got two dollars towards paying Mrs. Arnold's rent," he said to
himself, in a more cheerful tone, some time afterwards; "and it will
go hard if I don't raise the whole amount for her. All are not like
Green and Malcolm. Jones is a kind-hearted man, and will instantly
respond to the call of humanity. I'll go and see him."

So, off Andrew Lyon started to see this individual.

"I've come begging, Mr. Jones," said he, on meeting him. And he
spoke in a frank, pleasant manner,

"Then you've come to the wrong shop; that's all I have to say," was
the blunt answer.

"Don't say that, Mr. Jones. Hear my story first."

"I do say it, and I'm in earnest," returned Jones. "I feel as poor
as Job's turkey to-day."

"I only want a dollar to help a poor widow pay her rent," said Lyon.

"Oh, hang all the poor widows! If that's your game, you'll get
nothing here. I've got my hands full to pay my own rent. A nice time
I'd have in handing out a dollar to every poor widow in town to help
pay her rent! No, no, my friend, you can't get anything here."

"Just as you feel about it," said Andrew Lyon. "There's no
compulsion in the matter."

"No, I presume not," was rather coldly replied.

Lyon returned to his shop, still more disheartened than before. He
had undertaken a thankless office.

Nearly two hours elapsed before his resolution to persevere in the
good work he had begun came back with sufficient force to prompt to
another effort. Then he dropped in upon his neighbour Tompkins, to
whom he made known his errand.

"Why, yes, I suppose I must do something in a case like this," said
Tompkins, with the tone and air of a man who was cornered. "But
there are so many calls for charity, that we are naturally enough
led to hold on pretty tightly to our purse strings. Poor woman! I
feel sorry for her. How much do you want?"

"I am trying to get ten persons, including myself, to give a dollar
each."

"Well, here's my dollar." And Tompkins forced a smile to his face as
he handed over his contribution,--but the smile did not conceal an
expression which said very plainly--

"I hope you will not trouble me again in this way."

"You may be sure I will not," muttered Lyon, as he went away. He
fully understood the meaning of the expression.

Only one more application did the kind-hearted man make. It was
successful; but there was something in the manner of the individual
who gave his dollar, that Lyon felt as a rebuke.

"And so poor Mrs. Arnold did not get the whole of her arrears of
rent paid off," says some one who has felt an interest in her
favour.

Oh, yes she did. Mr. Lyon begged five dollars, and added five more
from his own slender purse. But, he cannot be induced again to
undertake the thankless office of seeking relief from the benevolent
for a fellow creature in need. He has learned that a great many who
refuse alms on the plea that the object presented is not worthy, are
but little more inclined to charitable deeds, when on this point
there is no question.

How many who read this can sympathize with Andrew Lyon! Few men who
have hearts to feel for others but have been impelled, at some time
in their lives, to seek aid for a fellow creature in need. That
their office was a thankless one, they have too soon become aware.
Even those who responded to their call most liberally, in too many
instances gave in a way that left an unpleasant impression behind.
How quickly has the first glow of generous feeling, that sought to
extend itself to others, that they might share the pleasure of
humanity, been chilled; and, instead of finding the task an easy
one, it has proved to be hard, and, too often, humiliating! Alas
that this should be! That men should shut their hearts so
instinctively at the voice of charity!

We have not written this to discourage active efforts in the
benevolent; but to hold up a mirror in which another class may see
themselves. At best, the office of him who seeks of his fellow men
aid for the suffering and indigent, is an unpleasant one. It is all
sacrifice on his part, and the least that can be done is to honour
his disinterested regard for others in distress, and treat him with
delicacy and consideration.






LOVE.





OH! if there is one law above the rest,
Written in Wisdom--if there is a word
That I would trace as with a pen of fire
Upon the unsullied temper of a child--
If there is anything that keeps the mind
Open to angel visits, and repels
The ministry of ill--_'tis Human Love!_
God has made nothing worthy of contempt;
The smallest pebble in the well of Truth
Has its peculiar meanings, and will stand
When man's best monuments wear fast away.
The law of Heaven is _Love_--and though its name
Has been usurped by passion, and profaned
To its unholy uses through all time,
Still, the external principle is pure;
And in these deep affections that we feel
Omnipotent within us, can we see
The lavish measure in which love is given.
And in the yearning tenderness of a child
For every bird that sings above its head,
And every creature feeding on the hills,
And every tree and flower, and running brook,
We see how everything was made to love,
And how they err, who, in a world like this,
Find anything to hate but human pride.






"EVERY LITTLE HELPS."





WHAT if a drop of rain should plead--
  "So small a drop as I
Can ne'er refresh the thirsty mead;
  I'll tarry in the sky?"

What, if the shining beam of noon
  Should in its fountain stay;
Because its feeble light alone
  Cannot create a day?

Does not each rain-drop help to form
  The cool refreshing shower?
And every ray of light, to warm
  And beautify the flower?






LITTLE THINGS.





SCORN not the slightest word or deed,
  Nor deem it void of power;
There's fruit in each wind-wafted seed,
  Waiting its natal hour.
A whispered word may touch the heart,
  And call it back to life;
A look of love bid sin depart,
  And still unholy strife.

No act falls fruitless; none can tell
  How vast its power may be,
Nor what results enfolded dwell
  Within it silently.
Work and despair not; give thy mite,
  Nor care how small it be;
God is with all that serve the right,
  The holy, true, and free!






CARELESS WORDS.





FIVE years ago, this fair November day,--five years? it seems but
yesterday, so fresh is that scene in my memory; and, I doubt not,
were the period ten times multiplied, it would be as vivid still to
us--the surviving actors in that drama! The touch of time, which
blunts the piercing thorn, as well as steals from the rose its
lovely tints, is powerless here, unless to give darker shades to
that picture engraven on our souls; and tears--ah, they only make it
more imperishable!

We do not speak of her now; her name has not passed our lips in each
other's presence, since we followed her--grief-stricken mourners-to
the grave, to which--alas, alas! but why should not the truth be
spoken? the grave to which our careless words consigned her. But on
every anniversary of that day we can never forget, uninvited by me,
and without any previous arrangement between themselves, those two
friends have come to my house, and together we have sat, almost
silently, save when Ada's sweet voice has poured forth a low,
plaintive strain to the mournful chords Mary has made the harp to
breathe. Four years ago, that cousin came too; and since then,
though he has been thousands of miles distant from us, when, that
anniversary has returned, he has written to me: he cannot look into
my face when that letter is penned; he but looks into his own heart,
and he cannot withhold the words of remorse and agony.

Ada and Mary have sat with me to-day, and we knew that Rowland, in
thought, was here too; ah, if we could have known another had been
among us,--if we could have felt that an eye was upon us, which will
never more dim with tears, a heart was near us which carelessness
can never wound again;--could we have known she had been here--that
pure, bright angel, with the smile of forgiveness and love on that
beautiful face--the dark veil of sorrow might have been lifted from
our souls! but we saw only with mortal vision; our faith was feeble,
and we have only drawn that sombre mantle more and more closely
about us. The forgiveness we have so many tim es prayed for, we have
not yet dared to receive, though we know it is our own.

That November day was just what this has been fair, mild, and sweet;
and how much did that dear one enjoy it! The earth was dry, and as
we looked from the window we saw no verdure but a small line of
green on the south side of the garden enclosure, and around the
trunk of the old pear-tree, and here and there a little oasis from
which the strong wind of the previous day, had lifted the thick
covering of dry leaves, and one or two shrubs, whose foliage feared
not the cold breath of winter. The gaudy hues, too, which nature had
lately worn, were all faded; there was a pale, yellow-leafed vine
clambering over the verdureless lilac, and far down in the garden
might be seen a shrub covered with bright scarlet berries. But the
warm south wind was sweet and fragrant, as if it had strayed through
bowers of roses and eglantines. Deep-leaden and snow-white clouds
blended together, floated lazily through the sky, and the sun
coquetted all day with the earth, though his glance was not, for
once, more than half averted, while his smile was bright and loving,
as it bad been months before, when her face was fair and blooming.

But how sadly has this day passed, and how unlike is this calm,
sweet evening to the one which closed that November day! Nature is
the same. The moonbeams look as bright and silvery through the
brown, naked arms of the tall oaks, and the dark evergreen forest
lifts up its head to the sky, striving, but in vain, to shut out
the, soft light from the little stream, whose murmurings, seem more
sad and complaining than at another season of the year, perhaps
because it feels how soon the icy bands of winter will stay its free
course, and hush its low whisperings. The soft breeze sighs as sadly
through the vines which still wreath themselves around the window;
though seemingly conscious they have ceased to adorn it, they are
striving to loosen their bold, and bow themselves to the earth; and
the, chirping of a cricket in the chimney is as sad and mournful as
it was then. But the low moan of the sufferer, the but
half-smothered, agonized sobs of those fair girls, the deep groan
which all my proud cousin's firmness could not hush, and the words
of reproach, which, though I was so guilty myself, and though I saw
them so repentant, I could not withhold, are all stilled now.

Ada and Mary have just left me, and I am sitting alone in my
apartment. Not a sound reaches me but the whisperings of the wind,
the murmuring of the stream, and the chirping of that solitary
cricket. The family know my heart is heavy to-night, and the voices
are hushed, and the footsteps fall lightly. Lily, dear Lily, art
thou near me?

Five years and some months ago--it was in early June--there came to
our home from far away in the sunny South, a fair young creature, a
relative of ours, though we had never seen her before. She had been
motherless rather less than a year, but her father had already found
another partner, and feeling that she would not so soon see the
place of the dearly-loved parent filled by a stranger, she had
obtained his permission to spend a few months with those who could
sympathize with her in her griefs.

Lily White! She was rightly named; I have never seen such a fair,
delicate face and figure, nor watched the revealings of a nature so
pure and gentle as was hers. She would have been too fair and
delicate to be beautiful, but for the brilliancy of those deep blue
eyes, the dark shade of that glossy hair, and the litheness of that
fragile form; but when months had passed away, and, though the brow
was still marble white, and the lip colourless, the cheek wore that
deep rose tint, how surpassingly beautiful she was! We did not dream
what had planted that rose-tint there--we thought her to be throwing
off the grief which alone, we believed, had paled her cheek; and we
did not observe that her form was becoming more delicate, and that
her step was losing its lightness and elasticity. We loved the sweet
Lily dearly at first sight, and she had been with us but a short
time before we began to wonder how our home had ever seemed perfect
to us previous to her coming. And our affection was returned by the
dear girl. We knew how much she loved us, when, as the warm season
had passed, and her father sent for her to return home, we saw the
expression of deep sorrow in every feature, and the silent entreaty
that we would persuade him to allow her to remain with us still.

She did not thank me when a letter reached me from her father, in
reply to one which, unknown to her, I had sent him, saying, if I
thought Lily's health would not be injured by a winter's residence
in our cold climate, he would comply with my urgent request, and
allow her to remain with us until the following spring--the dear
girl could not speak. She came to me almost totteringly, and wound
her arms about my neck, resting her head on mine, and tears from
those sweet eyes fell fast over my face; and all the remainder of
that afternoon she lay on her couch. Oh, why did I not think
wherefore she was so much overcome?

Ada L----and Mary R----, two friends whom I had loved from
childhood, I had selected as companions for our dear Lily on her
arrival among us, and the young ladies, from their first
introduction to her, had vied with me in my endeavours to dispel the
gloom from that fair face, and to make her happy; and they shared,
almost equally with her relatives, dear Lily's affections.

Ada--she is changed now--was a gay, brilliant, daring girl; Mary,
witty and playful, though frank and warm-hearted; but it made me
love them more than ever. The gaiety and audacity of the one was
forgotten in the presence of the thoughtful, timid Lily: and the
other checked the merry jest which trembled on her lips, and sobered
that roguish eye beside the earnest, sensitive girl; so that, though
we were together almost daily, dear Lily did not understand the
character of the young ladies.

The warm season had passed away, and October brought an addition to
our household--Cousin Rowland--as handsome, kind-hearted, and
good-natured a fellow as ever lived, but a little cowardly, if the
dread of the raillery of a beautiful woman may be called cowardice.

Cousin Rowland and dear Lily were mutually pleased with each other,
it was very evident to me, though Ada and Mary failed to see it;
for, in the presence of the young ladies, Rowland did not show her
those little delicate attentions which, alone with me, who was very
unobservant, he took no pains to conceal; and Lily did not hide from
me her blushing face--her eyes only thanked me for the expression
which met her gaze.

That November day--I dread to approach it! Lily and I were sitting
beside each other, looking down the street, and watching the return
of the carriage which Rowland had gone out with to bring Ada and
Mary to our house; or, rather, Lily was looking for its coming--my
eyes were resting on her face. It had never looked so beautiful to
me before. Her brow was so purely white, her cheek was so deeply
red, and that dark eye was so lustrous; but her face was very thin,
and her breathing, I observed, was faint and difficult. A pang shot
through my heart.

"Lily, are you well?" I exclaimed, suddenly.

She fixed her eyes on mine. I was too much excited by my sudden fear
to read their expression, but when our friends came in, the dear
girl seemed so cheerful and happy--I remembered, afterwards, I had
never seen her so gay as on that afternoon--that my suspicions
gradually left me.

The hours were passing pleasantly away, when a letter was brought in
for Lily. It was from her father, and the young lady retired to
peruse it. The eye of Rowland followed her as she passed out of the
room, and I observed a shadow flit across his brow. I afterwards
learned that at the moment a thought was passing through his mind
similar to that which had so terrified me an hour before. Our
visiters remarked it, too, but little suspected its cause; and
Mary's eye met, with a most roguish look, Ada's rather inquiring
gaze.

"When does Lily intend to return home, S----?" she inquired, as she
bent, very demurely, over her embroidery. "I thought she was making
preparations to go before Rowland came here!" and she raised her
eyes so cunningly to my face, that I could not forbear answering,

"I hear nothing of her return, now. Perhaps she will remain with us
during the winter."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Ada, and her voice expressed much surprise. "I
wonder if I could make such a prolonged visit interesting to a
friend!"

"Why, Lily considers herself conferring a great favour by remaining
here," replied Mary.

"On whom?" asked Rowland, quickly.

"On all of use of course;" and to Mary's great delight she perceived
that her meaning words had the effect she desired on the young man.

"I hope she will not neglect the duty she owes her family, for the
sake of showing us this great kindness," said Rowland, with affected
carelessness, though he walked across the apartment with a very
impatient step.

"Lily has not again been guilty of the error she so frequently
commits, has she, S----?" asked Ada, in a lower but still far too
distinct tone; "that of supposing herself loved and admired where
she is only pitied and endured?" and the merry creature fairly
exulted in the annoyance which his deepened colour told her she was
causing the young man.

A slight sound from the apartment adjoining the parlour attracted my
attention. Had Lily stopped there to read her letter instead of
going to her chamber? and had she, consequently, overheard our
foolish remarks? The door was slightly ajar, and I pushed it open.
There was a slight rustling, but I thought it only the waving of the
window curtain.

A half-hour passed away, and Lily had not returned to us. I began to
be alarmed, and my companions partook of my fears. Had she overheard
us? and, if so, what must that sensitive heart be suffering?

I went out to call her; but half way up the flight of stairs I saw
the letter from her father lying on the carpet, unopened, though it
had been torn from its envelope. I know not how I found my way up
stairs, but I stood by Lily's bed.

Merciful Heaven! what a sight was presented to my gaze. The white
covering was stained with blood, and from those cold, pale lips the
red drops were fast falling. Her eyes turned slowly till they rested
on mine. What a look was that! I see it now; so full of grief; so
full of reproach; and then they closed. I thought her dead, and my
frantic shrieks called my companions to her bedside. They aroused
her, too, from that swoon, but they did not awaken her to
consciousness. She never more turned a look of recognition on us, or
seemed to be aware that we were near her. Through all that night, so
long and so full of agony to us, she was murmuring, incoherently, to
herself,

"They did not know I was dying," she would say; "that I have been
dying ever since I have been here! They have not dreamed of my
sufferings through these long months; I could not tell them, for I
believed they loved me, and I would not grieve them. But no one
loves me--not one in the wide world cares for me! My mother, you
will not have forgotten your child when you meet me in the
spirit-land! Their loved tones made me deaf to the voice which was
calling to me from the grave, and the sunshine of _his_ smile broke
through the dark cloud which death was drawing around me. Oh, I
would have lived, but death, I thought, would lose half its
bitterness, could I breathe my last in their arms! But, now, I must
die alone! Oh, how shall I reach my home--how shall I ever reach
my home?"

Dear Lily! The passage was short; when morning dawned, she was
_there._






HOW TO BE HAPPY.





A BOON of inestimable worth is a calm, thankful heart--a treasure
that few, very few, possess. We once met an old man, whose face was
a mixture of smiles and sunshine. Wherever he went, he succeeded in
making everybody about him as pleasant as himself.

Said we, one day,--for he was one of that delightful class whom
everybody feels privileged to be related to,--"Uncle, uncle, how
_is_ it that you contrive to be so happy? Why is your face so
cheerful, when so many thousands are craped over with a most
uncomfortable gloominess?"

"My dear young friend," he answered, with his placid smile, "I am
even as others, afflicted with infirmities; I have had my share of
sorrow--some would say more--but I have found out the secret of
being happy, and it is this:

"_Forget self_."

"Until you do that, you can lay but little claim to a cheerful
spirit. 'Forget what manner of man you are,' and think more with,
rejoice more for, your neighbours. If I am poor, let me look upon my
richer friend, and in estimating his blessings, forget my
privations.

"If my neighbour is building a house, let me watch with him its
progress, and think, 'Well, what a comfortable place it will be, to
be sure; how much he may enjoy it with his family.' Thus I have a
double pleasure--that of delight in noting the structure as it
expands into beauty, and making my neighbour's weal mine. If he has
planted a fine garden, I feast my eyes on the flowers, smell their
fragrance: could I do more if it was my own?

"Another has a family of fine children; they bless him and are
blessed by him; mine are all gone before me; I have none that bear
my name; shall I, therefore, envy my neighbour his lovely children?
No; let me enjoy their innocent smiles with him; let me _forget
myself_--my tears when they were put away in darkness; or if I weep,
may it be for joy that God took them untainted to dwell with His
holy angels for ever.

"Believe an old man when he says there is great pleasure in living
for others. The heart of the selfish man is like a city full of
crooked lanes. If a generous thought from some glorious temple
strays in there, wo to it--it is lost. It wanders about, and wanders
about, until enveloped in darkness; as the mist of selfishness
gathers around, it lies down upon some cold thought to die, and is
shrouded in oblivion.

"So, if you would be happy, shun selfishness; do a kindly deed for
this one, speak a kindly word for another. He who is constantly
giving pleasure, is constantly receiving it. The little river gives
to the great ocean, and the more it gives the faster it runs. Stop
its flowing, and the hot sun would dry it up, till it would be but
filthy mud, sending forth bad odours, and corrupting the fresh air
of Heaven. Keep your heart constantly travelling on errands of
mercy--it has feet that never tire, hands that cannot be
overburdened, eyes that never sleep; freight its hands with
blessings, direct its eyes--no matter how narrow your sphere--to the
nearest object of suffering, and relieve it.

"I say, my dear young friend, take the word of an old man for it,
who has tried every known panacea, and found all to fail, except
this golden rule,

"_Forget self, and keep the heart busy for others._"






CHARITY.--ITS OBJECTS.





THE great Teacher, on being asked "Who is my neighbour?" replied "A
man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho," and the parable which
followed is the most beautiful which language has ever recorded.
Story-telling, though often abused, is the medium by which truth can
be most irresistibly conveyed to the majority of minds, and in the
present instance we have a desire to portray in some slight degree
the importance of Charity in every-day life.

A great deal has been said and written on the subject of
indiscriminate giving, and many who have little sympathy with the
needy or distressed, make the supposed unworthiness of the object an
excuse for withholding their alms; while others, who really possess
a large proportion of the milk of human kindness, in awaiting
_great_ opportunities to do good, overlook all in their immediate
pathway, as beneath their notice. And yet it was the "widow's mite"
which, amid the many rich gifts cast into the treasury, won the
approval of the Searcher of Hearts; and we have His assurance that a
cup of cold water given in a proper spirit shall not lose its
reward.

Our design in the present sketch is to call the attention of the
softer sex to a subject which has in too many instances escaped
their attention; for our ideas of Charity embrace a wide field, and
we hold that it should at all times be united with justice, when
those less favoured than themselves are concerned.

"I do not intend hereafter to have washing done more than once in
two weeks," said the rich Mrs. Percy, in reply to an observation of
her husband, who was standing at the window, looking at a woman who
was up to her knees in the snow, hanging clothes on a line in the
yard. "I declare it is too bad, to be paying that poking old thing a
half-a-dollar a week for our wash, and only six in the family. There
she has been at it since seven o'clock this morning, and now it is
almost four. It will require but two or three hours longer if I get
her once a fortnight, and I shall save twenty-five cents a week by
it."

"When your own sex are concerned, you women are the _closest_
beings," said Mr. P., laughing. "Do just as you please, however," he
continued, as he observed a brown gather on the brow of his wife;
"for my part I should be glad if washing-days were blotted entirely
from the calendar."

At this moment the washerwoman passed the window with her stiffened
skirts and almost frozen hands and arms. Some emotions of pity
stirring in his breast at the sight, he again asked, "Do you think
it will be exactly right, my dear, to make old Phoebe do the same
amount of labour for half the wages?"

"Of course it will," replied Mrs. Percy, decidedly; "we are bound to
do the best we can for ourselves. If she objects, she can say so.
There are plenty of poor I can get who will be glad to come, and by
this arrangement I shall save thirteen dollars a year."

"So much," returned Mr. P., carelessly; "how these things do run
up!" Here the matter ended as far as they were concerned. Not so
with "old Phoebe," as she was called. In reality, however, Phoebe
was not yet forty; it was care and hardship which had seamed her
once blooming face, and brought on prematurely the appearance of
age. On going to Mrs. Percy in the evening after she had finished
her wash, for the meagre sum she had earned, that lady had spoken
somewhat harshly about her being so slow, and mentioned the new
arrangement she intended to carry into effect, leaving it optional
with the poor woman to accept or decline. After a moment's
hesitation, Phoebe, whose necessities allowed her no choice, agreed
to her proposal, and the lady, who had been fumbling in her purse,
remarked:--

"I have no change, nothing less than this three-dollar bill. Suppose
I pay you by the month hereafter; it will save me a great deal of
trouble, and I will try to give you your dollar a month regularly."

Phoebe's pale cheek waxed still more ghastly as Mrs. Percy spoke,
but it was not within that lady's province to notice the colour of a
washerwoman's face. She did, however, observe her lingering, weary
steps as she proceeded through the yard, and conscience whispered
some reproaches, which were so unpleasant and unwelcome, that she
endeavoured to dispel them by turning to the luxurious supper which
was spread before her. And here I would pause to observe, that
whatever method may be adopted to reconcile the conscience to
withholding money so justly due, so hardly earned, she disobeyed the
positive injunction of that God who has not left the time of payment
optional with ourselves, but who has said--"The wages of him that is
hired, shall not abide with thee all night until the morning."--Lev.
19 chap. 13th verse.

The husband of Phoebe was a day labourer; when not intoxicated he
was kind; but this was of rare occurrence, for most of his earnings
went for ardent spirits, and the labour of the poor wife and mother
was the main support of herself and four children--the eldest nine
years, the youngest only eighteen months old. As she neared the
wretched hovel she had left early in the morning, she saw the faces
of her four little ones pressed close against the window.

"Mother's coming, mother's coming!" they shouted, as they watched
her approaching through the gloom, and as she unlocked the door,
which she had been obliged to fasten to keep them from straying
away, they all sprang to her arms at once.

"God bless you, my babes!" she exclaimed, gathering them to her
heart, "you have not been a minute absent from my mind this day. And
what have _you_ suffered," she added, clasping the youngest, a
sickly, attenuated-looking object, to her breast. "Oh! it is hard,
my little Mary, to leave you to the tender mercies of children
hardly able to take care of themselves." And as the baby nestled its
head closer to her side, and lifted its pale, imploring face, the
anguished mother's fortitude gave way, and she burst into an agony
of tears and sobbings. By-the-by, do some mothers, as they sit by
the softly-lined cradles of their own beloved babes, ever think upon
the sufferings of those hapless little ones, many times left with a
scanty supply of food, and no fire, on a cold winter day, while the
parent is earning the pittance which is to preserve them from
starvation? And lest some may suppose that we are drawing largely
upon our imagination, we will mention, in this place, that we knew
of a child left under such circumstances, and half-perishing with
cold, who was nearly burned to death by some hops (for there was no
fuel to be found), which it scraped together in its ragged apron,
and set on fire with a coal found in the ashes.

Phoebe did not indulge long in grief, however she forgot her weary
limbs, and bustling about, soon made up a fire, and boiled some
potatoes, which constituted their supper--after which she nursed the
children, two at a time, for a while, and then put them tenderly to
bed. Her husband had not come home, and as he was nearly always
intoxicated, and sometimes ill-treated her sadly, she felt his
absence a relief. Sitting over a handful of coals, she attempted to
dry her wet feet; every bone in her body ached, for she was not
naturally strong, and leaning her head on her hand, she allowed the
big tears to course slowly down her cheeks, without making any
attempt to wipe them away, while she murmured:

"Thirteen dollars a year gone! What is to become of us? I cannot get
help from those authorized by law to assist the poor, unless I agree
to put out my children, and I cannot live and see them abused and
over-worked at their tender age. And people think their father might
support us; but how can I help it that he spends all his earnings in
drink? And rich as Mrs. Percy is, she did not pay me my wages
to-night, and now I cannot get the yarn for my baby's stockings, and
her little limbs must remain cold awhile longer; and I must do
without the flour, too, that I was going to make into bread, and the
potatoes are almost gone."

Here Phoebe's emotions overcame her, and she ceased speaking. After
a while, she continued--

"Mrs. Percy also blamed me for being so slow; she did not know that
I was up half the night, and that my head has ached ready to split
all day. Oh! dear, oh! dear, oh! dear, if it were not for my babes,
I should yearn for the quiet of the grave!"

And with a long, quivering sigh, such as one might heave at the
rending of soul and body, Phoebe was silent.

Daughters of luxury! did it ever occur to you that we are all the
children of one common Parent? Oh, look hereafter with pity on those
faces where the records of suffering are deeply graven, and remember
"_Be ye warmed and filled_," will not suffice, unless the hand
executes the promptings of the heart. After awhile, as the fire died
out, Phoebe crept to her miserable pallet, crushed with the prospect
of the days of toil which were still before her, and haunted by the
idea of sickness and death, brought on by over-taxation of her
bodily powers, while in case of such an event, she was tortured by
the reflection--"what is to become of my children?"

Ah, this anxiety is the true bitterness of death, to the friendless
and poverty-stricken parent. In this way she passed the night, to
renew, with the dawn, the toils and cares which were fast closing
their work on her. We will not say what Phoebe, under other
circumstances, might have been. She possessed every noble attribute
common to woman, without education, or training, but she was not
prepossessing in her appearance; and Mrs. Percy, who never studied
character, or sympathized with menials, or strangers, would have
laughed at the idea of dwelling with compassion on the lot of her
washerwoman with a drunken husband. Yet her feelings sometimes
became interested for the poor she heard of abroad, the poor she
read of, and she would now and then descant largely on the few cases
of actual distress which had chanced to come under her notice, and
the little opportunity she enjoyed of bestowing alms. Superficial in
her mode of thinking and observation, her ideas of charity were
limited, forgetful that to be true it must be a pervading principle
of life, and can be exercised even in the bestowal of a gracious
word or smile, which, under peculiar circumstances, may raise a
brother from the dust--and thus win the approval of Him, who,
although the Lord of angels, was pleased to say of her who brought
but the "box of spikenard"--with tears of love--"_She hath done what
she could._"






THE VISION OF BOATS.





ONE morn, when the Day-god, yet hidden
  By the mist that the mountain enshrouds,
Was hoarding up hyacinth blossoms,
  And roses, to fling at the clouds;
I saw from the casement, that northward
  Looks out on the Valley of Pines,
(The casement, where all day in summer,
  You hear the drew drop from the vines),

White shapes 'mid the purple wreaths glancing,
  Like the banners of hosts at strife;
But I knew they were silvery pennons
  Of boats on the River of Life.
And I watched, as the, mist cleared upward,
  Half hoping, yet fearing to see
On that rapid and rock-sown River,
  What the fate of the boats might be.

There were some that sped cheerily onward,
  With white sails gallantly spread
Yet ever there sat at the look-out,
  One, watching for danger ahead.
No fragrant and song-haunted island,
  No golden and gem-studded coast
Could win, with its ravishing beauty,
  The watcher away from his post.

When the tempest crouched low on the waters,
  And fiercely the hurricane swept,
With furled sails, cautiously wearing,
  Still onward in safety they kept.
And many sailed well for a season,
  When river and sky were serene,
And leisurely swung the light rudder,
  'Twixt borders of blossoming green.

But the Storm-King came out from his caverns,
  With whirlwind, and lightning, and rain;
And my eyes, that grew dim for a moment,
  Saw but the rent canvas again.
Then sorely I wept the ill-fated!
  Yea, bitterly wept, for I knew
They had learned but the fair-weather wisdom,
  That a moment of trial o'erthrew.

And one in its swift sinking, parted
  A placid and sun-bright wave;
Oh, deftly the rock was hidden,
  That keepeth that voyager's grave!
And I sorrowed to think how little
  Of aid from, a kindly hand,
Might have guided the beautiful vessel
  Away from the treacherous strand.

And I watched with a murmur of, blessing,
  The few that on either shore
Were setting up signals of warning,
  Where many had perished before.
But now, as the sunlight came creeping
  Through the half-opened lids of the morn,
Fast faded that wonderful pageant,
  Of shadows and drowsiness born.

And no sound could I hear but the sighing
  Of winds, in the Valley of Pines;
And the heavy, monotonous dropping
  Of dew from the shivering vines.
But all day, 'mid the clashing of Labour,
  And the city's unmusical notes,
With thoughts that went seeking the hidden,
  I pondered that Vision of Boats.






REGULATION OF THE TEMPER.






THERE is considerable ground for thinking that the opinion very
generally prevails that the temper is something beyond the power of
regulation, control, or government. A good temper, too, if we may
judge from the usual excuses for the want of it, is hardly regarded
in the light of an attainable quality. To be slow in taking offence,
and moderate in the expression of resentment, in which things good
temper consists, seems to be generally reckoned rather among the
gifts of nature, the privileges of a happy constitution, than among
the possible results of careful self-discipline. When we have been
fretted by some petty grievance, or, hurried by some reasonable
cause of offence into a degree of anger far beyond what the occasion
required, our subsequent regret is seldom of a kind for which we are
likely to be much better. We bewail ourselves for a misfortune,
rather than condemn ourselves for a fault. We speak of our unhappy
temper as if it were something that entirely removed the blame from
us, and threw it all upon the peculiar and unavoidable sensitiveness
of our frame. A peevish and irritable temper is, indeed, an
_unhappy_ one; a source of misery to ourselves and to others; but it
is not, in _all_ cases, so valid an excuse for being easily
provoked, as it is usually supposed to be.

A good temper is too important a source of happiness, and an ill
temper too important a source of misery, to be treated with
indifference or hopelessness. The false excuses or modes of
regarding this matter, to which we have referred, should be exposed;
for until their invalidity and incorrectness are exposed, no
efforts, or but feeble ones, will be put forth to regulate an ill
temper, or to cultivate a good one.

We allow that there are great differences of natural constitution.
One who is endowed with a poetical temperament, or a keen sense of
beauty, or a great love of order, or very large ideality, will be
pained by the want or the opposites of these qualities, where one
less amply endowed would suffer no provocation whatever. What would
grate most harshly on the ear of an eminent musician, might not be
noticed at all by one whose musical faculties were unusually small.
The same holds true in regard to some other, besides musical
deficiencies or discords. A delicate and sickly frame will feel
annoyed by what would not at all disturb the same frame in a state
of vigorous health. Particular circumstances, also, may expose some
to greater trials and vexations than others. But, after all this is
granted, the only reasonable conclusion seems to be, that the
attempt to govern the temper is more difficult in some cases than in
others; not that it is, in any case, impossible. It is, at least,
certain that an opinion of its impossibility is an effectual bar
against entering upon it. On the other hand, "believe that you will
succeed, and you will succeed," is a maxim which has nowhere been
more frequently verified than in the moral world. It should be among
the first maxims admitted, and the last abandoned, by every earnest
seeker of his own moral improvement.

Then, too, facts demonstrate that much has been done and can be done
in regulating the worst of tempers. The most irritable or peevish
temper has been restrained by company; has been subdued by interest;
has been awed by fear; has been softened by grief; has been soothed
by kindness. A bad temper has shown itself, in the same individuals,
capable of increase, liable to change, accessible to motives. Such
facts are enough to encourage, in every case, an attempt to govern
the temper. All the miseries of a bad temper, and all the blessings
of a good one, may be attained by an habitual tolerance, concern,
and kindness for others--by an habitual restraint of considerations
and feelings entirely selfish.

To those of our readers who feel moved or resolved by the
considerations we have named to attempt to regulate their temper, or
to cultivate one of a higher order of excellence, we would submit a
few suggestions which may assist them in their somewhat difficult
undertaking.

See, first of all, that you set as high a value on the comfort of
those with whom you have to do as you. do on your own. If you regard
your own comfort _exclusively_, you will not make the allowances
which a _proper_ regard to the happiness of others would lead you to
do.

Avoid, particularly in your intercourse with those to whom it is of
most consequence that your temper should be gentle and
forbearing--avoid raising into undue importance the little failings
which you may perceive in them, or the trifling disappointments
which they may occasion you. If we make it a subject of vexation,
that the beings among whom we tire destined to live, are not
perfect, we must give up all hope of attaining a temper not easily
provoked. A habit of trying everything by the standard of perfection
vitiates the temper more than it improves the understanding, and
disposes the mind to discern faults with an unhappy penetration. I
would not have you shut your eyes to the errors or follies, or
thoughtlessnesses of your friends, but only not to magnify them or
view them microscopically. Regard them in others as you would have
them regard the same things in you, in an exchange of circumstances.

Do not forget to make due allowances for the original constitution
and the manner of education or bringing up, which has been the lot
of those with whom you have to do. Make such excuses for Others as
the circumstances of their constitution, rearing, and youthful
associations, do fairly demand.

Always put the best construction on the motives of others, when
their conduct admits of more than one way of understanding it. In
many cases, where neglect or ill intention seems evident at first
sight, it may prove true that "second thoughts are best." Indeed,
this common slaying is never more likely to prove true than in cases
in which the _first_ thoughts were the dictates of anger And even
when the first thoughts are confirmed by further evidence, yet the
habit of always waiting for complete evidence before we condemn,
must have a calming; and moderating effect upon the temper, while it
will take nothing from the authority of our just censures.

It will further, be a great help to our efforts, as well as our
desires, for the government of the temper, if we consider frequently
and seriously the natural consequences of hasty resentments, angry
replies, rebukes impatiently given or impatiently received, muttered
discontents, sullen looks, and harsh words. It may safely be
asserted that the consequences of these and other ways in which
ill-temper may show itself, are _entirely_ evil. The feelings, which
accompany them in ourselves, and those which they excite in others,
are unprofitable as well as painful. They lessen our own comfort,
and tend often rather to prevent than to promote the improvement of
those with whom we find fault. If we give even friendly and
judicious counsels in a harsh and pettish tone, we excite against
_them_ the repugnance naturally felt to _our manner_. The
consequence is, that the advice is slighted, and the peevish adviser
pitied, despised, or hated.

When we cannot succeed in putting a restraint on our _feelings_ of
anger or dissatisfaction, we can at least check the _expression_ of
those feelings. If our thoughts are not always in our power, our
words and actions and looks may be brought under our command; and a
command over these expressions of our thoughts and feelings will be
found no mean help towards obtaining an increase of power over our
thoughts and feelings themselves. At least, one great good will be
effected: time will be gained; time for reflection; time for
charitable allowances and excuses.

Lastly, seek the help of religion. Consider how you may most
certainly secure the approbation of God. For a good temper, or a
well-regulated temper, _may be_ the constant homage of a truly
religious man to that God, whose love and long-suffering forbearance
surpass all human love and forbearance.






MANLY GENTLENESS.





WHO is the most wretched man living? This question might constitute
a very fair puzzle to those of our readers whose kind hearts have
given them, in their own experience, no clue to the true answer. It
is a species of happiness to be rich; to have at one's command an
abundance of the elegancies and luxuries of life. Then he, perhaps,
is the most miserable of men who is the poorest. It is a species of
happiness to be the possessor of learning, fame, or power; and
therefore, perhaps, he is the most miserable man who is the most
ignorant, despised, and helpless. No; there is a man more wretched
than these. We know not where he may be found; but find him where
you will, in a prison or on a throne, steeped in poverty or
surrounded with princely affluence; execrated, as he deserves to be,
or crowned with world-wide applause; that man is the most miserable
whose heart contains the least love for others.

It is a pleasure to be beloved. Who has not felt this? Human
affection is priceless. A fond heart is more valuable than the
Indies. But it is a still greater pleasure to love than to be loved;
the emotion itself is of a higher kind; it calls forth our own
powers into more agreeable exercise, and is independent of the
caprice of others. Generally speaking, if we deserve to be loved,
others will love us, but this is not always the case. The love of
others towards us, is not always in proportion to our real merits;
and it would be unjust to make our highest happiness dependent on
it. But our love for others will always be in proportion to our real
goodness; the more amiable, the more excellent we become, the more
shall we love others; it is right, therefore, that this love should
be made capable of bestowing upon us the largest amount of
happiness. This is the arrangement which the Creator has fixed upon.
By virtue of our moral constitution, to love is to be happy; to hate
is to be wretched.

Hatred is a strong word, and the idea it conveys is very repulsive.
We would hope that few of our readers know by experience what it is
in its full extent. To be a very demon, to combine in ourselves the
highest possible degree of wickedness and misery, nothing more is
needful than to hate with sufficient intensity. But though, happily,
comparatively few persons are fully under the influence of this
baneful passion, how many are under it more frequently and
powerfully than they ought to be? How often do we indulge in
resentful, revengeful feelings, with all of which hatred more or
less mixes itself? Have we not sometimes entertained sentiments
positively malignant towards those who have wounded our vanity or
injured our interests, secretly wishing them ill, or not heartily
wishing them happiness? If so, we need only consult our own
experience to ascertain that such feelings are both sinful and
foolish; they offend our Maker, and render us wretched.

We know a happy man; one who in the midst of the vexations and
crosses of this changing world, is always happy. Meet him anywhere,
and at any time, his features beam with pleasure. Children run to
meet him, and contend for the honour of touching his hand, or laying
hold of the skirt of his coat, as he passes by, so cheerful and
benevolent does he always look. In his own house he seems to reign
absolute, and yet he never uses any weapon more powerful than a kind
word. Everybody who knows him is aware, that, in point of
intelligence, ay, and in physical prowess, too--for we know few men
who can boast a more athletic frame--he is strong as a lion, yet in
his demeanour he is gentle as a lamb. His wife is not of the most
amiable temper, his children are not the most docile, his business
brings him into contact with men of various dispositions; but he
conquers all with the same weapons. What a contrast have we often
thought he presents to some whose physiognomy looks like a piece of
harsh handwriting, in which we can decipher nothing but _self, self,
self_; who seem, both at home and abroad, to be always on the watch
against any infringement of their dignity. Poor men! their dignity
can be of little value if it requires so much care in order to be
maintained. True manliness need take but little pains to procure
respectful recognition. If it is genuine, others will see it, and
respect it. The lion will always be acknowledged as the king of the
beasts; but the ass, though clothed in the lion's skin, may bray
loudly and perseveringly indeed, but he will never keep the forest
in awe.

From some experience in the homes of working-men, and other homes
too, we are led to think that much of the harsh and discordant
feeling which too often prevails there may be ascribed to a false
conception of what is truly great. It is a very erroneous impression
that despotism is manly. For our part we believe that despotism is
inhuman, satanic, and that wherever it is found--as much in the
bosom of a family, as on the throne of a kingdom. We cannot bring
ourselves to tolerate the inconsistency with which some men will
inveigh against some absolute sovereign, and straight-way enact the
pettiest airs of absolutism in their little empire at home. We have
no private intimacy with "the autocrat of all the Russias," and may,
with all humility, avow that we do not desire to have any; but this
we believe, that out of the thousands who call him a tyrant, it
would be no difficult matter to pick scores who are as bad, if not
worse. Let us remember that it is not a great empire which
constitutes a great tyrant. Tyranny must be measured by the strength
of those imperious and malignant passions from which it flows, and
carrying this rule along with us, it would not surprise us, if we
found the greatest tyrant in the world in some small cottage, with
none to oppress but a few unoffending children, and a helpless
woman. O! when shall we, be just!--when shall we cease to prate
about wrongs inflicted by others, and magnified by being beheld
through the haze of distance, and seek to redress those which lie at
our own doors, and to redress which we shall only have to prevail
upon ourselves to be just and gentle! Arbitrary power is always
associated either with cruelty, or conscious weakness. True
greatness is above the petty arts of tyranny. Sometimes much
domestic suffering may arise from a cause which is easily confounded
with a tyrannical disposition--we refer to an exaggerated sense of
justice. This is the abuse of a right feeling, and requires to be
kept in vigilant check. Nothing is easier than to be one-sided in
judging of the actions of others. How agreeable the task of applying
the line and plummet! How quiet and complete the assumption of our
own superior excellence which we make in doing it! But if the task
is in some respects easy, it is most difficult if we take into
account the necessity of being just in our decisions. In domestic
life especially, in which so much depends on circumstances, and the
highest questions often relate to mere matters of expediency, how
easy it is to be "always finding fault," if we neglect to take
notice of explanatory and extenuating circumstances! Anybody with a
tongue and a most moderate complement of brains can call a thing
stupid, foolish, ill-advised, and so forth; though it might require
a larger amount of wisdom than the judges possessed to have done the
thing better. But what do we want with captious judges in the bosom
of a family? The scales of household polity are the scales of love,
and he who holds them should be a sympathizing friend; ever ready to
make allowance for failures, ingenious in contriving apologies, more
lavish of counsels than rebukes, and less anxious to overwhelm a
person with a sense of deficiency than to awaken in the bosom, a
conscious power of doing better. One thing is certain: if any member
of a family conceives it his duty to sit continually in the censor's
chair, and weigh in the scales of justice all that happens in the
domestic commonwealth, domestic happiness is out of the question. It
is manly to extenuate and forgive, but a crabbed and censorious
spirit is contemptible.

There is much more misery thrown into the cup of life by domestic
unkindness than we might at first suppose. In thinking of the evils
endured by society from malevolent passions of individuals, we are
apt to enumerate only the more dreadful instances of crime: but what
are the few murders which unhappily pollute the soil of this
Christian land--what, we ask, is the suffering they occasion, what
their demoralizing tendency--when compared with the daily effusions
of ill-humour which sadden, may we not fear, many thousand homes? We
believe that an incalculably greater number are hurried to the grave
by habitual unkindness than by sudden violence; the slow poison of
churlishness and neglect, is of all poisons the most destructive. If
this is true, we want a new definition for the most flagrant of all
crimes: a definition which shall leave out the element of time, and
call these actions the same--equally hateful, equally diabolical,
equally censured by the righteous government of Heaven--which
proceed from the same motives, and lead to the same result, whether
they be done in a moment, or spread out through a series of years.
Habitual unkindness is demoralizing as well as cruel. Whenever it
fails to break the heart, it hardens it. To take a familiar
illustration: a wife who is never addressed by her husband in tones
of kindness, must cease to love him if she wishes to be happy. It is
her only alternative. Thanks to the nobility of our nature, she does
not always take it. No; for years she battles with cruelty, and
still presses with affection the hand which smites her, but it is
fearfully at her own expense. Such endurance preys upon her health,
and hastens her exit to the asylum of the grave. If this is to be
avoided, she must learn to forget, what woman should never be
tempted to forget, the vows, the self-renunciating devotedness of
impassioned youth; she must learn to oppose indifference, to neglect
and repel him with a heart as cold as his own. But what a tragedy
lies involved in a career like this! We gaze on something infinitely
more terrible than murder; we see our nature abandoned to the mercy
of malignant passions, and the sacred susceptibilities which were
intended to fertilize with the waters of charity the pathway of
life, sending forth streams of bitterest gall. A catalogue of such
cases, faithfully compiled, would eclipse, in turpitude and horror,
all the calendars of crime that have ever sickened the attention of
the world.

The obligations of gentleness and kindness are extensive as the
claims to manliness; these three qualities must go together. There
are some cases, however, in which such obligations are of special
force. Perhaps a precept here will be presented most appropriately
under the guise of an example. We have now before our mind's eye a
couple, whose marriage tie was, a few months since, severed by
death. The husband was a strong, hale, robust sort of a man, who
probably never knew a day's illness in the course of his life, and
whose sympathy on behalf of weakness or suffering in others it was
exceedingly difficult to evoke; while his partner was the very
reverse, by constitution weak and ailing, but withal a woman of whom
any man might and ought to have been proud. Her elegant form, her
fair transparent skin, the classical contour of her refined and
expressive face, might have led a Canova to have selected her as a
model of feminine beauty. But alas! she was weak; she could not work
like other women; her husband could not _boast_ among his shopmates
how much she contributed to the maintenance of the family, and how
largely she could afford to dispense with the fruit of his labours.
Indeed, with a noble infant in her bosom, and the cares of a
household resting entirely upon her, she required help herself, and
at least she needed, what no wife can dispense with, but she least
of all--_sympathy_, forbearance, and all those tranquilizing virtues
which flow from a heart of kindness. She least of all could bear a
harsh look; to be treated daily with cold, disapproving reserve, a
petulant dissatisfaction could not but be death to her. We will not
say it _was_--enough that she is dead. The lily bent before the
storm, and at last was crushed by it. We ask but one question, in
order to point the moral:--In the circumstances we have delineated,
what course of treatment was most consonant with a manly spirit;
that which was actually pursued, or some other which the reader can
suggest?

Yes, to love is to be happy and to make happy, and to love is the
very spirit of true manliness. We speak not of exaggerated passion
and false sentiment; we speak not of those bewildering,
indescribable feelings, which under that name, often monopolize for
a time the guidance of the youthful heart; but we speak of that pure
emotion which is benevolence intensified, and which, when blended
with intelligence, can throw the light of joyousness around the
manifold relations of life. Coarseness, rudeness, tyranny, are so
many forms of brute power; so many manifestations of what it is
man's peculiar glory not to be; but kindness and gentleness can
never cease to be MANLY.

Count not the days that have lightly flown,
  The years that were vainly spent;
Nor speak of the hours thou must blush to own,
When thy spirit stands before the Throne,
  To account for the talents lent.

But number the hours redeemed from sin,
  The moments employed for Heaven;--
Oh few and evil thy days have been,
Thy life, a toilsome but worthless scene,
  For a nobler purpose given.

Will the shade go back on the dial plate?
  Will thy sun stand still on his way?
Both hasten on; and thy spirit's fate
Rests on the point of life's little date:--
  Then live while 'tis called to-day.

Life's waning hours, like the Sibyl's page,
  As they lessen, in value rise;
Oh rouse thee and live! nor deem that man's age
Stands on the length of his pilgrimage,
  But in days that are truly wise.






SILENT INFLUENCE.





"HOW finely she looks!" said Margaret Winne, as a lady swept by them
in the crowd; "I do not see that time wears upon her beauty at all."

"What, Bell Walters!" exclaimed her companion. "Are you one of those
who think her such a beauty?"

"I think her a very fine-looking woman, certainly," returned Mrs.
Winne; "and, what is more, I think her a very fine woman."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Hall; "I thought you were no friends?"

"No," replied the first speaker; "but that does not make us
enemies."

"But I tell you she positively dislikes you, Margaret," said Mrs.
Hall. "It is only a few days since I knew of her saying that you
were a bold, impudent woman, and she did not like you at all."

"That is bad," said Margaret, with a smile; "for I must confess that
I like her."

"Well," said her companion, "I am sure I could never like any one
who made such unkind speeches about me."

"I presume she said no more than she thought," said Margaret,
quietly.

"Well, so much the worse!" exclaimed Mrs. Hall, in surprise. "I hope
you do not think that excuses the matter at all?"

"Certainly, I do. I presume she has some reason for thinking as she
does; and, if so, it was very natural she should express her
opinion."

"Well, you are very cool and candid about it, I must say. What
reason have you given her, pray, for thinking you were bold and
impudent?"

"None, that I am aware of," replied Mrs. Winne, "but I presume she
thinks I have. I always claim her acquaintance, when we meet, and I
have no doubt she would much rather I would let it drop."

"Why don't you, then? I never knew her, and never had any desire for
her acquaintance. She was no better than you when you were girls,
and I don't think her present good fortune need make her so very
scornful."

"I do not think she exhibits any more haughtiness than most people
would under the same circumstances. Some would have dropped the
acquaintance at once, without waiting for me to do it. Her social
position is higher than mine, and it annoys her to have me meet her
as an equal, just I used to do."

"You do it to annoy her, then?"

"Not by any means. I would much rather she would feel, as I do, that
the difference between us is merely conventional, and might bear to
be forgotten on the few occasions when accident throws us together.
But she does not, and I presume it is natural. I do not know how my
head might be turned, if I had climbed up in the world as rapidly as
she has done. As it is, however, I admire her too much to drop her
acquaintance just yet, as long as she leaves it to me."

"Really, Margaret, I should have supposed you had too much spirit to
intrude yourself upon a person that you knew wished to shake you
off; and I do not see how you can admire one that you know to be so
proud."

"I do not admire her on account of her pride, certainly, though it
is a quality that sits very gracefully upon her," said Margaret
Winne; and she introduced another topic of conversation, for she did
not hope to make her companion understand the motives that
influenced her.

"Bold and impudent!" said Margaret, to herself, as she sat alone, in
her own apartment. "I knew she thought it, for I have seen it in her
looks; but she always treats me well externally, and I hardly
thought she would say it. I know she was vexed with herself for
speaking to me, one day, when she was in the midst of a circle of
her fashionable acquaintances. I was particularly ill-dressed, and I
noticed that they stared at me; but I had no intention, then, of
throwing myself in her way. Well," she continued, musingly, "I am
not to be foiled with one rebuff. I know her better than she knows
me, for the busy world has canvassed her life, while they have never
meddled with my own: and I think there are points of contact enough
between us for us to understand each other, if we once found an
opportunity. She stands in a position which I shall never occupy,
and she has more power and strength than I; else she had never stood
where she does, for she has shaped her fortunes by her own unaided
will. Her face was not her fortune, as most people suppose, but her
mind. She has accomplished whatever she has undertaken, and she can
accomplish much more, for her resources are far from being
developed. Those around her may remember yet that she was not always
on a footing with them; but they will not do so long. She will be
their leader, for she was born to rule. Yes; and she queens it most
proudly among them. It were a pity to lose sight of her stately,
graceful dignity. I regard her very much as I would some beautiful
exotic, and her opinion of me affects me about as much as if she
were the flower, and not the mortal. And yet I can never see her
without wishing that the influence she exerts might be turned into a
better channel. She has much of good about her, and I think that it
needs but a few hints to make life and its responsibilities appear
to her as they do to me. I have a message for her ear, but she must
not know that it was intended for her. She has too much pride of
place to receive it from me, and too much self-confidence to listen
knowingly to the suggestions of any other mind than her own.
Therefore, I will seek the society of Isabel Walters whenever I can,
without appearing intrusive, until she thinks me worthy her notice,
or drops me altogether. My talent lies in thinking, but she has all
the life and energy I lack, and would make an excellent actor to my
thought, and would need no mentor when her attention was once
aroused. My usefulness must lie in an humble sphere, but hers--she
can carry it wherever she will. It will be enough for my single life
to accomplish, if, beyond the careful training of my own family, I
can incite her to a development of her powers of usefulness. People
will listen to her who will pay no attention to me; and, besides,
she has the time and means to spare, which I have not."

"Everywhere, in Europe, they were talking of you, Mrs. Walters,"
said a lady, who had spent many years abroad, "and adopting your
plans for vagrant and industrial schools, and for the management of
hospitals and asylums. I have seen your name in the memorials laid
before government in various foreign countries. You have certainly
achieved a world-wide reputation. Do tell me how your attention came
first to be turned to that sort of thing? I supposed you were one of
our fashionable women, who sought simply to know how much care and
responsibility they could lawfully avoid, and how high a social
station it was possible to attain. I am sure something must have
happened to turn your life into so different a channel."

"Nothing in particular, I assure you," returned Mrs. Walters. "I
came gradually to perceive the necessity there was that some one
should take personal and decisive action in those things that it was
so customary to neglect. Fond as men are of money, it was far easier
to reach their purses than their minds. Our public charities were
quite well endowed, but no one gave them that attention that they
needed, and thus evils had crept in that were of the highest
importance. My attention was attracted to it in my own vicinity at
first; and others saw it as well as I, but it was so much of
everybody's business that everybody let it alone. I followed the
example for awhile, but it seemed as much my duty to act as that of
any other person; and though it is little I have done, I think that,
in that little, I have filled the place designed for me by
Providence."

"Well, really, Mrs. Walters, you were one of the last persons I
should have imagined to be nicely balancing a point of duty, or
searching out the place designed for them by Providence. I must
confess myself at fault in my judgment of character for once."

"Indeed, madam," replied Mrs. Walters, "I have no doubt you judged
me very correctly at the time you knew me. My first ideas of the
duties and responsibilities of life were aroused by Margaret Winne;
and I recollect that my intimacy with her commenced after you left
the country."

"Margaret Winne? Who was she? Not the wife of that little Dr. Winne
we used to hear of occasionally? They attended the same church with
us, I believe?"

"Yes; she was the one. We grew up together, and were familiar with
each other's faces from childhood; but this was about all. She was
always in humble circumstances, as I had myself been in early life;
and, after my marriage, I used positively to dislike her, and to
dread meeting her, for she was the only one of my former
acquaintances who met me on the same terms as she had always done. I
thought she wished to remind me that we were once equals in station;
but I learned, when I came to know her well, how far she was above
so mean a thought. I hardly know how I came first to appreciate her,
but we were occasionally thrown in contact, and her sentiments were
so beautiful--so much above the common stamp--that I could not fail
to be attracted by her. She was a noble woman. The world knows few
like her. So modest and retiring--with an earnest desire to do all
the good in the world of which she was capable, but with no ambition
to shine. Well fitted as she was, to be an ornament in any station
of society, she seemed perfectly content to be the idol of her own
family, and known to few besides. There were few subjects on which
she had not thought, and her clear perceptions went at once to the
bottom of a subject, so that she solved simply many a question on
which astute philosophers had found themselves at fault. I came at
last to regard her opinion almost as an oracle. I have often
thought, since her death, that it was her object to turn my life
into that channel to which it has since been devoted, but I do not
know. I had never thought of the work that has since occupied me at
the time of her death, but I can see now how cautiously and
gradually she led me among the poor, and taught me to sympathize
with their sufferings, and gave me, little by little, a clue to the
evils that had sprung up in the management of our public charities.
She was called from her family in the prime of life, but they who
come after her do assuredly rise up and call her blessed. She has
left a fine family, who will not soon forget, the instructions of
their mother."

"Ah! yes, there it is, Mrs. Walters. A woman's sphere, after all, is
at home. One may do a great deal of good in public, no doubt, as you
have done; but don't you think that, while you have devoted yourself
so untiringly to other affairs, you have been obliged to neglect
your own family in order to gain time for this? One cannot live two
lives at once, you know."

"No, madam, certainly we cannot live two lives at once, but we can
glean a much larger harvest from the one which is, bestowed upon us
than we are accustomed to think. I do not, by any means, think that
I have ever neglected my own family in the performance of other
duties, and I trust my children are proving, by their hearty
co-operation with me, that I am not mistaken. Our first duty,
certainly is at home, and I determined, at the outset, that nothing
should call me from the performance of this first charge. I do not
think anything can excuse a mother from devoting a large portion of
her life in personal attention to the children God has given her.
But I can assure you that, to those things which I have done of
which the world could take cognisance, I have given far less time
than I used once to devote to dress and amusement, I found, by
systematizing everything, that my time was more than doubled; and,
certainly, I was far better fitted to attend properly to my own
family, when my eyes, were opened to the responsibilities of life,
than when my thoughts were wholly occupied by fashion and display."






ANTIDOTE FOR MELANCHOLY.





"AH, friend K----, good-morning to you; I'm really happy to see you
looking so cheerful. Pray, to what unusual circumstance may we be
indebted for this happy, smiling face of yours, this morning?" (Our
friend K----had been, unfortunately, of a, very desponding and
somewhat of a choleric turn of mind, previously.)

"Really, is the change so perceptible, then? Well, my dear sir, you
shall have the secret; for, happy as I appear--and be assured, my
appearances are by no means deceptive, for I never felt more happy
in my life--it will still give me pleasure to inform you, and won't
take long, either. It is simply this; I have made a whole family
happy!"

"Indeed! Why, you have discovered a truly valuable: recipe for
blues, then, which may be used _ad libitum_, eh, K----?"

"You may well say that. But, really, my friend, I feel no little
mortification at not making so simple and valuable a discovery at an
earlier period of my life, Heaven knows," continued K----, "I have
looked for contentment everywhere else. First, I sought for wealthy
in the gold mines of California, thinking that was the true source
of all earthly joys; but after obtaining it, I found myself with
such a multiplicity of cares and anxieties, that I was really more
unhappy than ever. I then sought for pleasure in travelling. This
answered somewhat the purpose of dissipating cares, &c., so long as
it lasted; but, dear me, it gave no permanent satisfaction. After
seeing the whole world, I was as badly off as Alexander the Great.
He cried for another world to _conquer_, and I cried for another
world to _see_."

The case of our friend, I imagine, differs not materially from that
of a host of other seekers of contentment in this productive world.
Like "blind leaders of the blind," our invariable fate is to go
astray in the universal race for happiness. How common is it, after
seeking for it in every place but the right one, for the selfish man
to lay the whole blame upon this fine world--as if anybody was to
blame but himself. Even some professors of religion are too apt to
libel the world. "Well, this is a troublesome world, to make the
best of it," is not an uncommon expression; neither is it a truthful
one. "Troubles, disappointments, losses, crosses, sickness, and
death, make up the sum and substance of our existence here," add
they, with tremendous emphasis, as if they had no hand in producing
the sad catalogue. The trouble is, we set too high a value on our
own merits; we imagine ourselves deserving of great favours and
privileges, while we are doing nothing to merit them. In this
respect, we are not altogether unlike the young man in the parable,
who, by-the-by, was also a professor--he professed very loudly of
having done all those good things "from his youth up." But when the
command came, "go sell all thou hast, and give to the poor," &c., it
soon took the conceit out of him.

In this connexion, there are two or three seemingly important
considerations, which I feel some delicacy in touching upon here.
However, in the kindest possible spirit, I would merely remark, that
there is a very large amount of wealth in the Church--by this I
include its wealthy members, of course; and refer to no particular
denomination; by Church, I mean all Christian denominations. Now, in
connexion with this fact, such a question as this arises in my
mind--and I put it, not, for the purpose of fault-finding, for I
don't know that I have a right view of the matter, but merely for
the consideration of those who are fond of hoarding up their earthly
gains, viz.: Suppose the modern Church was composed of such
professors as the self-denying disciples of our Saviour,--with their
piety, simplicity, and this wealth; what, think you, would be the
consequence? Now I do not intend to throw out any such flings as,
"comparisons are odious"--"this is the modern Christian age"--"the
age of Christian privileges," and all that sort of nonsense. Still,
I am rather inclined to the opinion, that if we were all--in and out
of the Church--disposed to live up to, or carry out what we
professedly know to be right, it would be almost as difficult to
find real trouble, as it is now to find real happiness.

The sources of contentment and discontentment are discoverable,
therefore, without going into a metaphysical examination of the
subject. Just in proportion as we happen to discharge, or neglect
known duties, are we, according to my view, happy or miserable on
earth. Philosophy tells us that our happiness and well-being depends
upon a conformity to certain unalterable laws--moral, physical, and
organic--which act upon the intellectual, moral, and material
universe, of which man is a part, and which determine, or regulate
the growth, happiness, and well-being of all organic beings. These
views, when reduced to their simple meaning, amount to the same
thing, call it by what name we will. Duties, of course, imply legal
or moral obligations, which we are certainly legally or morally
bound to pay, perform, or discharge. And certain it is, there is no
getting over them--they are as irresistible as Divine power, as
universal as Divine presence, as permanent as Divine existence, and
no art nor cunning of man can disconnect unhappiness from
transgressing them. How necessary to our happiness, then, is it, not
only to know, but to perform our whole duty?

One of the great duties of man in this life, and, perhaps, the most
neglected, is that of doing good, or benefiting one another. That
doing good is clearly a duty devolving upon man, there can be no
question. The benevolent Creator, in placing man in the world,
endowed him with mental and physical energies, which clearly denote
that he is to be active in his day and generation.

Active in what? Certainly not in mischief, for that would not be
consistent with Divine goodness. Neither should we suppose that we
are here for our own sakes simply. Such an idea would be
presumptuous. For what purpose, then, was man endowed with all these
facilities of mind and body, but to do good and glorify his Maker?
True philosophy teaches that benevolence was not only the design of
the Creator in all His works, but the fruits to be expected from
them. The whole infinite contrivances of everything above, around,
and within us, are directed to certain benevolent issues, and all
the laws of nature are in perfect harmony with this idea.

That such is the design of man may also be inferred from the
happiness which attends every good action, and the misery of
discontentment which attends those who not only do wrong, but are
useless to themselves and to society. Friend K----'s case, above
quoted, is a fair illustration of this truth.

Now, then, if it is our duty to do all the good we can, and I think
this will be admitted, particularly by the Christian, and this be
measured by our means and opportunity, then there are many whom
Providence has blessed with the means and opportunity of doing a
very great amount of good. And if it be true, as it manifestly is,
that "it is more blessed to give than receive," then has Providence
also blessed them with very great privileges. The privilege of
giving liberally, and thus obtaining for themselves the greater
blessing, which is the result of every benevolent action, the simple
satisfaction with ourselves which follows a good act, or
consciousness of having done our duty in relieving a
fellow-creature, are blessings indeed, which none but the good or
benevolent can realize. Such kind spirits are never cast down. Their
hearts always light and cheerful--rendered so by their many kind
offices,--they can always enjoy their neighbours, rich or poor, high
or low, and love them too; and with a flow of spirits which bespeak
a heart all right within, they make all glad and happy around them.

Doing good is an infallible antidote for melancholy. When the heart
seems heavy, and our minds can light upon nothing but little naughty
perplexities, everything going wrong, no bright spot or relief
anywhere for our crazy thoughts, and we are finally wound up in a
web of melancholy, depend upon it there is nothing, nothing which
can dispel this angry, ponderous, and unnatural cloud from our
_rheumatic minds_ and _consciences_ like a charity visit--to give
liberally to those in need of succour, the poor widow, the
suffering, sick, and poor, the aged invalid, the lame, the blind,
&c., &c.; all have a claim upon your bounty, and how they will bless
you and love you for it--anyhow, they will thank kind Providence for
your mission of love. He that makes one such visit will make another
and another; he can't very well get weary in such well-doing, for
his is the greater blessing. It is a blessing indeed: how the heart
is lightened, the soul enlarged, the mind improved, and even health;
for the mind being liberated from perplexities, the body is at rest,
the nerves in repose, and the blood, equalized, courses freely
through the system, giving strength, vigour, and equilibrium to the
whole complicated machinery. Thus we can think clearer, love better,
enjoy life, and be thankful for it.

What a beautiful arrangement it is that we can, by doing good to
others, do so much good to ourselves! The wealthy classes, who "rise
above society like clouds above the earth, to diffuse an abundant
dew," should not forget this fact. The season has now about arrived,
when the good people of all classes will be most busily engaged in
these delightful duties. The experiment is certainly worth trying by
all. If all those desponding individuals, whose chief comfort is to
growl at this "troublesome world," will but take the hint, look
trouble full in the face. and relieve it, they will, like friend
K----, feel much better.

It may be set down as a generally correct axiom, (with some few
exceptions, perhaps, such as accidents, and the deceptions and
cruelties of those whom we injudiciously select for friends and
confidants, from our want of discernment), that life is much what we
make it, and so is the world.






THE SORROWS OF A WEALTHY CITIZEN.





AH me! Am I really a rich man, or am I not? That is the question. I
am sure I don't feel rich; and yet, here I am written down among the
"wealthy citizens" as being worth seventy thousand dollars! How the
estimate was made, or who furnished the data, is all a mystery to
me. I am sure I wasn't aware of the fact before. "Seventy thousand
dollars!" That sounds comfortable, doesn't it? Seventy thousand
dollars!--But where is it? Ah! There is the rub! How true it is that
people always know more about you than you do yourself.

Before this unfortunate book came out ("The Wealthy Citizens of
Philadelphia"), I was jogging on very quietly. Nobody seemed to be
aware of the fact that I was a rich man, and I had no suspicion of
the thing myself. But, strange to tell, I awoke one morning and
found myself worth seventy thousand dollars! I shall never forget
that day. Men who had passed me in the street with a quiet, familiar
nod, now bowed with a low salaam, or lifted their hats
deferentially, as I encountered them on the _pave_.

"What's the meaning of all this?" thought I. "I haven't stood up to
be shot at, nor sinned against innocence and virtue. I haven't been
to Paris. I don't wear moustaches. What has given me this
importance?"

And, musing thus, I pursued my way in quest of money to help me out
with some pretty heavy payments. After succeeding, though with some
difficulty in obtaining what I wanted, I returned to my store about
twelve o'clock. I found a mercantile acquaintance awaiting me, who,
without many preliminaries, thus stated his business:

"I want," said he, with great coolness, "to get a loan of six or
seven thousand dollars; and I don't know of any one to whom I can
apply with more freedom and hope of success than yourself. I think I
can satisfy you, fully, in regard to security.

"My dear sir," replied I, "if you only wanted six or seven hundred
dollars, instead of six or seven thousand dollars, I could not
accommodate you. I have just come in from a borrowing expedition
myself."

I was struck with the sudden change in the man's countenance. He was
not only disappointed, but offended. He did not believe my
statement. In his eyes, I had merely resorted to a subterfuge, or,
rather, told a lie, because I did not wish to let him have my money.
Bowing with cold formality, he turned away and left my place of
business. His manner to me has been reserved ever since.

On the afternoon of that day, I was sitting in the back part of my
store musing on some, matter of business, when I saw a couple of
ladies enter. They spoke to one of my clerks, and he directed them
back to where I was taking things comfortably in an old arm-chair.

"Mr. G----, I believe?" said the elder of the two ladies, with a
bland smile.

I had already arisen, and to this question, or rather affirmation, I
bowed assent.

"Mr. G----," resumed the lady, producing a small book as she spoke,
"we are a committee, appointed to make collections in this district
for the purpose of setting up a fair in aid of the funds of the
Esquimaux Missionary Society. It is the design of the ladies who
have taken this matter in hand to have a very large collection of
articles, as the funds of the society are entirely exhausted. To the
gentlemen of our district, and especially to those who leave been
liberally _blessed with this world's goods_"--this was particularly
emphasized--"we look for important aid. Upon you, sir, we have
called first, in order that you may head the subscription, and thus
set an example of liberality to others."

And the lady handed me the book in the most "of course" manner in
the world, and with the evident expectation that I would put down at
least fifty-dollars.

Of course I was cornered, and must do something, I tried to be bland
and polite; but am inclined to think that I failed in the effort. As
for fairs, I never did approve of them. But that was nothing. The
enemy had boarded me so suddenly and so completely, that nothing,
was left for me but to surrender at discretion, and I did so with as
good grace as possible. Opening my desk, I took out a five dollar
bill and presented it; to the elder of the two ladies, thinking that
I was doing very well indeed. She took the money, but was evidently
disappointed; and did not even ask me to head the list with my name.

"How money does harden the heart!" I overheard one of my fair
visiters say to the other, in a low voices but plainly intended for
my edification, as they walked off with their five dollar bill.

"Confound your impudence!" I said to myself, thus taking my revenge
out of them. "Do you think I've got nothing else to do with my money
but scatter it to the four winds?"

And I stuck my thumbs firmly in the armholes of my waistcoat, and
took a dozen turns up and down my store, in order to cool off.

"Confound your impudence!" I then repeated, and quietly sat down
again in the old arm-chair.

On the next day I had any number of calls from money-hunters.
Business men, who had never thought of asking me for loans, finding
that I was worth seventy thousand dollars, crowded in upon me for
temporary favours, and, when disappointed in their expectations,
couldn't seem to understand it. When I spoke of being "hard up"
myself, they looked as if they didn't clearly comprehend what I
meant.

A few days after the story of my wealth had gone abroad, I was
sitting, one evening, with my family, when I was informed that a
lady was in the parlour, and wished to see me.

"A lady!" said I.

"Yes, sir," replied the servant.

"Is she alone?"

"Yes, sir."

"What does she want?"

"She did not say, sir."

"Very well. Tell her I'll be down in a few moments."

When I entered the parlour, I found a woman, dressed in mourning,
with her veil closely drawn.

"Mr. G----?" she said, in a low, sad voice.

I bowed, and took a place upon the sofa where she was sitting, and
from which she had not risen upon my entrance.

"Pardon the great liberty I have taken," she began, after a pause of
embarrassment, and in an unsteady voice. "But, I believe I have not
mistaken your character for sympathy and benevolence, nor erred in
believing that your hand is ever ready to respond to the generous
impulses of our heart."

I bowed again, and my visiter went on.

"My object in calling upon you I will briefly state. A year ago my
husband died. Up to that time I had never known the want of anything
that money could buy. He was a merchant of this city, and supposed
to be in good circumstances. But he left an insolvent estate; and
now, with five little ones to care for, educate, and support, I have
parted with nearly my last dollar, and have not a single friend to
whom I can look for aid."

There was a deep earnestness and moving pathos in the tones of the
woman's voice, that went to my heart. She paused for a few moments,
overcome with her feelings, and then resumed:--

"One in an extremity like mine, sir, will do many things from which,
under other circumstances she should shrink. This is my only excuse
for troubling you at the present time. But I cannot see my little
family in want without an effort to sustain them; and, with a little
aid, I see my way clear to do so. I was well educated, and feel not
only competent, but willing to undertake a school. There is one, the
teacher of which being in bad health, wishes to give it up, and if I
can get the means to buy out her establishment, will secure an ample
and permanent income for my family. To aid me, sir, in doing this, I
now make an appeal to you. I know you are able, and I believe you
are willing to put forth your hand and save my children from want,
and, it may be, separation."

The woman still remained closely veiled; I could not, therefore, see
her face. But I could perceive that she was waiting with trembling
suspense for my answer. Heaven knows my heart responded freely to
her appeal.

"How much will it take to purchase this establishment?" I inquired.

"Only a thousand dollars," she replied.

I was silent. A thousand dollars!

"I do not wish it, sir, as a gift," she said "only as a loan. In a
year or two I will be able to repay it."

"My dear madam," was my reply, "had I the ability most gladly would
I meet your wishes. But, I assure you I have not. A thousand dollars
taken from my business would destroy it."

A deep sigh, that was almost a groan, came up from the breast of the
stranger, and her head dropped low upon her bosom. She seemed to
have fully expected the relief for which she applied; and to be
stricken to the earth by my words! We were both unhappy.

"May I presume to ask your name, madam?" said I, after a pause.

"It would do no good to mention it," she replied, mournfully. "It
has cost me a painful effort to come to you; and now that my hope
has proved, alas! in vain, I must beg the privilege of still
remaining a stranger."

She arose, as she said this. Her figure was tall and dignified.
Dropping me a slight courtesy, she was turning to go away, when I
said,

"But, madam, even if I have not the ability to grant your request, I
may still have it in my power to aid you in this matter. I am ready
to do all I can; and, without doubt, among the friends of your
husband will be found numbers to step forward and join in affording
you the assistance so much desired, when they are made aware of your
present extremity."

The lady made an impatient gesture, as if my words were felt as a
mockery or an insult, and turning from me, again walked from the
room with a firm step. Before I could recover myself, she had passed
into the street, and I was left standing alone. To this day I have
remained in ignorance of her identity. Cheerfully would I have aided
her to the extent of my ability to do so. Her story touched my
feelings and awakened my liveliest sympathies, and if, on learning
her name and making proper inquiries into her circumstances, I had
found all to be as she had stated, I would have felt it a duty to
interest myself in her behalf, and have contributed in aid of the
desired end to the extent of my ability. But she came to me under
the false idea that I had but to put my hand in my pocket, or write
a check upon the bank, and lo! a thousand dollars were forthcoming.
And because I did not do this, she believed me unfeeling, selfish,
and turned from me mortified, disappointed, and despairing.

I felt sad for weeks after this painful interview. On the very next
morning I received a letter from an artist, in which he spoke of the
extremity of his circumstances, and begged me to purchase a couple
of pictures. I called at his rooms, for I could not resist his
appeal. The pictures did not strike me as possessing much artistic
value.

"What do you ask for them?" I inquired.

"I refused a hundred dollars for the pair. But I am compelled to
part with them now, and you shall have them for eighty."

I had many other uses for eighty dollars, and therefore shook my
head. But, as he looked disappointed, I offered to take one of the
pictures at forty dollars. To this he agreed. I paid the money, and
the picture was sent home. Some days afterward, I was showing it to
a friend.

"What did you pay for it?" he asked.

"Forty dollars," I replied.

The friend smiled strangely.

"What's the matter?" said I.

"He offered it to me for twenty-five."

"That picture?"

"Yes."

"He asked me eighty for this and another, and said he had refused a
hundred for the pair."

"He lied though. He thought, as you were well off, that he must ask
you a good stiff price, or you wouldn't buy."

"The scoundrel!"

"He got ahead of you, certainly."

"But it's the last time," said I, angrily.

And so things went on. Scarcely a day passed in which my fame as a
wealthy citizen did not subject me to some kind of experiment from
people in want of money. If I employed a porter for any service and
asked what was to pay, after the work was done, ten chances to one
that he didn't touch his hat and reply,

"Anything that you please, sir," in the hope that I, being a rich
man, would be ashamed to offer him less than about four times his
regular price. Poor people in abundance called upon me for aid; and
all sorts of applications to give or lend money met me at every
turn. And when I, in self-defence, begged off as politely as
possible, hints gentle or broad, according to the characters or
feelings of those who came, touching the hardening and perverting
influence of wealth, were thrown out for my especial edification.

And still the annoyance continues. Nobody but myself doubts the fact
that I am worth from seventy to a hundred thousand dollars, and I
am, therefore, considered allowable game for all who are too idle or
prodigal to succeed in the world; or as Nature's almoner to all who
are suffering from misfortunes.

Soon after the publication to which I have alluded was foisted upon
our community as a veritable document, I found myself a secular
dignitary in the church militant. Previously I had been only a
pew-holder, and an unambitious attendant upon the Sabbath
ministrations of the Rev. Mr----. But a new field suddenly opened
before me; I was a man of weight and influence, and must be used for
what I was worth. It is no joke, I can assure the reader, when I
tell them that the way my pocket suffered was truly alarming. I
don't know, but I have seriously thought, sometimes, that if I
hadn't kicked loose from my dignity, I would have been gazetted as a
bankrupt long before this time.

Soon after sending in my resignation as vestryman or deacon, I will
not say which, I met the Rev. Mr----, and the way he talked to me
about the earth being the "Lord's and the fullness thereof;" about
our having the poor always with us; about the duties of charity, and
the laying up of treasure in heaven, made me ashamed to go to church
for a month to come. I really began to fear that I was a doomed man
and that the reputation of being a "wealthy citizen" was going to
sink me into everlasting perdition. But I am getting over that
feeling now. My cash-book, ledger, and bill-book set me right again;
and I can button up my coat and draw my purse-strings, when guided
by the dictates of my own judgment, without a fear of the threatened
final consequences before my eyes. Still, I am the subject of
perpetual annoyance from all sorts of people, who will persist in
believing that I am made of money; and many of these approach me in,
such a way as to put it almost entirely out of my power to say "no."
They come with appeals for small amounts, as loans, donations to
particular charities, or as the price of articles that I do not
want, but which I cannot well refuse to take. I am sure that, since
I have obtained my present unenviable reputation, it hasn't cost me
a cent less than two thousand, in money given away, loaned never to
be returned, and in the purchase of things that I never would have
thought of buying.

And, with all this, I have made more enemies than I ever before had
in my life, and estranged half of my friends and acquaintances.

Seriously, I have it in contemplation to "break" one of these days,
in order to satisfy the world that I am not a rich man. I see no
other effectual remedy for present grievances.






"WE'VE ALL OUR ANGEL SIDE."





DESPAIR not of the better part
  That lies in human kind--
A gleam of light still flickereth
  In e'en the darkest mind;
The savage with his club of war,
  The sage so mild and good,
Are linked in firm, eternal bonds
  Of common brotherhood.
Despair not! Oh despair not, then,
  For through this world so wide,
No nature is so demon-like,
  But there's an angel side.

The huge rough stones from out the mine,
  Unsightly and unfair,
Have veins of purest metal hid
  Beneath the surface there;
Few rocks so bare but to their heights
  Some tiny moss-plant clings,
And round the peaks, so desolate,
  The sea-bird sits and sings.
Believe me, too, that rugged souls,
  Beneath their rudeness hide
Much that is beautiful and good--
  We've all our angel side.

In all there is an inner depth--
  A far off, secret way,
Where, through dim windows of the soul,
  God sends His smiling ray;
In every human heart there is
  A faithful sounding chord,
That may be struck, unknown to us,
  By some sweet loving word;
The wayward heart in vain may try
  Its softer thoughts to hide,
Some unexpected tone reveals
  It has its angel side.

Despised, and low, and trodden down,
  Dark with the shade of sin:
Deciphering not those halo lights
  Which God hath lit within;
Groping about in utmost night,
  Poor prisoned souls there are,
Who guess not what life's meaning is,
  Nor dream of heaven afar;
Oh! that some gentle hand of love
  Their stumbling steps would guide,
And show them that, amidst it all,
  Life has its angel side.

Brutal, and mean, and dark enough,
  God knows, some natures are,
But He, compassionate, comes near--
  And shall we stand afar?
Our cruse of oil will not grow less,
  If shared with hearty hand,
And words of peace and looks of love
  Few natures can withstand.
Love is the mighty conqueror--
  Love is the beauteous guide--
Love, with her beaming eye, can see
  We've all our angel side.






BLIND JAMES.





IN the month of December, in the neighbourhood of Paris, two men,
one young, the other rather advanced in years, were descending the
village street, which was made uneven and almost impassable by
stones and puddles.

Opposite to them, and ascending this same street, a labourer,
fastened to a sort of dray laden with a cask, was slowly advancing,
and beside him a little girl, of about eight years old, who was
holding the end of the barrow. Suddenly the wheel went over an
enormous stone, which lay in the middle of the street, and the car
leaned towards the side of the child.

"The man must be intoxicated," cried the young man, stepping forward
to prevent the overturn of the dray. When he reached the spot, he
perceived that the man was blind.

"Blind!" said he, turning towards his old friend. But the latter,
making him a sign to be silent, placed his hand, without speaking,
on that of the labourer, while the little girl smiled. The blind man
immediately raised his head, his sightless eyes were turned towards
the two gentlemen, his face shone with an intelligent and natural
pleasure, and, pressing closely the hand which held his own, he
said, with an accent of tenderness,

"Mr. Desgranges!"

"How!" said the young man, moved and surprised; "he knew you by the
touch of your hand."

"I do not need even that," said the blind man; "when he passes me in
the street, I say to myself, 'That is his step.'" And, seizing the
hand of Mr. Desgranges, he kissed it with ardour. "It was indeed
you, Mr. Desgranges, who prevented my falling--always you."

"Why," said the young man, "do you expose yourself to such
accidents, by dragging this cask?"

"One must attend to his business, sir," replied he, gayly.

"Your business?"

"Undoubtedly," added Mr. Desgranges. "James is our water-carrier.
But I shall scold him for going out without his wife to guide him."

"My wife was gone away. I took the little girl. One must be a little
energetic, must he not? And, you see, I have done very well since I
last saw you, my dear Mr. Desgranges; and you have assisted me."

"Come, James, now finish serving your customers, and then you can
call and see me. I am going home."

"Thank you, sir. Good-by, sir; good-by, sir."

And he started again, dragging his cask, while the child turned
towards the gentlemen her rosy and smiling face.

"Blind, and a water-carrier!" repeated the young man, as they walked
along.

"Ah! our James astonishes you, my young friend. Yes, it is one of
those miracles like that of a paralytic who walks. Should you like
to know his story?"

"Tell it to me."

"I will do so. It does not abound in facts or dramatic incidents,
but it will interest you, I think, for it is the history of a soul,
and of a good soul it is--a man struggling against the night. You
will see the unfortunate man going step by step out of a bottomless
abyss to begin his life again--to create his soul anew. You will see
how a blind man, with a noble heart for a stay, makes his way even
in this world."

While they were conversing, they reached the house of Mr.
Desgranges, who began in this manner:--

"One morning, three years since, I was walking on a large dry plain,
which separates our village from that of Noiesemont, and which is
all covered with mill-stones just taken from the quarry. The process
of blowing the rocks was still going on. Suddenly a violent
explosion was heard. I looked. At a distance of four or five hundred
paces, a gray smoke, which seemed to come from a hole, rose from the
ground. Stones were then thrown up in the air, horrible cries were
heard, and springing from this hole appeared a man, who began to run
across the plain as if mad. He shook his arms, screamed, fell down,
got up again, disappeared in the great crevices of the plain, and
appeared again. The distance and the irregularity of his path
prevented me from distinguishing anything clearly; but, at the
height of his head, in the place of his face, I saw a great, red
mark. In alarm, I approached him, while from the other side of the
plain, from Noiesemont, a troop of men and women were advancing,
crying aloud. I was the first to reach the poor creature. His face
was all one wound, and torrents of blood were streaming over his
garments, which were all in rags.

"Scarcely had I taken hold of him, when a woman, followed by twenty
peasants, approached, and threw herself before him.

"'James, James, is it you? I did not know you, James.'

"The poor man, without answering, struggled furiously in our hands.

"'Ah!' cried the woman, suddenly, and with a heart-rending voice,
'it is he!'

"She had recognised a large silver pin, which fastened his shirt,
which was covered with blood.

"It was indeed he, her husband, the father of three children, a poor
labourer, who, in blasting a rock with powder, had received the
explosion in his face, and was blind, mutilated, perhaps mortally
wounded.

"He was carried home. I was obliged to go away the same day, on a
journey, and was absent a month. Before my departure, I sent him our
doctor, a man devoted to his profession as a country physician, and
as learned as a city physician. On my return--

"'Ah! well, doctor,' said I, 'the blind man?'

"'It is all over with him. His wounds are healed, his head is doing
well, he is only blind; but he will die; despair has seized him, and
he will kill himself. I can do nothing more for him, This is all,'
he said; 'an internal inflammation is taking place. He must die.'

"I hastened to the poor man. I arrived. I shall never forget the
sight. He was seated on a wooden stool, beside a hearth on. which
there was no fire, his eyes covered with a white bandage. On the
floor an infant of three months was sleeping; a little girl of four
years old was playing in the ashes; one, still older, was shivering
opposite to her; and, in front of the fireplace, seated on the
disordered bed, her arms hanging down, was the wife. What was left
to be imagined in this spectacle was more than met the eye. One felt
that for several hours, perhaps, no word had been spoken in this
room. The wife was doing nothing, and seemed to have no care to do
anything. They were not merely unfortunate, they seemed like
condemned persons. At the sound of my footsteps they arose, but
without speaking.

"'You are the blind man of the quarry?"

"'Yes, sir.'

"'I have come to see you.'

"'Thank you, sir.'

"'You met with a sad misfortune there.'

"'Yes, sir.'

"His voice was cold, short, without any emotion. He expected nothing
from any one. I pronounced the words 'assistance,' 'public
compassion.'

"'Assistance!' cried his wife, suddenly, with a tone of despair;
'they ought to give it to us; they must help us; we have done
nothing to bring upon us this misfortune; they will not let my
children die with hunger.'

"She asked for nothing--begged for nothing. She claimed help. This
imperative beggary touched me more than the common lamentations of
poverty, for it was the voice of despair; and I felt in my purse for
some pieces of silver.

"The man then, who had till now been silent, said, with a hollow
tone,

"'Your children must die, since I can no longer see.'

"There is a strange power in the human voice. My money fell back
into my purse. I was ashamed of the precarious assistance. I felt
that here was a call for something more than mere almsgiving--the
charity of a day. I soon formed my resolution."

"But what could you do?" said the young man, to Mr. Desgranges.

"What could I do?" replied he, with animation. "Fifteen days after,
James was saved. A year after, he gained his own living, and might
be heard singing at his work."

"Saved! working! singing! but how?"

"How! by very natural means. But wait, I think I hear him. I will
make him tell you his simple story. It will touch you more from his
lips. It will embarrass me less, and his cordial and ardent face
will complete the work."

In fact, the noise of some one taking off his wooden shoes was heard
at the door, and then a little tap.

"Come in, James;" and he entered with his wife,

"I have brought Juliana, my dear Mr. Desgranges, the poor woman--she
must see you sometimes, must she not?"

"You did right, James. Sit down."

He came forward, pushing his stick before him, that he might not
knock against a chair. He found one, and seated himself. He was
young, small, vigorous, with black hair, a high and open forehead, a
singularly expansive face for a blind man, and, as Rabelais says, a
magnificent smile of thirty-two teeth. His wife remained standing
behind him.

"James," said Mr. Desgranges to him, "here is one of my good
friends, who is very desirous to see you."

"He is a good man, then, since he is your friend."

"Yes. Talk with him; I am going to see my geraniums. But do not be
sad, you know I forbid you that."

"No, no, my dear friend, no!"

This tender and simple appellation seemed to charm the young man;
and after the departure of his friend, approaching the blind man, he
said,

"You are very fond of Mr. Desgranges?"

"Fond of him!" cried the blind man, with impetuosity; "he saved me
from ruin, sir. It was all over with me; the thought of my children
consumed me; I was dying because I could not see. He saved me."

"With assistance--with money?"

"Money! what is money? Everybody can give that. Yes, he clothed us,
he fed us, he obtained a subscription of five hundred francs (about
one hundred dollars) for me; but all this was as nothing; he did
more--he cured my heart!"

"But how?"

"By his kind words, sir. Yes, he, a person of so much consequence in
the world, he came every day into my poor house, he sat on my poor
stool, he talked with me an hour, two hours, till I became quiet and
easy."

"What did he say to you?"

"I do not know; I am but a foolish fellow, and he must tell you all
he said to me; but they were things I had never heard before. He
spoke to me of the good God better than a minister; and he brought
sleep back to me."

"How was that?"

"It was two months since I had slept soundly. I would just doze, and
then start up, saying,

"'James, you are blind,' and then my head would go round--round,
like a madman; and this was killing me. One morning he came in, this
dear friend, and said to me,

"'James, do you believe in God?'

"'Why do you ask that, Mr. Desgranges?'

"'Well, this night, when you wake, and the thought of your
misfortune comes upon you, say aloud a prayer--then two--then
three--and you will go to sleep.'"

"Yes," said the wife, with her calm voice, "the good God, He gives
sleep."

"This is not all, sir. In my despair I would have killed myself. I
said to myself, 'You are useless to your family, you are the woman
of the house, and others support you.' But he was displeased--'Is it
not you who support your family? If you had not been blind, would
any one have given you the five hundred francs?'

"'That is true, Mr. Desgranges.'

"'If you were not blind, would any one provide for your children?'

"'That is true, Mr. Desgranges.'

"'If you were not blind, would every one love you, as we love you?'

"'It is true, Mr. Desgranges, it is true.'

"'You see, James, there are misfortunes in all families. Misfortune
is like rain; it must fall a little on everybody. If you were not
blind, your wife would, perhaps, be sick; one of your children might
have died. Instead of that, you have all the misfortune, my poor
man; but they--they have none.'

"'True, true.' And I began to feel less sad. I was even happy to
suffer for them. And then he added,

"'Dear James, misfortune is either the greatest enemy or the
greatest friend of men. There are people whom it makes wicked; there
are others made better by it. For you, it must make you beloved by
everybody; you must become so grateful, so affectionate, that when
they wish to speak of any one who is good, they will say, good as
the blind man of the Noiesemont. That will serve for a dowry to your
daughter.' This is the way he talked to me, sir: and it gave me
heart to be unfortunate."

"Yes; but when he was not here?"

"Ah, when he was not here, I had, to be sure, some heavy moments. I
thought of my eyes--the light is so beautiful! Oh, God! cried I, in
anguish, if ever I should see clearly again, I would get up at three
o'clock. in the morning, and I would, not go to bed till ten at
night, that I might gather up more light."

"James, James!" said his wife.

"You are right, Juliana; he has forbidden me to be sad. He would
perceive it, sir. Do you think that when my head had gone wrong in
the night, and he came in the morning, and merely looked at me, he
would say--'James, you have been thinking that;' and then he would
scold me, this dear friend. Yes," added he, with an expression of
joy--"he would scold me, and that would give me pleasure, because he
tried to make his words cross, but he could not do it."

"And what gave you the idea of becoming a water-carrier?"

"He gave me that, also. Do you suppose I have ideas? I began to lose
my grief, but my time hung heavy on my hands. At thirty-two years
old, to be sitting all day in a chair! He then began to instruct me,
as he said, and he told me beautiful stories. The Bible--the history
of an old man, blind like me, named Tobias; the history of Joseph;
the history of David; the history of Jesus Christ. And then he made
me repeat them after him. But my head, it was hard--it was hard; it
was not used to learning, and I was always getting tired in my arms
and my legs."

"And he tormented us to death," said his wife, laughing.

"True, true," replied he, laughing also; "I became cross. He came
again, and said,

"'James, you must go to work.'

"I showed him my poor, burned hands.

"'It is no matter; I have bought you a capital in trade.'

"'Me, Mr. Desgranges?'

"'Yes, James, a capital into which they never put goods, and where
they always find them.'

"'It must have cost you a great deal, sir.'

"'Nothing at all, my lad.'

"'What is then this fund?'

"'The river.'

"'The river? Do you wish me to become a fisherman?'

"'Not all; a water-carrier.'

"'Water-carrier! but eyes?'

"'Eyes; of what use are they? do the dray-horses have eyes? If they
do, they make use of them; if they do not, they do without them.
Come, you must be a water-carrier.'

"'But a cask?'

"'I will give you one.'

"'A cart?'

"'I have ordered one at the cart-maker's.'

"'But customers?'

"I will give you my custom, to begin with, eighteen francs a month;
(my dear friend pays for water as dearly as for wine.) Moreover, you
have nothing to say, either yes or no. I have dismissed my
water-carrier, and you would not let my wife and me die with thirst.
This dear Madame Desgranges, just think of it. And so, my boy, in
three days--work. And you, Madam James, come here;' and he carried
off Juliana."

"Yes, sir," continued the wife, "he carried me off, ordered leather
straps, made me buy the wheels, harnessed me; we were all
astonishment, James and I; but stop, if you can, when Mr. Desgranges
drives you. At the end of three days, here we are with the cask, he
harnessed and drawing it, I behind, pushing; we were ashamed at
crossing the village, as if we were doing something wrong; it seemed
as if everybody would laugh at us. But Mr. Desgranges was there in
the street.

"'Come on, James,' said he, 'courage.'

"We came along, and in the evening he put into our hands a piece of
money, saying," continued the blind man, with emotion--

"'James, here are twenty sous you have earned to-day.'

"Earned, sir, think of that! earned, it was fifteen months that I
had only eaten what had been given to me. It is good to receive from
good people, it is true; but the bread that one earns, it is as we
say, half corn, half barley; it nourishes better, and then it was
done, I was no longer the woman, I was a labourer--a labourer--James
earned his living."

A sort of pride shone from his face.

"How!" said the young man, "was your cask sufficient to support
you?"

"Not alone, sir; but I have still another profession."

"Another profession!"

"Ha, ha, yes, sir; the river always runs, except when it is frozen,
and, as Mr. Desgranges says, 'water-carriers do not make their
fortune with ice,' so he gave me a Winter trade and Summer trade."

"Winter trade!"

Mr. Desgranges returned at this moment--James heard him--"Is it not
true, Mr. Desgranges, that I have another trade besides that of
water-carrier?"

"Undoubtedly."

"What is it then?"

"Wood-sawyer."

"Wood-sawyer? impossible; how could you measure the length of the
sticks? how could you cut wood without cutting yourself?"

"Cut myself, sir," replied the blind man, with a pleasant shade of
confidence; "I formerly was a woodsawyer, and the saw knows me well;
and then one learns everything--I go to school, indeed. They put a
pile of wood at my left side, my saw and saw horse before me, a
stick that is to be sawed in three; I take a thread, I cut it the
size of the third of the stick--this is the measure. Every place I
saw, I try it, and so it goes on till now there is nothing burned or
drunk in the village without calling upon me."

"Without mentioning," added Mr. Desgranges, "that he is a
commissioner."

"A commissioner!" said the young man, still more surprised.

"Yes, sir, when there is an errand to be done at Melun, I put my
little girl on my back, and then off I go. She sees for me, I walk
for her; those who meet me, say, 'Here is a gentleman who carries
his eyes very high;' to which I answer, 'that is so I may see the
farther.' And then at night I have twenty sous more to bring home."

"But are you not afraid of stumbling against the stones?"

"I lift my feet pretty high; and then I am used to it; I come from
Noiesemont here all alone."

"All alone! how do you find your way?"

"I find the course of the wind as I leave home, and this takes the
place of the sun with me."

"But the holes?"

"I know them all."

"And the walls?"

"I feel them. When I approach anything thick, sir, the air comes
with less force upon my face; it is but now and then that I get a
hard knock, as by example, if sometimes a little handcart is left on
the road, I do not suspect it--whack! bad for you, poor
five-and-thirty, but this is soon over. It is only when I get
bewildered, as I did day before yesterday. O then---"

"You have not told me of that, James," said Mr. Desgranges.

"I was, however, somewhat embarrassed, my dear friend. While I was
here the wind changed, I did not perceive it; but at the end of a
quarter of an hour, when I had reached the plain of Noiesemont, I
had lost my way, and I felt so bewildered that I did not dare to
stir a step. You know the plain, not a house, no passersby. I sat
down on the ground, I listened; after a moment I heard at, as I
supposed, about two hundred paces distant, a noise of running water.
I said, 'If this should be the stream which is at the bottom of the
plain?' I went feeling along on the side from which the noise
came--I reached the stream; then I reasoned in this way: the water
comes down from the side of Noiesemont and crosses it. I put in my
hand to feel the current."

"Bravo, James."

"Yes, but the water was so low and the current so small, that my
hand felt nothing. I put in the end of my stick, it was not moved. I
rubbed my head finally, I said, 'I am a fool, here is my
handkerchief;' I took it, I fastened it to the end of my cane. Soon
I felt that it moved gently to the right, very gently. Noiesemont is
on the right. I started again and I get home to Juliana, who began
to be uneasy."

"O," cried the young man, "this is admir----"

But Mr. Desgranges stopped him, and leading him to the other end of
the room,

"Silence!" said he to him in a low voice. "Not admirable--do not
corrupt by pride the simplicity of this man. Look at him, see how
tranquil his face is, how calm after this recital which has moved
you so much. He is ignorant of himself, do not spoil him."

"It is so touching," said the young man, in a low tone.

"Undoubtedly, and still his superiority does not lie there. A
thousand blind men have found out these ingenious resources, a
thousand will find them again; but this moral perfection--this
heart, which opens itself so readily to elevated consolations--this
heart which so willingly takes upon it the part of a victim--this
heart which has restored him to life. For do not be deceived, it is
not I who have saved him, it is his affection for me; his ardent
gratitude has filled his whole soul, and has sustained--he has lived
because he has loved!"

At that moment, James, who had remained at the other end of the
room, and who perceived that we were speaking low, got up softly,
and with a delicate discretion, said to his wife,

"We will go away without making any noise."

"Are you going, James?"

"I am in the way, my dear Mr. Desgranges."

"No, pray stay longer."

His benefactor retained him, reaching out to him cordially his hand.
The blind man seized the hand in his turn, and pressed it warmly
against his heart.

"My dear friend, my dear good friend, you permit me to stay a little
longer. How glad I am to find myself near you. When I am sad I
say--'James, the good God will, perhaps, of His mercy, put you in
the same paradise with Mr. Desgranges,' and that does me good."

The young man smiled at this simple tenderness, which believed in a
hierarchy in Heaven. James heard him.

"You smile, sir. But this good man has re-created James. I dream of
it every night--I have never seen him, but I shall know him then. Oh
my God, if I recover my sight I will look at him for ever--for ever,
like the light, till he shall say to me, James, go away. But he will
not say so, he is too good. If I had known him four years ago, I
would have served him, and never have left him."

"James, James!" said Mr. Desgranges; but the poor man could not be
silenced.

"It is enough to know he is in the village; this makes my heart
easy. I do not always wish to come in, but I pass before his house,
it is always there; and when he is gone a journey I make Juliana
lead me into the plain of Noiesemont, and I say--'turn me towards
the place where he is gone, that I may breathe the same air with
him.'"

Mr. Desgranges put his hand before his mouth. James stopped.

"You are right, Mr. Desgranges, my mouth is rude, it is only my
heart which is right. Come, wife," said he, gayly, and drying his
great tears which rolled from his eyes, "Come, we must give our
children their supper. Good-by, my dear friend, good-by, sir."

He went away, moving his staff before him. Just as he laid his hand
upon the door, Mr. Desgranges called him back.

"I want to tell you a piece of news which will give you pleasure. I
was going to leave the village this year; but I have just taken a
new lease of five years of my landlady."

"Do you see, Juliana," said James to his wife, turning round, "I was
right when I said he was going away."

"How," replied Mr. Desgranges, "I had told them not to tell you
of it."

"Yes; but here," putting his hand on his heart, "everything is plain
here. I heard about a month since, some little words, which had
begun to make my head turn round; when, last Sunday, your landlady
called me to her, and showed me more kindness than usual, promising
me that she would take care of me, and that she would never abandon
me. When I came home, I said to Juliana, 'Wife, Mr. Desgranges is
going to quit the village; but that lady has consoled me.'"

In a few moments the blind man had returned to his home.






DEPENDENCE.





"WELL, Mary," said Aunt Frances, "how do you propose to spend the
summer? It is so long since the failure and death of your guardian,
that I suppose you are now familiar with your position, and prepared
to mark out some course for the future."

"True, aunt; I have had many painful thoughts with regard to the
loss of my fortune, and I was for a time in great uncertainty about
my future course, but a kind offer, which I received, yesterday, has
removed that burden. I now know where to find a respectable and
pleasant home."

"Is the offer you speak of one of marriage?" asked Aunt Frances,
smiling.

"Oh! dear, no; I am too young for that yet. But Cousin Kate is
happily married, and lives a few miles out of the city, in just the
cosiest little spot, only a little too retired; and she has
persuaded me that I shall do her a great kindness to accept a home
with her."

"Let me see. Kate's husband is not wealthy, I believe?"

"No: Charles Howard is not wealthy, but his business is very good,
and improving every year; and both he and Kate are too whole-souled
and generous to regret giving an asylum to an unfortunate girl like
me. They feel that 'it is more blessed to give than to receive.'"

"A very noble feeling, Mary; but one in which I am sorry to perceive
that you are a little wanting."

"Oh! no, Aunt Frances, I do feel it deeply; but it is the curse of
poverty that one must give up, in some measure, the power of
benefiting others. And, then, I mean to beguile Kate of so many
lonely hours, and perform so many friendly offices for her husband,
that they will think me not a burden but a treasure."

"And you really think you can give them as much comfort as the
expense of your maintenance could procure them in any other way?"

"Yes, aunt; it may sound conceited, perhaps, but I do really think I
can. I am sure, if I thought otherwise, I would never consent to
become a burden to them."

"Well, my dear, then your own interest is all that remains to be
considered. There are few blessings in life that can compensate for
the loss of self-reliance. She who derives her support from persons
upon whom she has no natural claim, finds the effect upon herself to
be decidedly narrowing. Perpetually in debt, without the means of
reimbursement, barred from any generous action which does not seem
like 'robbing Peter to pay Paul,' she sinks too often into the
character of a sponge, whose only business is absorption. But I see
you do not like what I am saying, and I will tell you something
which I am sure you _will_ like--my own veritable history.

"I was left an orphan in childhood, like yourself, and when my
father's affairs were settled, not a dollar remained for my support.
I was only six years of age, but I had attracted the notice of a
distant relative, who was a man of considerable wealth. Without any
effort of my own, I became an inmate of his family, and his only
son, a few years my elder, was taught to consider me as a sister.

"George Somers was a generous, kind-hearted boy, and I believe he
was none the less fond of me, because I was likely to rob him of
half his fortune. Mr. Somers often spoke of making a will, in which
I was to share equally with his son in the division of his property,
but a natural reluctance to so grave a task led him to defer it from
one year to another. Meantime, I was sent to expensive schools, and
was as idle and superficial as any heiress in the land.

"I was just sixteen when my kind benefactor suddenly perished on
board the ill-fated Lexington, and, as he died without a will, I had
no legal claim to any farther favours. But George Somers was known
as a very open-handed youth, upright and honourable, and, as he was
perfectly well acquainted with the wishes of his father, I felt no
fears with regard to my pecuniary condition. While yet overwhelmed
with grief at the loss of one whom my heart called father, I
received a very kind and sympathizing letter from George, in which
he said he thought I had better remain at school for another year,
as had been originally intended.

"'Of course,' he added, 'the death of my father does not alter our
relation in the least; you are still my dear and only sister.'

"And, in compliance with his wishes, I passed another year at a very
fashionable school--a year of girlish frivolity, in which my last
chance of acquiring knowledge as a means of future independence was
wholly thrown away. Before the close of this year I received another
letter from George, which somewhat surprised, but did not at all
dishearten me. It was, in substance, as follows:--

"'_MY own dear Sister_:--I wrote you, some months ago, from
Savannah, in Georgia told you how much I was delighted with the
place and people; how charmed with Southern frankness and
hospitality. But I did not tell you that I had there met with
positively the most bewitching creature in the world--for I was but
a timid lover, and feared that, as the song says, the course of true
love never would run smooth. My charming Laura was a considerable
heiress, and, although no sordid considerations ever had a feather's
weight upon her own preferences, of course, yet her father was
naturally and very properly anxious that the guardian of so fair a
flower should be able to shield it from the biting winds of poverty.
Indeed, I had some difficulty in satisfying his wishes on this
point, and in order to do so, I will frankly own that I assumed to
myself the unencumbered possession of my father's estate, of which
so large a share belongs of right to you. I am confident that when
you know my Laura you will forgive me this merely nominal injustice.
Of course, this connexion can make no sort of difference in your
rights and expectations. You will always have a home at my house.
Laura is delighted, with the idea of such a companion, and says she
would on no account dispense with that arrangement. And whenever,
you marry as girls do and will, I shall hold myself bound to satisfy
any reasonable wishes on the part of the happy youth that wins you.
Circumstances hastened my marriage somewhat unexpectedly, or I
should certainly have informed you previously, and requested your
presence at the nuptial ceremony. We have secured a beautiful house
in Brooklyn, and shall expect you to join us as soon as your present
year expires, Laura sends her kindest regards, and I remain, as
always, your sincere and affectionate brother,
GEORGE SOMERS.'

"Not long after the receipt of this letter, one of the
instructresses, in the institution where I resided requested the
favour of a private interview. She then said she knew something
generally of my position and prospects, and, as she had always felt
an instinctive interest in my fortunes, she could not see me leave
the place without seeking my confidence, and rendering me aid, if
aid was in her power. Though surprised and, to say the truth,
indignant, I simply inquired what views, had occurred to her with
regard to my future life.

"She said, then, very kindly, that although I was not very thorough
in, any branch of study, yet she thought I had a decided taste for
the lighter and more ornamental parts of female education. That a
few months earnest attention to these would fit me for a position
independent of my connexions, and one of which none of my friends
would have cause to be ashamed.

"I am deeply pained to own to you how I answered her. Drawing myself
up, I said, coldly,

"'I am obliged to you, madam, for your quite unsolicited interest in
my affairs. When I leave this place, it will be to join my brother
and sister in Brooklyn, and, as we are all reasonably wealthy, I
must try to make gold varnish over any defects in my neglected
education.'

"I looked to see my kind adviser entirely annihilated by these
imposing words, but she answered with perfect calmness,

"'I know Laura Wentworth, now Mrs. Somers. She was educated at the
North, and was a pupil of my own for a year. She is wealthy and
beautiful, and I hope you will never have cause to regret assuming a
position with regard to her that might be mistaken for dependence.'

"With these words, my well-meaning, but perhaps injudicious friend,
took leave, and I burst into a mocking laugh, that I hoped she might
linger long enough to hear. 'This is too good!' I repeated to
myself--but I could not feel perfectly at ease. However, I soon
forgot all thoughts of the future, in the present duties of
scribbling in fifty albums, and exchanging keepsakes, tears, and
kisses, with a like number of _very_ intimate friends.

"It was not until I had finally left school, and was fairly on the
way to the home of my brother, that I found a moment's leisure to
think seriously of the life that was before me. I confess that I
felt some secret misgivings, as I stood at last upon the steps of
the very elegant house that was to be my future home. The servant
who obeyed my summons, inquired if I was Miss Rankin, a name I had
never borne since childhood.

"I was about to reply in the negative, when she added, 'If you are
the young lady that Mr. Somers is expecting from the seminary, I
will show you to your room.'

"I followed mechanically, and was left in a very pretty chamber,
with the information that Mrs. Somers was a little indisposed, but
would meet me at dinner. The maid added that Mr. Somers was out of
town, and would not return till evening. After a very uncomfortable
hour, during which I resolutely suspended my opinion with regard to
my position, the dinner-bell rang, and the domestic again appeared
to show me to the dining-room.

"Mrs. Somers met me with extended hand. 'My dear Miss Rankin!' she
exclaimed, 'I am most happy to see you. I have heard George speak of
you so often and so warmly that I consider you quite as a relative.
Come directly to the table. I am sure you must be famished after
your long ride. I hope you will make yourself one of us, at once,
and let me call you Fanny. May I call you Cousin Fanny?' she
pursued, with an air of sweet condescension that was meant to be
irresistible.

"'As you please,' I replied coldly.

"To which she quickly responded, 'Oh, that will be delightful.'

"She then turned to superintend the carving of a fowl, and I had
time to look at her undisturbed. She was tall and finely formed,
with small delicate features, and an exquisite grace in every
movement; a haughty sweetness that was perfectly indescribable. She
had very beautiful teeth, which she showed liberally when she
smiled, and in her graver moments her slight features wore an
imperturbable serenity, as if the round world contained nothing that
was really worth her attention. An animated statue, cold, polished,
and pitiless! was my inward thought, as I bent over my dinner.

"When the meal was over, Mrs. Somers said to me, in a tone of
playful authority,

"'Now, Cousin Fanny, I want you to go to your room and rest, and not
do an earthly thing until teatime. After that I have a thousand
things to show you.'

"At night I was accordingly shown a great part of the house; a
costly residence, and exquisitely furnished, but, alas! I already
wearied of this icy splendour. Every smile of my beautiful hostess
(I could not now call her sister), every tone of her soft voice,
every movement of her superb form, half queen-like dignity, half
fawn-like grace--seemed to place an insurmountable barrier between
herself and me. It was not that I thought more humbly of myself--not
that I did not even consider myself her equal--but her dainty
blandishments were a delicate frost-work, that almost made me shiver
and when, she touched her cool lips to mine, and said 'Good-night,
dear,' I felt as if even then separated from her real, living self,
by a wall of freezing marble.

"'Poor George!' I said, as I retired to rest--'You have wedded this
soulless woman, and she will wind you round her finger.'

"I did not sit up for him, for he was detained till a late hour, but
I obeyed the breakfast-bell with unfashionable eagerness, as I was
becoming nervous about our meeting, and really anxious to have it
over. After a delay of some minutes, I heard the wedded pair coming
leisurely down the stairs, in, very amicable chatter.

"'I am glad you like her, Laura,' said a voice which I knew in a
moment as that of George. How I shivered as I caught the smooth
reply, 'A nice little thing. I am very glad of the connexion. It
will be such a relief not to rely entirely upon servants. There
should be a middle class in every family.'

"With these words she glided through the door, looked with perfect
calmness in my flashing eyes, and said,

"'Ah, Fanny! I, was just telling George here how much I shall like
you.'

"The husband came forward with an embarrassed air; I strove to meet
him with dignity, but my heart failed me, and I burst into tears.

"'Forgive me, madam,' I said, on regaining my composure--'This is
our first meeting since the death of _our father_.'

"'I understand your feelings perfectly,' she quietly replied. 'My
father knew the late Mr. Somers well, and thought very highly of
him, He was charitable to a fault, and yet remarkable for
discernment. His bounty was seldom unworthily bestowed.'

"His bounty! I had never been thought easy to intimidate, but I
quailed before this unapproachable ice-berg. It made no attempt
from that moment to vindicate what I was pleased to call my rights,
but awaited passively the progress of events. 

"After breakfast, Mrs. Somers said to the maid in attendance,

"'Dorothy, bring some hot water and towels for Miss Rankin.'

"She then turned to me and continued, 'I shall feel the china
perfectly safe in your hands, cousin. These servants are so very
unreliable.'

"And she followed George to the parlour above, where their lively
tones and light laughter made agreeable music.

"In the same easy way, I was invested with a variety of domestic
cares, most of them such as I would willingly have accepted, had she
waited for me to manifest such a willingness. But a few days after
my arrival, we received a visit from little Ella Grey, a cousin of
Laura's, who was taken seriously ill on the first evening of her
stay. A physician was promptly summoned, and, after a conference
with him, Mrs. Somers came to me, inquiring earnestly,

"'Cousin Fanny, have you ever had the measles?'

"I replied in the affirmative.

"'Oh, I am very glad!' was her response; 'for little Ella is
attacked with them, and very severely; but, if you will take charge
of her, I shall feel no anxiety. It is dreadful in sickness to be
obliged to depend upon hirelings.'

"So I was duly installed as little Ella's nurse, and, as she was a
spoiled child, my task was neither easy nor agreeable.

"No sooner was the whining little creature sufficiently improved to
be taken to her own home, than the house was thrown into confusion
by preparations for a brilliant party. Laura took me with her on a
shopping excursion, and bade me select whatever I wished, and send
the bill with hers to Mr. Somers. I purchased a few indispensable
articles, but I felt embarrassed by her calm, scrutinizing gaze, and
by the consciousness that every item of my expenditures would be
scanned by, perhaps, censorious eyes.

"What with my previous fatigue while acting as Ella's nurse, and the
laborious preparations for the approaching festival, I felt, as the
time drew near, completely exhausted. Yet I was determined not to so
far give way to the depressing influences that surrounded me, as to
absent myself from the party. So, after snatching an interval of
rest, to relieve my aching head, I dressed myself with unusual care,
and repaired to the brilliantly lighted rooms. They were already
filled, and murmuring like a swarm of bees, although, as one of the
guests remarked, there were more drones than workers in the hive. I
was now no drone, certainly, and that was some consolation. When I
entered, Laura was conversing with a group of dashing young men, who
were blundering over a book of charades. Seeing me enter, she came
towards me immediately.

"'Cousin Fanny, you who help everybody, I want you to come to the
aid of these stupid young men. Gentlemen, this is our Cousin Fanny,
the very best creature in the world.' And with this introduction she
left me, and turned to greet some new arrivals. After discussing the
charades till my ears were weary of empty and aimless chatter, I was
very glad to find my group of young men gradually dispersing, and
myself at liberty to look about me, undisturbed. George soon came to
me, gave me his arm, and took me to a room where were several
ladies, friends of his father, and who had known me very well as a
child.

"'You remember Fanny,' he said to them; and then left me, and
devoted himself to the courteous duties of the hour. While I was
indulging in a quiet chat with a very kind old friend, she proposed
to go with me to look at the dancers, as the music was remarkably
fine, and it was thought the collected beauty and fashion of the
evening would make a very brilliant show. We left our seats,
accordingly, but were soon engaged in the crowd, and while waiting
for an opportunity to move on, I heard one of my young men ask
another,

"'How do you like _la cousine_?'

"I lost a part of the answer, but heard the closing words
distinctly--'_et un peu passee._' '_Oui, decidement!_' was the
prompt response, and a light laugh followed, while, shrinking close
to my kind friend, I rejoiced that my short stature concealed me
from observation. I was not very well taught, but, like most
school-girls, I had a smattering of French, and I knew the meaning
of the very ordinary phrases that had been used with regard to me.
Before the supper-hour, my headache became so severe that I was glad
to take refuge in my own room. There I consulted my mirror, and felt
disposed to forgive, the young critics for their disparaging
remarks. _Passee!_ I looked twenty-five at least, and yet I was not
eighteen, and six months before I had fancied myself a beauty and an
heiress!

"But I will not weary you with details. Suffice it to say; that I
spent only three months of this kind of life, and then relinquished
the protection of Mr. and Mrs. Somers, and removed to a second-rate
boarding-house, where I attempted to maintain myself by giving
lessons in music. Every day, however, convinced me of my unfitness
for this task, and, as I soon felt an interest in the sweet little
girls who looked up to me for instruction, my position with regard
to them became truly embarrassing. One day I had been wearying
myself by attempting the impossible task of making clear to another
mind, ideas that lay confusedly in my own, and at last I said to my
pupil,

"'You may go home now, Clara, dear, and practise the lesson of
yesterday. I am really ill to-day, but to-morrow I shall feel
better, and I hope I shall then be able to make you understand me.'

"The child glided out, but a shadow still fell across the carpet. I
looked up, and saw in the doorway a young man, whose eccentricities
sometimes excited a smile among his fellow-boarders, but who was
much respected for his sense and independence.

"'To make yourself understood by others, you must first learn to
understand yourself,' said he, as he came forward. Then, taking my
hand, he continued,--'What if you should give up all this abortive
labour, take a new pupil, and, instead of imparting to others what
you have not very firmly grasped yourself, try if you can make a
human being of me?'

"I looked into his large gray eyes, and saw the truth and
earnestness shining in their depths, like pebbles at the bottom of a
pellucid spring. I never once thought of giving him a conventional
reply. On the contrary, I stammered out,

"'I am full, of faults and errors; I could never do you any good.'

"'I have studied your character attentively,' returned he, 'and I
know you have faults, but they are unlike mine; and I think that you
might be of great service to me; or, if the expression suits you
better, that we might be of great aid to each other. Become my wife,
and I will promise to improve more rapidly than any pupil in your
class.'

"And I did become his wife, but not until a much longer acquaintance
had convinced me, that in so doing, I should not exchange one form
of dependence for another, more galling and more hopeless."

"Then this eccentric young man was Uncle Robert?"

"Precisely. But you see he has made great improvement, since."

"Well, Aunt Frances, I thank you for your story; and now for the
moral. What do you think I had better do?"

"I will tell you what you can do, if you choose. Your uncle has just
returned from a visit to his mother. He finds her a mere child,
gentle and amiable, but wholly unfit to take charge of herself. Her
clothes have taken fire repeatedly, from her want of judgment with
regard to fuel and lights, and she needs a companion for every
moment of the day. This, with their present family, is impossible,
and they are desirous to secure some one who will devote herself to
your grandmother during the hours when your aunt and the domestics
are necessarily engaged. You were always a favourite there, and I
know they would be very much relieved if you would take this office
for a time, but they feel a delicacy in making any such proposal.
You can have all your favourites about you--books, flowers, and
piano; for the dear old lady delights to hear reading or music, and
will sit for hours with a vacant smile upon her pale, faded face.
Then your afternoons will be entirely your own, and Robert is
empowered to pay any reliable person a salary of a fixed and ample
amount, which will make you independent for the time."

"But, aunt, you will laugh at me, I know, yet I do really fear that
Kate will feel this arrangement as a disappointment."

"Suppose I send her a note, stating that you have given me some
encouragement of assuming this important duty, but that you could
not think of deciding without showing a grateful deference to her
wishes?"

"That will be just the thing. We shall get a reply to-morrow." With
to-morrow came the following note:--

"_My Dear Aunt Frances_:--Your favour of yesterday took us a little
by surprise, I must own I had promised myself a great deal of
pleasure in the society of our Mary; but since she is inclined (and
I think it is very noble in her) to foster with the dew of her youth
the graceful but fallen stem that lent beauty to us all, I cannot
say a word to prevent it. Indeed, it has occurred to me, since the
receipt of your note, that we shall need the room we had reserved
for Mary, to accommodate little Willie, Mr. Howard's pet nephew, who
has the misfortune to be lame. His physicians insist upon country
air, and a room upon the first floor. So tell Mary I love her a
thousand times better for her self-sacrifice, and will try to
imitate it by doing all in my power for the poor little invalid that
is coming.

"With the kindest regards, I remain "Your affectionate niece,

"KATE HOWARD."

"Are you now decided, Mary?" asked Aunt Frances, after their joint
perusal of the letter.

"Not only decided, but grateful. I have lost my fortune, it is true;
but while youth and health remain, I shall hardly feel tempted to
taste the luxuries of dependence."






TWO RIDES WITH THE DOCTOR.





JUMP in, if you would ride with the doctor. You have no time to
lose, for the patient horse, thankful for the unusual blessing which
he has enjoyed in obtaining a good night's rest, stands early at the
door this rainy morning, and the worthy doctor himself is already in
his seat, and is hastily gathering up the reins, for there have been
no less than six rings at his bell within as many minutes, and
immediate attendance is requested in several different places.

It is not exactly the day one might select for a ride, for the storm
is a regular north-easter, and your hands and feet are benumbed with
the piercing cold wind, while you are drenched with the driving
rain.

But the doctor is used to all this, and, unmindful of wind and rain,
he urges his faithful horse to his utmost speed, eager to reach the
spot where the most pressing duty calls. He has at least the
satisfaction of being welcome. Anxious eyes are watching for his
well-known vehicle from the window; the door is opened ere he puts
his hand upon the lock, and the heartfelt exclamation,

"Oh, doctor, I am so thankful you have come!" greets him as he
enters.

Hastily the anxious father leads the way to the room where his
half-distracted wife is bending in agony over their first-born, a
lovely infant of some ten months, who is now in strong convulsions.
The mother clasps her hands, and raises her eyes in gratitude to
heaven, as the doctor enters,-he is her only earthly hope. Prompt
and efficient remedies are resorted to, and in an hour the restored
little one is sleeping tranquilly in his mother's arms.

The doctor departs amid a shower of blessings, and again urging his
horse to speed, reaches his second place of destination. It is a
stately mansion. A spruce waiter hastens to answer his ring, but the
lady herself meets him as he enters the hall.

"We have been expecting you anxiously, doctor. Mr. Palmer is quite
ill, this morning. Walk up, if you please."

The doctor obeys, and is eagerly welcomed by his patient.

"Do exert your utmost skill to save me from a fever, doctor. The
symptoms are much the same which I experienced last year, previous
to that long siege with the typhoid. It distracts me to think of it.
At this particular juncture I should lose thousands by absence from
my business."

The doctor's feelings are enlisted,--his feelings of humanity and
his feelings of self-interest, for doctors must live as well as
other people; and the thought of the round sum which would find its
way to his own purse, if he could but succeed in preventing the loss
of thousands to his patient, was by no means unpleasing.

The most careful examination of the symptoms is made, and
well-chosen prescriptions given. He is requested to call as often as
possible through the day, which he readily promises to do, although
press of business and a pouring rain render it somewhat difficult.

The result, however, will be favourable to his wishes. His second
and third call give him great encouragement, and on the second day
after the attack, the merchant returns to his counting-room exulting
in the skill of his physician.

But we must resume our ride. On, on goes the doctor; rain pouring,
wind blowing, mud splashing. Ever and anon he checks his horse's
speed, at his various posts of duty. High and low, rich and poor
anxiously await his coming. He may not shrink from the ghastly
spectacle of human suffering and death. Humanity, in its most
loathsome forms, is presented to him.

The nearest and dearest may turn away in grief and horror, but the
doctor blenches not.

Again we are digressing. The doctor's well-known tap is heard at the
door of a sick-room, where for many days he has been in constant
attendance. Noiselessly he is admitted. The young husband kneels at
the side of the bed where lies his dearest earthly treasure. The
calm but deeply-afflicted mother advances to the doctor, and
whispers fearfully low,

"There is a change. She sleeps. Is it--oh! can it be the sleep of
death?"

Quickly the physician is at the bedside, and anxiously bending over
his patient.

Another moment and he grasps the husband's hand, while the glad
words "She will live," burst from his lips.

We may not picture forth their joy. On, on, we are riding with the
doctor. Once more we are at his own door. Hastily he enters, and
takes up the slate containing the list of calls during his absence.
At half a dozen places his presence is requested without delay.

A quick step is heard on the stairs, and his gentle wife hastens to
welcome him.

"I am so glad you have come; how wet you must be!"

The parlour door is thrown open. What a cheerful fire, and how
inviting look the dressing-gown and the nicely warmed slippers!

"Take off your wet clothes, dear; dinner will soon be ready," urges
the wife.

"It is impossible, Mary. There are several places to visit yet. Nay,
never look so sad. Have not six years taught you what a doctor's
wife must expect?"

"I shall never feel easy when you are working so hard, Henry; but
surely you will take a cup of hot coffee; I have it all ready. It
will delay you but a moment."

The doctor consents; and while the coffee is preparing, childish
voices are heard, and little feet come quickly through the hall.

"Papa has come home!" shouts a manly little fellow of four years, as
he almost drags his younger sister to the spot where he has heard
his father's voice.

The father's heart is gladdened by their innocent joy, as they cling
around him; but there is no time for delay. A kiss to each, one good
jump for the baby, the cup of coffee is hastily swallowed, the wife
receives her embrace with tearful eyes, and as the doctor springs
quickly into his chaise, and wheels around the corner, she sighs
deeply as she looks at the dressing-gown and slippers, and thinks of
the favourite dish which she had prepared for dinner; and now it may
be night before he comes again. But she becomes more cheerful as she
remembers that a less busy season will come, and then they will
enjoy the recompense of this hard labour.

The day wears away, and at length comes the happy hour when gown and
slippers may be brought into requisition. The storm still rages
without, but there is quiet happiness within. The babies are
sleeping, and father and mother are in that snug little parlour,
with its bright light and cheerful fire. The husband is not too
weary to read aloud, and the wife listens, while her hands are
busied with woman's never-ending work.

But their happiness is of short duration. A loud ring at the bell.

"Patient in the office, sir," announces the attendant.

The doctor utters a half-impatient exclamation; but the wife
expresses only thankfulness that it is an office patient.

"Fine night for a sick person to come out!" muttered the doctor, as
he unwillingly lays down his book, and rises from the comfortable
lounge.

But he is himself again by the time his hand is on the door of the
office, and it is with real interest that he greets his patient.

"Tooth to be extracted? Sit down, sir. Here, Biddy, bring water and
a brighter lamp. Have courage, sir; one moment will end it."

The hall door closes on the relieved sufferer, and the doctor throws
himself again on the lounge, and smilingly puts the bright half
dollar in his pocket.

"That was not so bad, after all, Mary. I like to make fifty cents in
that way."

"Cruel creature! Do not mention it."

"Cruel! The poor man blessed me in his heart. Did I not relieve him
from the most intense suffering?"

"Well, never mind. I hope there will be no more calls to-night."

"So do I. Where is the book? I will read again." No more
interruptions. Another hour, and all, are sleeping quietly.

Midnight has passed, when the sound of the bell falls on the
doctor's wakeful ear. As quickly as possible he answers it in
person, but another peal is heard ere he reaches the door.

A gentleman to whose family he has frequently been called, appears.

"Oh! doctor, lose not a moment; my little Willie is dying with the
croup!"

There is no resisting this appeal. The still wet overcoat and boots
are drawn on; medicine case hastily seized, and the doctor rushes
forth again into the storm.

Pity for his faithful horse induces him to traverse the distance on
foot, and a rapid walk of half a mile brings him to the house.

It was no needless alarm. The attack was a severe one, and all his
skill was required to save the life of the little one. It was
daylight ere he could leave him with safety. Then, as he was about
departing for his own home, an express messenger arrived to entreat
him to go immediately to another place nearly a mile in an opposite
direction.

Breakfast was over ere he reached his own house. His thoughtful wife
suggested a nap; but a glance at the already well-filled slate
showed this to be out of the question. A hasty toilet, and still
hastier breakfast, and the doctor is again seated in his chaise,
going on his accustomed rounds; but we will not now accompany him.

Let us pass over two or three months, and invite ourselves to
another ride. One pleasant morning, when less pressed with business,
he walks leisurely from the house to the chaise, and gathering up
the reins with a remarkably thoughtful air, rides slowly down the
street.

But few patients are on his list, and these are first attended to.

The doctor then pauses for consideration. He has set apart this day
for _collecting_. Past experience has taught him that the task is by
no means an agreeable one. It is necessary, however--absolutely
so--for, as we have said before, doctors must live as well as other
people; their house-rent must be paid, food and clothing must be
supplied.

A moment only pauses the doctor, and then we are again moving
onward. A short ride brings us to the door of a pleasantly-situated
house. We remember it well. It is where the little one lay in fits
when we last rode out with the doctor. We recall the scene: the
convulsed countenance of the child; the despair of the parents, and
the happiness which succeeded when their beloved one was restored to
them.

Surely they will now welcome the doctor. Thankfully will they pay
the paltry sum he claims as a recompense for his services. We are
more confident than the doctor. Experience is a sure teacher. The
door does not now fly open at his approach. He gives his name to the
girl who answers the bell, and in due time the lady of the house
appears.

"Ah! doctor, how do you do? You are quite a stranger! Delightful
weather," &c.

The doctor replies politely, and inquires if her husband is in.

"Yes, he is in; but I regret to say he is exceedingly engaged this
morning. His business is frequently of a nature which cannot suffer
interruption. He would have been pleased to have seen you."

The doctor's pocket-book is produced, and the neatly drawn bill is
presented.

"If convenient to Mr. Lawton, the amount would be acceptable."

"I will hand it to him when he is at leisure. He will attend to it,
no doubt."

The doctor sighs involuntarily as he recalls similar indefinite
promises; but it is impossible to insist upon interrupting important
business. He ventures another remark, implying that prompt payment
would oblige him; bows, and retires.

On, on goes the faithful horse. Where is to be our next
stopping-place? At the wealthy merchant's, who owed so much to the
doctor's skill some two months since. Even the doctor feels
confidence here. Thousands saved by the prevention of that fever.
Thirty dollars is not to be thought of in comparison.

All is favourable. Mr. Palmer is at home, and receives his visiter
in a cordial manner. Compliments are passed. Now for the bill.

"Our little account, Mr. Palmer."

"Ah! I recollect; I am a trifle in your debt. Let us see: thirty
dollars! So much? I had forgotten that we had needed medical advice,
excepting in my slight indisposition a few weeks since."

Slight indisposition! What a memory some people are blessed with!

The doctor smothers his rising indignation.

"Eight visits, Mr. Palmer, and at such a distance. You will find the
charge a moderate one."

"Oh! very well; I dare say it is all right. I am sorry I have not
the money for you to-day, doctor. Very tight just at present; you
know how it is with men of business."

"It would be a great accommodation if I could have it at once."

"Impossible, doctor! I wish I could oblige you. In a week, or
fortnight, at the farthest, I will call at your office."

A week or fortnight! The disappointed doctor once more seats himself
in his chaise, and urges his horse to speed. He is growing desperate
now, and is eager to reach his next place of destination. Suddenly
he checks the horse. A gentleman is passing whom he recognises as
the young husband whose idolized wife has so lately been snatched
from the borders of the grave.

"Glad to see you, Mr. Wilton; I was about calling at your house."

"Pray, do so, doctor; Mrs. Wilton will be pleased to see you."

"Thank you; but my call was on business, to-day. I believe I must
trouble you with my bill for attendance during your wife's illness."

"Ah! yes; I recollect. Have you it with you? Fifty dollars!
Impossible! Why, she was not ill above three weeks."

"Very true; but think of the urgency of the case. Three or four
calls during twenty-four hours were necessary, and two whole nights
I passed at her bedside."

"And yet the charge appears to me enormous. Call it forty, and I
will hand you the amount at once."

The doctor hesitates. "I cannot afford to lose ten dollars, which is
justly my due, Mr. Wilton."

"Suit yourself, doctor. Take forty, and receipt the bill, or stick
to your first charge, and wait till I am ready to pay it. Fifty
dollars is no trifle, I can tell you."

And this is the man whose life might have been a blank but for the
doctor's skill!

Again we are travelling onward. The unpaid bill is left in Mr.
Wilton's hand, and yet the doctor half regrets that he had not
submitted to the imposition. Money is greatly needed just now, and
there seems little prospect of getting any.

Again and again the horse is stopped at some well-known post. A poor
welcome has the doctor to-day. Some bills are collected, but their
amount is discouragingly small. Everybody appears to feel
astonishingly healthy, and have almost forgotten that they ever had
occasion for a physician. There is one consolation, however:
sickness will come again, and then, perhaps, the unpaid bill may be
recollected. Homeward goes the doctor. He is naturally of a cheerful
disposition; but now he is seriously threatened with a fit of the
blues. A list of calls upon his slate has little effect to raise his
spirits. "All work and no pay," he mutters to himself, as he puts on
his dressing-gown and slippers; and, throwing himself upon the
lounge, turns a deaf ear to the little ones, while he indulges in a
revery as to the best mode of paying the doctor.






KEEP IN STEP.

Those who would walk together must keep in step.

--OLD PROVERB.





AY, the world keeps moving forward,
  Like an army marching by;
Hear you not its heavy footfall,
  That resoundeth to the sky?
Some bold spirits bear the banner--
  Souls of sweetness chant the song,--
Lips of energy and fervour
  Make the timid-hearted strong!
Like brave soldiers we march forward;
  If you linger or turn back,
You must look to get a jostling
  While you stand upon our track.
    Keep in step.

My good neighbour, Master Standstill,
  Gazes on it as it goes;
Not quite sure but he is dreaming,
  In his afternoon's repose!
"Nothing good," he says, "can issue
  From this endless moving on;
Ancient laws and institutions
  Are decaying, or are gone.
We are rushing on to ruin,
  With our mad, new-fangled ways."
While he speaks a thousand voices,
  As the heart of one man, says--
    "Keep in step!"

Gentle neighbour, will you join us,
  Or return to "_good old ways?_"
Take again the fig-leaf apron
  Of Old Adam's ancient days;--
Or become a hardy Briton--
  Beard the lion in his lair,
And lie down in dainty slumber
  Wrapped in skins of shaggy bear,--
Rear the hut amid the forest,
  Skim the wave in light canoe?
Ah, I see! you do not like it.
  Then if these "old ways" won't do,
    Keep in step.

Be assured, good Master Standstill,
  All-wise Providence designed
Aspiration and progression
  For the yearning human mind.
Generations left their blessings,
  In the relies of their skill,
Generations yet are longing
  For a greater glory still;
And the shades of our forefathers
  Are not jealous of our deed--
We but follow where they beckon,
  We but go where they do lead!
    Keep in step.

One detachment of our army
  May encamp upon the hill,
While another in the valley
  May enjoy its own sweet will;
This, may answer to one watchword,
  That, may echo to another;
But in unity and concord,
  They discern that each is brother!
Breast to breast they're marching onward,
  In a good now peaceful way;
You'll be jostled if you hinder,
  So don't offer let or stay--
    Keep in step.






JOHNNY COLE.





"I GUESS we will have to put out our Johnny," said Mrs. Cole, with a
sigh, as she drew closer to the fire, one cold day in autumn. This
remark was addressed to her husband, a sleepy, lazy-looking man, who
was stretched on a bench, with his eyes half closed. The wife, with
two little girls of eight and ten, were knitting as fast as their
fingers could fly; the baby was sound asleep in the cradle; while
Johnny, a boy of thirteen, and a brother of four, were seated on the
wide hearth making a snare for rabbits. The room they occupied was
cold and cheerless; the warmth of the scanty fire being scarcely
felt; yet the floor, and every article of furniture, mean as they
were, were scrupulously neat and clean.

The appearance of this family indicated that they were very poor.
They were all thin and pale, really for want of proper food, and
their clothes had been patched until it was difficult to decide what
the original fabric had been; yet this very circumstance spoke
volume in favour of the mother. She was, a woman of great energy of
character, unfortunately united to a man whose habits were such,
that, for the greater part of the time, he was a dead weight upon
her hands; although not habitually intemperate, he was indolent and
good-for-nothing to a degree, lying in the sun half his time, when
the weather was warm, and never doing a stroke of work until driven
to it by the pangs of hunger.

As for the wife, by taking in sewing, knitting, and spinning for the
farmers' families in the neighbourhood, she managed to pay a rent of
twenty dollars for the cabin in which they lived; while she and
Johnny, with what assistance they could occasionally get from Jerry,
her husband, tilled the half acre of ground attached; and the
vegetables thus obtained, were their main dependance during the long
winter just at hand. Having thus introduced the Coles to our reader,
we will continue the conversation.

"I guess we will have to put out Johnny, and you will try and help
us a little more, Jerry, dear."

"Why, what's got into the woman now?" muttered Jerry, stretching his
arms, and yawning to the utmost capacity of his mouth. The children
laughed at their father's uncouth gestures, and even Mrs. Cole's
serious face relaxed into a smile, as she answered,

"Don't swallow us all, and I will tell you. The winter is beginning
early, and promises to be cold. Our potatoes didn't turn out as well
as I expected, and the truth is, we cannot get along so. We won't
have victuals to last us half the time; and, manage as I will, I
can't much more than pay the rent, I get so little for the kind of
work I do. Now, if Johnny gets a place, it will make one less to
provide for; and he will be learning to do something for himself."

"Yes, but mother," said the boy, moving close to her side, and
laying his head on her knee, "yes, but who'll help you when I am
gone? Who'll dig the lot, and hoe, and cut the wood, and carry the
water? You can't go away down to the spring in the deep snow. And
who'll make the fire in the cold mornings?"

The mother looked sorry enough, as her darling boy--for he was the
object around which the fondest affections of her heart had entwined
themselves--she looked sorry enough, as he enumerated the turns he
was in the habit of doing for her; but, woman-like, she could suffer
and be still; so she answered cheerfully,

"May be father will, dear; and when you grow bigger, and learn how
to do everything, you'll be such a help to us all."

"Don't depend on me," said Jerry, now arousing himself and
sauntering to the fire; "I hardly ever feel well,"--complaining was
Jerry's especial forte, an excuse for all his laziness; yet his
appetite never failed; and when, as was sometimes the case, one of
the neighbours sent a small piece of meat, or any little article of
food to his wife, under the plea of ill health he managed to
appropriate nearly the whole of it. He was selfishness embodied, and
a serious injury to his family, as few cared to keep him up in his
laziness.

One evening, a few days later, Mrs. Cole, who had been absent
several hours, came in looking very tired, and after laying aside
her old bonnet and shawl, informed them that she had obtained a
place for Johnny. It was four miles distant, and the farmer's man
would stop for him on his way from town, the next afternoon. What a
beautiful object was farmer Watkins's homestead, lying as it did on
the sunny slope of a hill; its gray stone walls, peeping out from
between the giant trees that overshadowed it, while everything
around and about gave evidence of abundance and comfort. The thrifty
orchard; the huge barn with its overflowing granaries; the sleek,
well-fed cattle; even the low-roofed spring-house, with its
superabundance of shining pails and pans, formed an item which could
hardly be dispensed with, in the _tout ensemble_ of this pleasant
home.

Farmer Watkins was an honest, hard-working man, somewhat past middle
age, with a heart not naturally devoid of kindness, but, where his
hirelings were concerned, so strongly encrusted with a layer of
habits, that they acted as an effectual check upon his better
feelings. His family consisted of a wife, said to be a notable
manager, and five or six children, the eldest, a son, at college. In
this household, work, work, was the order of the day; the farmer
himself, with his great brown fists, set the example, and the
others, willing or unwilling, were obliged to follow his lead. He
had agreed to take John Cole, as he said, more to get rid of his
mother's importunities, than for any benefit he expected to derive
from him; and when remonstrated with by his wife for his folly in
giving her the trouble of another brat, he answered shortly: "Never
fear, I'll get the worth of his victuals and clothes out of him."
Johnny was to have his boarding, clothes, and a dollar a month, for
two years. This dollar a month was the great item in Mrs. Cole's
calculations; twelve dollars a year, she argued, would almost pay
her rent, and when the tears stood in Johnny's great brown eyes (for
he was a pretty, gentle-hearted boy), as he was bidding them all
good-bye, and kissing the baby over and over again, she told him
about the money he would earn, and nerved his little heart with her
glowing representations, until he was able to choke back the tears,
and leave home almost cheerfully.

_Home_--yes, it was home; for they had much to redeem the miseries
of want within those bare cabin walls, for gentle hearts and kindly
smiles were there. There

"The mother sang at the twilight fall,
To the babe half slumbering on her knee."

There his brother and sisters played; there his associations, his
hopes, his wishes, were all centered. When he arrived at farmer
Watkins's, and was sent into the large carpeted kitchen, everything
was so unlike this home, that his fortitude almost gave way, and it
was as much as he could do, as he told his mother afterwards, "to
keep from bursting right out." Mrs. Watkins looked very cross, nor
did she notice him, except to order him to stand out of the way of
the red-armed girl who was preparing supper and placing it on a
table in the ample apartment. Johnny looked with amazement at the
great dishes of meat, and plates of hot biscuit, but the odour of
the steaming coffee, and the heat, were almost too much for him, as
he had eaten nothing since morning, for he was too sorry to leave
home to care about dinner. The girl, noticing that his pale face
grew paler, laughingly drew her mistress's attention to "master's
new boy."

"Go out and bring in some wood for the stove," said Mrs. Watkins,
sharply; "the air will do you good."

Johnny went out, and, in a few minutes, felt revived. Looking about,
he soon found the wood-shed; there was plenty of wood, but none cut
of a suitable length; it was all in cord sticks. Taking an axe, he
chopped an armful, and on taking it into the house, found the
family, had finished their suppers; the biscuits and meat were all
eaten.

"Come on here to your supper," said the maid-servant, angrily. "What
have you been doing?" and, without waiting for an answer, she filled
a tin basin with mush and skimmed milk, and set it before him. The
little boy did not attempt to speak, but sat down and ate what was
given him. Immediately after, he was sent into a loft to bed, where
he cried himself to sleep. Ah! when we count the thousand pulsations
that yield pain or pleasure to the human mind, what a power to do
good or evil is possessed by every one; and how often would a kind
word, or one sympathizing glance, gladden the hearts of those thus
prematurely forced upon the anxieties of the world! But how few
there are who care to bestow them! The next morning, long before
dawn, the farmer's family, with the exception of the younger
children were astir. The cattle were to be fed and attended to, the
horses harnessed, the oxen yoked, and great was the bustle until all
hands were fairly at work. As for Johnny, he was taken into the
field to assist in husking corn. The wind was keen, and the stalks,
from recent rain, were wet, and filled with ice. His scanty clothing
scarcely afforded any protection from the cold, and his hands soon
became so numb that he could scarcely use them; but, if he stopped
one moment to rap them, or breathe upon them, in the hope of
imparting some warmth, the farmer who was close at hand, in warm
woollen clothes and thick husking gloves, would call out,

"Hurry up, hurry up, my boy! no idle bread must be eaten here!"

And bravely did Johnny struggle not to mind the cold and pain, but
it would not do; he began to cry, when the master, who never thought
of exercising anything but severity towards those who laboured for
him, told him sternly that if he did not stop his bawling in a
moment, he would send him home. This was enough for Johnny; anything
was better than to go back and be a burden on his mother; he worked
to the best of his ability until noon. At noon, he managed to get
thoroughly warm, behind the stove, while eating his dinner. Still,
the sufferings of the child, with his insufficient clothing, were
very great; but nobody seemed to think of the _hired boy_ being an
object of sympathy, and thus it continued. The rule seemed to be to
get all that was possible out of him, and his little frame was so
weary at night, that he had hardly time to feel rested, until called
with the dawn to renew his labour. A monthly Sunday however, was the
golden period looked forward to in his day-dreams, for it had been
stipulated by his parent, that on Saturday evening every four weeks,
he was to come home, and stay all the next day. And when the time
arrived, how nimbly did he get over the ground that stretched
between him and the goal of his wishes! How much he had to tell! But
as soon as he began to complain, his mother would say cheerfully,
although her heart bled for the hardships of her child,

"Never mind, you will get used to work, and after awhile, when you
grow up, you can rent a farm, and take me to keep house for you."

This was the impulse that prompted to action. No one can be utterly
miserable who has a hope, even a remote one, of bettering his
condition; and with a motive such as this to cheer him, Johnny
persevered; young as he was, he understood the necessity. But how
often, during the four weary weeks that succeeded, did the memory of
the Saturday night he had spent at home come up before his mental
vision! The fresh loaf of rye bread, baked in honour of his arrival,
and eaten for supper, with maple molasses--the very molasses he had
helped to boil on shares with Farmer Thrifty's boys in the spring.
What a feast they had! Then the long evening afterwards, when the
blaze of the hickory fires righted up the timbers of the old cabin
with a mellow glow, and mother looked so cheerful and smiled so
kindly as she sat spinning in its warmth and light. And how even
father had helped to pop corn in the iron pot.

Ah! that was a time long to be remembered; and he had ample
opportunity to draw comparisons, for he often thought his master
cared more for his cattle than he did for him, and it is quite
probable he did; for while they were warmly housed he was needlessly
exposed, and his comfort utterly disregarded. If there was brush to
cut, or fence to make, or any out-door labour to perform, a wet,
cold, or windy day was sure to be selected, while in _fine weather_
the wood was required to be chopped, and, generally speaking, all
the work that could be done under shelter. Yet we dare say Farmer
Watkins never thought of the inhumanity of this, or the advantage he
would himself derive by arranging it otherwise.

John Cole had been living out perhaps a year. He had not grown much
in this period; his frame had always been slight, and his sunken
cheeks and wasted limbs spoke of the hard usage and suffering of his
present situation. The family had many delicacies for themselves,
but the _work boy_ they knew never was used to such things, and they
were indifferent, as to what his fare chanced to be. He generally
managed to satisfy the cravings of hunger on the coarse food given
him, but that was all. About this time it happened that the farmer
was digging a ditch, and as he was afraid winter would set in before
it was completed, Johnny and himself were at work upon it early and
late, notwithstanding the wind whistled, and it was so cold they
could hardly handle the tools. While thus employed, it chanced that
they got wet to the skin with a drizzling rain, and on returning to
the house the farmer changed his clothes, drank some hot mulled
cider, and spent the remainder of the evening in his high-backed
chair before a comfortable fire; while the boy was sent to grease a
wagon in an open shed, and at night crept to his straw pallet,
shaking as though in an ague fit. The next morning he was in a high
fever, and with many a "wonder of what had got into him," but
without one word of sympathy, or any other manifestation of
good-will, he was sent home to his mother. Late in the evening of
the same day a compassionate physician was surprised to see a woman
enter his office; her garments wet and travel-stained, and, with
streaming eyes, she besought him to come and see her son.

"My Johnny, my Johnny, sir!" she cried, "he has been raving wild all
day, and we are afraid he will die."

Mistaking the cause of the good man's hesitation, she added, with a
fresh burst of grief, "Oh! I will work my fingers to the bone to pay
you, sir, if you will only come. We live in the Gap."

A few inquiries were all that was necessary to learn the state of
the case. The benevolent doctor took the woman in his vehicle, and
proceeded, over a mountainous road of six miles, to see his patient.
But vain was the help of man! Johnny continued delirious; it was
work, work, always at work; and pitiful was it to hear his
complaints of being cold and tired, while his heart-broken parent
hung over him, and denied herself the necessaries of life to
minister to his wants. After being ill about a fortnight, he awoke
one evening apparently free from fever. His expression was natural,
but he seemed so weak he could not speak. His mother, with a heart
overflowing with joy at the change she imagined favourable, bent
over him. With a great effort he placed his arms about her neck; she
kissed his pale lips; a smile of strange meaning passed over his
face, and ere she could unwind that loving clasp her little Johnny
was no more. He had gone where the wicked cease from troubling, and
the weary are at rest; but her hopes were blasted; her house was
left unto her desolate; and as she watched, through the long hours
of night, beside the dead body, it was to our Father who art in
Heaven her anguished heart poured itself out in prayer. Think of
this, ye rich! who morning and evening breathe the same petition by
your own hearthstones. Think of it, ye who have authority to
oppress! Do not deprive the poor man or woman of the "ewe lamb" that
is their sole possession; and remember that He whose ear is ever
open to the cry of the distressed, has power to avenge their cause.






THE THIEF AND HIS BENEFACTOR.





"CIRCUMSTANCES made me what I am," said a condemned criminal to a
benevolent man who visited him in prison. "I was driven by necessity
to steal."

"Not so," replied the keeper, who was standing by. "Rather say, that
your own character made the circumstances by which you were
surrounded. God never places upon any creature the necessity of
breaking his commandments. You stole, because, in heart, you were a
thief."

The benevolent man reproved the keeper for what he called harsh
words. He believed that, alone, by the force of external
circumstances, men were made criminals. That, if society were
differently arranged, there would be little or no crime in the
world. And so he made interest for the criminal, and, in the end,
secured his release from prison. Nor did his benevolence stop here.
He took the man into his service, and intrusted to him his money and
his goods.

"I will remove from him all temptation to steal," said he, "by a
liberal supply of his wants."

"Have you a wife?" he asked of the man, when he took him from
prison.

"No," was replied.

"Nor any one but yourself to support?"

"I am alone in the world."

"You have received a good education; and can serve me as a clerk. I
therefore take you into my employment, at a fair salary. Will five
hundred dollars be enough?"

"It will be an abundance," said the man, with evident surprise at an
offer so unexpectedly liberal.

"Very well. That will place you above temptation."

"And I will be innocent and happy. You are my benefactor. You have
saved me."

"I believe it," said the man of benevolence.

And so he intrusted his goods and his money to the man he had
reformed by placing him in different circumstances.

But it is in the heart of man that evil lies; and from the heart's
impulses spring all our actions. That must cease to be a bitter
fountain before it can send forth sweet water. The thief was a thief
still. Not a month elapsed ere he was devising the means to enable
him to get from his kind, but mistaken friend, more than the liberal
sum for which he had agreed to serve him. He coveted his neighbour's
goods whenever his eyes fell upon them; and restlessly sought to
acquire their possession. In order to make more sure the attainment
of his ends, he affected sentiments of morality, and even went so
far as to cover his purposes by a show of religion. And thus he was
able to deceive and rob his kind friend.

Time went on; and the thief, apparently reformed by a change of
relation to society, continued in his post of responsibility. How it
was, the benefactor could not make out; but his affairs gradually
became less prosperous. He made investigations into his business,
but was unable to find anything wrong.

"Are you aware that your clerk is a purchaser of property to a
considerable extent?" said a mercantile friend to him one day.

"My clerk! It cannot be. His income is only five hundred dollars a
year."

"He bought a piece of property for five thousand last week."

"Impossible!"

"I know it to be true. Are you aware that he was once a convict in
the State's Prison?"

"Oh yes. I took him from prison myself, and gave him a chance for
his life. I do not believe in hunting men down for a single crime,
the result of circumstances rather than a bad heart."

"A truly honest man, let me tell you," replied the merchant, "will
be honest in any and all circumstances. And a rogue will be a rogue,
place him where you will. The evil is radical, and must be cured
radically. Your reformed thief has robbed you, without doubt."

"I have reason to fear that he has been most ungrateful," replied
the kind-hearted man, who, with the harmlessness of the dove, did
not unite the wisdom of the serpent.

And so it proved. His clerk had robbed him of over twenty thousand
dollars in less than five years, and so sapped the foundations of
his prosperity, that he recovered with great difficulty.

"You told me, when in prison," said the wronged merchant to his
clerk, "that circumstances made you what you were. This you cannot
say now."

"I can," was the reply. "Circumstances made me poor, and I desired
to be rich. The means of attaining wealth were placed in my hands,
and I used them. Is it strange that I should have done so? It is
this social inequality that makes crime. Your own doctrine, and I
subscribe to it fully."

"Ungrateful wretch!" said the merchant, indignantly, "it is the evil
of your own heart that prompts to crime. You would be a thief and a
robber if you possessed millions."

And he again handed him over to the law, and let the prison walls
protect society from his depredations.

No, it is not true that in external circumstances lie the origins of
evil. God tempts no man by these. In the very extremes of poverty we
see examples of honesty; and among the wealthiest, find those who
covet their neighbour's goods, and gain dishonest possession
thereof. Reformers must seek to elevate the personal character, if
they would regenerate society. To accomplish the desired good by a
different external arrangement, is hopeless; for in the heart of man
lies the evil,--there is the fountain from which flow forth the
bitter and blighting waters of crime.






JOHN AND MARGARET GREYLSTON.





"AND you will really send Reuben to cut down that clump of pines?"

"Yes, Margaret. Well, now, it is necessary, for more reasons
than"----

"Don't tell me so, John," impetuously interrupted Margaret
Greylston. "I am sure there is no necessity in the case, and I am
sorry to the very heart that you have no more feeling than to order
_those_ trees to be cut down."

"Feeling! well, maybe I have more than you think; yet I don't choose
to let it make a fool of me, for all that. But I wish you would say
no more about those trees, Margaret; they really must come down; I
have reasoned with you on this matter till I am sick of it."

Miss Greylston got up from her chair, and walked out on the shaded
porch; then she turned and called her brother.

"Will you come here, John?"

"And what have you to say?"

"Nothing, just now; I only want you to stand here and look at the
old pines."

And so John Greylston did; and he saw the distant woods grave and
fading beneath the autumn wind--while the old pines upreared their
stately heads against the blue sky, unchanged in beauty, fresh and
green as ever.

"You see those trees, John, and so do I; and standing here, with
them full in view, let me plead for them; they are very old, those
pines, older than either of us; we played beneath them when we were
children; but there is still a stronger tie: our mother loved
them--our dear, sainted mother. Thirty years it has been since she
died, but I can never forget or cease to love anything she loved.
Oh! John, you remember just as well as I do, how often she would sit
beneath those trees and read or talk sweetly to us; and of the dear
band who gathered there with her, only we are left, and the old
pines. Let them stand, John; time enough to cut them down when I
have gone to sit with those dear ones beneath the trees of heaven;"
and somewhat breathless from long talking, Miss Margaret paused.

John Greylston was really touched, and he laid his hand kindly on
his sister's shoulder.

"Come, come, Madge, don't talk so sadly. I remember and love those
things as well as you do, but then you see I cannot afford to
neglect my interests for weak sentiment. Now the road must be made,
and that clump of trees stand directly in its course, and they must
come down, or the road will have to take a curve nearly half a mile
round, striking into one of my best meadows, and a good deal more
expense this will be, too. No, no," he continued, eagerly, "I can't
oblige you in this thing. This place is mine, and I will improve it
as I please. I have kept back from making many a change for your
sake, but just here I am determined to go on." And all this was said
with a raised voice and a flushed face.

"You never spoke so harshly to me in your life before, John, and,
after all, what have I done? Call my feelings on this matter weak
sentiment, if you choose, but it is hard to hear such words from
your lips;" and, with a reproachful sigh, Miss Margaret walked into
the house.

They had been a large family, those Greylstons, in their day, but
now all were gone; all but John and Margaret, the two eldest--the
twin brother and sister. They lived alone in their beautiful country
home; neither had ever been married. John had once loved a fair
young creature, with eyes like heaven's stars, and rose-tinged
cheeks and lips, but she fell asleep just one month before her
wedding-day, and John Greylston was left to mourn over her early
grave, and his shivered happiness. Dearly Margaret loved her twin
brother, and tenderly she nursed him through the long and fearful
illness which came upon him after Ellen Day's death. Margaret
Greylston was radiant in the bloom of young womanhood when this
great grief first smote her brother, but from that very hour she put
away from her the gayeties of life, and sat down by his side, to be
to him a sweet, unselfish controller for evermore, and no lover
could ever tempt her from her post.

"John Greylston will soon get over his sorrow; in a year or two
Ellen will be forgotten for a new face."

So said the world; Margaret knew better. Her brother's heart lay
before her like an open book, and she saw indelible lines of grief
and anguish there. The old homestead, with its wide lands, belonged
to John Greylston. He had bought it years before from the other
heirs; and Margaret, the only remaining one, possessed neither claim
nor right in it. She had a handsome annuity, however, and nearly all
the rich plate and linen with which the house was stocked, together
with some valuable pieces of furniture, belonged to her. And John
and Margaret Greylston lived on in their quiet and beautiful home,
in peace and happiness; their solitude being but now and then
invaded by a flock of nieces and nephews, from the neighbouring
city--their only and well-beloved relatives.

It was long after sunset. For two full hours the moon and stars had
watched John Greylston, sitting so moodily alone upon the porch. Now
he got up from his chair, and tossing his cigar away in the long
grass, walked slowly into the house. Miss Margaret did not raise her
head; her eyes, as well as her fingers, seemed intent upon the
knitting she held. So her brother, after a hurried "Good-night,"
took a candle and went up to his own room, never speaking one gentle
word; for he said to himself, "I am not going to worry and coax with
Margaret any longer about the old pines. She is really troublesome
with her sentimental notions." Yet, after all, John Greylston's
heart reproached him, and he felt restless and ill at ease.

Miss Margaret sat very quietly by the low table, knitting steadily
on, but she was not thinking of her work, neither did she delight in
the beauty of that still autumn evening; the tears came into her
eyes, but she hastily brushed them away; just as though she feared
John might unawares come back and find her crying.

Ah! these _way-side_ thorns are little, but sometimes they pierce as
sharply as the gleaming sword.

"Good-morning, John!"

At the sound of that voice, Mr. Greylston turned suddenly from the
book-case, and his sister was standing near him, her face lit up
with a sweet, yet somewhat anxious smile. He threw down in a hurry
the papers he had been tying together, and the bit of red tape, and
holding out his hand, said fervently,

"I was very harsh last night. I am really sorry for it; will you not
forgive me, Margaret?"

"To be sure I will; for indeed, John, I was quite as much to blame
as you."

"No, Madge, you were not," he quickly answered; "but let it pass,
now. We will think and say no more about it;" and, as though he were
perfectly satisfied, and really wished the matter dropped, John
Greylston turned to his papers again.

So Miss Margaret was silent. She was delighted to have peace again,
even though she felt anxious about the pines, and when her brother
took his seat at the breakfast table, looking and speaking so
kindly, she felt comforted to think the cloud had passed away; and
John Greylston himself was very glad. So the two went on eating
their breakfast quite happily. But alas! the storm is not always
over when the sky grows light. Reuben crossed the lawn, followed by
the gardener, and Miss Margaret's quick eye caught the gleaming of
the axes swung over their shoulders. She hurriedly set down the
coffee-pot.

"Where are those men going? Reuben and Tom I mean."

"Only to the woods," was the careless answer.

"But what woods, John? Oh! I can tell by your face; you are
determined to have the pines cut down."

"I am." And John Greylston folded his arms, and looked fixedly at
his sister, but she did not heed him. She talked on eagerly--

"I love the old trees; I will do anything to save them. John, you
spoke last night of additional expense, should the road take that
curve. I will make it up to you; I can afford to do this very well.
Now listen to reason, and let the trees stand."

"Listen to reason, yourself," he answered more gently. "I will not
take a cent from you. Margaret, you are a perfect enthusiast about
some things. Now, I love my parents and old times, I am sure, as
well as you do, and that love is not one bit the colder, because I
do not let it stand in the way of interest. Don't say anything more.
My mind is made up in this matter. The place is mine, and I cannot
see that you have any right to interfere in the improvements I
choose to make on it."

A deep flush stole over Miss Greylston's face.

"I have indeed no legal right to counsel or plead with you about
these things," she answered sadly, "but I have a sister's right,
that of affection--you cannot deny this, John. Once again, I beg of
you to let the old pines alone."

"And once again, I tell you I will do as I please in this matter,"
and this was said sharply and decidedly.

Margaret Greylston said not another word, but pushing back her
chair, she arose from the breakfast-table and went quickly from the
room, even before her brother could call to her. Reuben and his
companion had just got in the last meadow when Miss Greylston
overtook them.

"You, will let the pines alone to-day," she calmly said, "go to any
other work you choose, but remember those trees are not to be
touched."

"Very well, Miss Margaret," and Reuben touched his hat respectfully,

"Mr. John is very changeable in his notions," burst in Tom; "not an
hour ago he was in such a hurry to get us at the pine."

"Never mind," authoritatively said Miss Greylston; "do just as you
are bid, without any remarks;" and she turned away, and went down
the meadow path, even as she came, within quick step, without a
bonnet, shading her eyes from the morning sun with her handkerchief.

John Greylston still sat at the breakfast-table, half dreamily
balancing the spoon across the saucer's edge. When his sister came
in again, he raised his head, and mutely-inquiringly looked at her,
and she spoke,--

"I left this room just to go after Reuben and Tom; I overtook them
before they had crossed the last meadow, and I told them not to
touch the pine trees, but to go, instead, to any other work they
choose. I am sure you will be angry with me for all this; but, John,
I cannot help it if you are."

"Don't say so, Margaret," Mr. Greylston sharply answered, getting up
at the same time from his chair, "don't tell me you could not help
it. I have talked and reasoned with you about those trees, until my
patience is completely worn out; there is no necessity for you to be
such an obstinate fool."

"Oh! John, hush, hush!"

"I will not," he thundered. "I am master here, and I will speak and
act in this house as I see fit. Now, who gave you liberty to
countermand my orders; to send my servants back from the Work I had
set for them to do? Margaret, I warn you; for, any more such freaks,
you and I, brother and sister though we be, will live no longer
under the same roof."

"Be still, John Greylston! Remember _her_ patient, self-sacrificing
love. Remember the past--be still."

But he would not; relentlessly, stubbornly, the waves of passion
raged on in his soul.

"Now, you hear all this; do not forget it; and have done with your
silly obstinacy as soon as possible, for I will be worried no longer
with it;" and roughly pushing away the slight hand which was laid
upon his arm, Mr. Greylston stalked out of the house.

For a moment, Margaret stood where her brother had left her, just in
the centre of the floor. Her cheeks were very white, but quickly a
crimson flush came over them, and her eyes filled with tears; then
she sat down upon the white chintz-covered settle, and hiding her
face in the pillows, wept violently for a long time.

"I have consulted Margaret's will always; in many things I have
given up to it, but here, where reason is so fully on my side, I
will go on. I have no patience with her weak stubbornness, no
patience with her presumption in forbidding my servants to do as I
have told them; such measures I will never allow in my house;" and
John Greylston, in his angry musings, struck his cane smartly
against a tall crimson dahlia, which grew in the grass-plat. It fell
quivering across his path, but he walked on, never heeding what he
had done. There was a faint sense of shame rising in his heart, a
feeble conviction of having been himself to blame; but just then
they seemed only to fan and increase his keen indignation. Yet in
the midst of his anger, John Greylston had the delicate
consideration for his sister and himself to repeat to the men the
command she had given them.

"Do as Miss Greylston bade you; let the trees stand until further
orders." But pride prompted this, for he said to himself, "If
Margaret and I keep at this childish work of unsaying each other's
commands, that sharp old fellow, Reuben, will suspect that we have
quarrelled."

Mr. Greylston's wrath did not abate; and when he came home at
dinner-time, and found the table so nicely set, and no one but the
little servant to wait upon him, Margaret away, shut up with a bad
headache, in her own room, he somehow felt relieved,--just then he
did not want to see her. But when eventide came, and he sat down to
supper, and missed again his sister's calm and pleasant face, a
half-regretful feeling stole over him, and he grew lonely, for John
Greylston's heart was the home of every kindly affection. He loved
Margaret dearly. Still, pride and anger kept him aloof from her;
still his soul was full of harsh, unforgiving thoughts. And Margaret
Greylston, as she lay with a throbbing head and an aching heart upon
her snowy pillow, thought the hours of that bright afternoon and
evening very long and very weary. And yet those hours were full of
light, and melody, and fragrance, for the sun shone, and the sky was
blue, the birds sang, and the waters rippled; even the autumn
flowers were giving their sweet, last kisses to the air. Earth was
fair,--why, then, should not human hearts rejoice? Ah! _Nature's_
loveliness _alone_ cannot cheer the soul. There was once a day when
the beauty even of _Eden_ ceased to gladden two guilty tremblers who
hid in its bowers.

"A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up
anger." When Margaret Greylston came across that verse, she closed
her Bible, and sat down beside the window to muse. "Ah," she
thought, "how true is that saying of the wise man! If I had only
from the first given John soft answers, instead of grievous words,
we might now have been at peace. I knew his quick temper so well; I
should have been more gentle with him." Then she recalled all John's
constant and tender attention to her wishes; the many instances in
which he had gone back from his own pleasure to gratify her; but
whilst she remembered these things, never once did her noble,
unselfish heart dwell upon the sacrifices, great and numerous, which
she had made for his sake. Miss Margaret began to think she had
indeed acted very weakly and unjustly towards her brother. She had
half a mind just then to go to him, and make this confession. But
she looked out and saw the dear old trees, so stately and beautiful,
and then the memory of all John's harsh and cruel words rushed back
upon her. She struggled vainly to banish them from her mind, she
strove to quell the angry feelings which arose with those memories.
At last she knelt and prayed. When she got up from her knees traces
of tears were on her face, but her heart was calm. Margaret
Greylston had been enabled, in the strength of "that grace which
cometh from above," to forgive her brother freely, yet she scarcely
hoped that he would give her the opportunity to tell him this.

"Good-morning," John Greylston said, curtly and chillingly enough to
his sister. Somehow she was disappointed, even though she knew his
proud temper so well, yet she had prayed that there would have been
some kindly relentings towards her; but there seemed none. So she
answered him sadly, and the two sat down to their gloomy, silent
breakfast. And thus it was all that day. Mr. Greylston still mute
and ungracious; his sister shrank away from him. In that mood she
scarcely knew him; and her face was grave, and her voice so sad,
even the servants wondered what was the matter. Margaret Greylston
had fully overcome all angry, reproachful feelings against her
brother. So far her soul had peace, yet she mourned for his love,
his kind words, and pleasant smiles; and she longed to tell him
this, but his coldness held her back. Mr. Greylston found his
comfort in every way consulted; favourite dishes were silently
placed before him; sweet flowers, as of old, laid upon his table. He
knew the hand which wrought these loving acts. But did this
knowledge melt his heart? In a little while we shall see.

And the third morning dawned. Yet the cloud seemed in no wise
lifted. John Greylston's portrait hung in the parlour; it was
painted in his young days, when he was very handsome. His sister
could not weary of looking at it; to her this picture seemed the
very embodiment of beauty. Dear, unconscious soul, she never thought
how much it was like herself, or even the portrait of her which hung
in the opposite recess--for brother and sister strikingly resembled
each other. Both had the same high brows, the same deep blue eyes
and finely chiselled features, the same sweet and pleasant smiles;
there was but one difference: Miss Margaret's hair was of a pale
golden colour, and yet unchanged; she wore it now put back very
smoothly and plainly from her face. When John was young, his curls
were of so dark a brown as to look almost black in the shade. They
were bleached a good deal by time, but yet they clustered round his
brow in the same careless, boyish fashion as of old.

Just now Miss Margaret could only look at her brother's picture with
tears. On that very morning she stood before it, her spirit so full
of tender memories, so crowded with sad yearnings, she felt as
though they would crush her to the earth. Oh, weary heart! endure
yet "a little while" longer. Even now the angel of reconciliation is
on the wing.

Whilst John Greylston sat alone upon the foot of the porch at the
front of the house, and his sister stood so sadly in the parlour,
the city stage came whirling along the dusty turnpike. It stopped
for a few minutes opposite the lane which led to John Greylston's
place. The door was opened, and a grave-looking young man sprang
out. He was followed by a fairy little creature, who clapped her
hands, and danced for joy when she saw the white chimneys and
vine-covered porches of "Greylston Cottage."

"Annie! Annie!" but she only laughed, and gathering up the folds of
her travelling dress, managed to get so quickly and skilfully over
the fence, that her brother, who was unfastening the gate, looked at
her in perfect amazement.

"What in the world," he asked, with a smile on his grave face,
"possessed you to get over the fence in that monkey fashion? All
those people looking at you, too. For shame, Annie! Will you never
be done with those childish capers?"

"Yes, maybe when I am a gray-haired old woman; not before. Don't
scold now, Richard; you know very well you, and the passengers
beside, would give your ears to climb a fence as gracefully as I did
just now. There, won't you hand me my basket, please?"

He did so, and then, with a gentle smile, took the white, ungloved
fingers in his.

"My darling Annie, remember"--

"Stage waits," cried the driver.

So Richard Bermon's lecture was cut short; he had only time to bid
his merry young sister good-bye. Soon he was lost to sight.

Annie Bermon hurried down the lane, swinging her light willow basket
carelessly on her arm, and humming a joyous air all the way. Just as
she opened the outer lawn gate, the great Newfoundland dog came
towards her with a low growl; it changed directly though into a glad
bark.

"I was sure you would know me, you dear old fellow; but I can't stop
to talk to you just now." And Annie patted his silken ears, and then
went on to the house, the dog bounding on before her, as though he
had found an old playmate.

John Greylston rubbed his eyes. No, it was not a dream. His darling
niece was really by his side, her soft curls touching his cheek; he
flung his arms tightly around her.

"Dear child, I was just dreaming about you; how glad I am to see
your sweet face again."

"I was sure you would be, Uncle John," she answered gayly, "and so I
started off from home this morning just, in a hurry. I took a sudden
fancy that I would come, and they could not keep me. But where is
dear Aunt Margaret? Oh, I know what I will do. I'll just run in and
take her by surprise. How well you look, uncle--so noble and grand
too; by the way, I always think King Robert Bruce must just have
been such a man like you."

"No laughing at your old uncle, you little rogue," said John
Greylston pleasantly, "but run and find your aunt. She is somewhere
in the house." And he looked after her with a loving smile as she
flitted by him. Annie Bermon passed quickly through the shaded
sitting-room into the cool and matted hall, catching glimpses as she
went of the pretty parlour and wide library; but her aunt was in
neither of these rooms; so she hurried up stairs, and stealing on
tiptoe, with gentle fingers she pushed open the door. Margaret
Greylston was sitting by the table, sewing; her face was flushed,
and her eyes red and swollen as with weeping. Annie stood still in
wonder. But Miss Margaret suddenly looked up, and her niece sprang,
with a glad cry, into her arms.

"You are not well, Aunt Margaret? Oh! how sorry I am to hear that,
but it seems to me I could never get sick in this sweet place;
everything looks so bright and lovely here. And I _would_ come this
morning, Aunt Margaret, in spite of everything Sophy and all of them
could say. They told me I had been here once before this summer, and
stayed a long time, and if I would, come again, my welcome would be
worn out, just as if I was going to believe _such_ nonsense;" and
Annie tossed her head. "But I persevered, and you see, aunty dear, I
am here, we will trust for some good purpose, as Richard would say."

A silent Amen to this rose up in Miss Margaret's heart, and with it
came a hope dim and shadowy, yet beautiful withal; she hardly dared
to cherish it. Annie went on talking,--

"I can only stay two weeks with you--school commences then, and I
must hurry back to it; but I am always so glad to get here, away
from the noise and dust of the city; this is the best place in the
world. Do you know when we were travelling this summer, I was pining
all the time to get here. I was so tired of Newport and Saratoga,
and all the crowds we met."

"You are singular in your tastes, some would think, Annie," said
Miss Greylston, smiling fondly on her darling.

"So Madge and Sophy were always saying; even Clare laughed at me,
and my brothers, too,--only Richard,--Oh! by the way, I did torment
him this morning, he is so grave and good, and he was just beginning
a nice lecture at the gate, when the driver called, and poor Richard
had only time to send his love to you. Wasn't it droll, though, that
lecture being cut so short?" and Annie threw herself down in the
great cushioned chair, and laughed heartily.

Annie Bermond was the youngest of John and Margaret Greylston's
nieces and nephews. Her beauty, her sweet and sunny temper made her
a favourite at home and abroad. John Greylston loved her dearly; he
always thought she looked like his chosen bride, Ellen Day. Perhaps
there was some likeness, for Annie had the same bright eyes, and the
same pouting, rose-bud lips--but Margaret thought she was more like
their own family. She loved to trace a resemblance in the smiling
face, rich golden curls, and slight figure of Annie to her young
sister Edith, who died when Annie was a little baby. Just sixteen
years old was Annie, and wild and active as any deer, as her
city-bred sisters sometimes declared half mournfully.

Somehow, Annie Bermond thought it uncommonly grave and dull at the
dinner-table, yet why should it be so? Her uncle and aunt, as kind
and dear as ever, were there; she, herself, a blithe fairy, sat in
her accustomed seat; the day was bright, birds were singing, flowers
were gleaming, but there was a change. What could it be? Annie knew
not, yet her quick perception warned her of the presence of some
trouble--some cloud. In her haste to talk and cheer her uncle and
aunt, the poor child said what would have been best left unsaid.

"How beautiful those trees are; I mean those pines on the hill;
don't you admire them very much, Uncle John?"

"Tolerably," was the rather short answer. "I am too well used to
trees to go into the raptures of my little city niece about them;"
and all this time Margaret looked fixedly down upon the floor.

"Don't you frown so, uncle, or I will run right home to-morrow,"
said Annie, with the assurance of a privileged pet; "but I was going
to ask you about the rock just back of those pines. Do you and Aunt
Margaret still go there to see the sunset? I was thinking about you
these two past evenings, when the sunsets were so grand, and wishing
I was with you on the rock; and you were both there, weren't you?"

This time John Greylston gave no answer, but his sister said
briefly,

"No, Annie, we have not been at the rock for several evenings;" and
then a rather painful silence followed.

Annie at last spoke:

"You both, somehow, seem so changed and dull; I would just like to
know the reason. May be aunty is going to be married. Is that it,
Uncle John?"

Miss Margaret smiled, but the colour came brightly to her face.

"If this is really so, I don't wonder you are sad and grave; you,
especially, Uncle John; how lonely and wretched you would be! Oh!
would you not be very sorry if Aunt Madge should leave you, never to
come back again? Would not your heart almost break?"

John Greylston threw down his knife and fork violently upon the
table, and pushing back his chair, went from the room.

Annie Bermond looked in perfect bewilderment at her aunt, but Miss
Margaret was silent and tearful.

"Aunt! darling aunt! don't look so distressed;" and Annie put her
arms around her neck; "but tell me what have I done; what is the
matter?"

Miss Greylston shook her head.

"You will not speak now, Aunt Margaret; you might tell me; I am sure
something has happened to distress you. Just as soon as I came here,
I saw a change, but I could not understand it. I cannot yet. Tell
me, dear aunt!" and she knelt beside her.

So Miss Greylston told her niece the whole story, softening, as far
as truth would permit, many of John's harsh speeches; but she was,
not slow to blame herself. Annie listened attentively. Young as she
was, her heart took in with the deepest sympathy the sorrow which
shaded her beloved friends.

"Oh! I am so very sorry for all this," she said half crying; "but
aunty, dear, I do not think uncle will have those nice old trees cut
down. He loves you too much to do it; I am sure he is sorry now for
all those sharp things he said; but his pride keeps him back from
telling you this, and maybe he thinks you are angry with him still.
Aunt Margaret, let me go and say to him that your love is as warm as
ever, and that you forgive him freely. Oh! it may do so much good.
May I not go?"

But Miss Greylston tightened her grasp on the young girl's hand.

"Annie, you do not know your uncle as well as I do. Such a step can
do no good,--love, you cannot help us."

"Only let me try," she returned, earnestly; "Uncle John loves me so
much, and on the first day of my visit, he will not refuse to hear
me. I will tell him all the sweet things you said about him. I will
tell him there is not one bit of anger in your heart, and that you
forgive and love him dearly. I am sure when he hears this he will be
glad. Any way, it will not make matters worse. Now, do have some
confidence in me. Indeed I am not so childish as I seem. I am turned
of sixteen now, and Richard and Sophy often say I have the heart of
a woman, even if I have the ways of a child. Let me go now, dear
Aunt Margaret; I will soon come back to you with such good news."

Miss Greylston stooped down and kissed Annie's brow solemnly,
tenderly. "Go, my darling, and may God be with you." Then she turned
away.

And with willing feet Annie Bermond went forth upon her blessed
errand. She soon found her uncle. He was sitting beneath the shade
of the old pines, and he seemed to be in very deep thought. Annie
got down on the grass beside him, and laid her soft cheek upon his
sunburnt hand. How gently he spoke--

"What did you come here for, sweet bird?"

"Because I love you so much, Uncle John; that is the reason; but
won't you tell me why you look so very sad and grave? I wish I knew
your thoughts just now."

"And if you did, fairy, they would not make you any prettier or
better than you are."

"I wonder if they do you any good, uncle?" she quickly replied; but
her companion made no answer; he only smiled.

Let me write here what John Greylston's tongue refused to say. Those
thoughts, indeed, had done him good; they were tender,
self-upbraiding, loving thoughts, mingled, all the while, with
touching memories, mournful glimpses of the past--the days of his
sore bereavement, when the coffin-lid was first shut down over Ellen
Day's sweet face, and he was smitten to the earth with anguish. Then
Margaret's sympathy and love, so beautiful in its strength, and
unselfishness, so unwearying and sublime in its sacrifices, became
to him a stay and comfort. And had she not, for his sake,
uncomplainingly given up the best years of her life, as it seemed?
Had her love ever faltered? Had it ever wavered in its sweet
endeavours to make him happy? These memories, these thoughts, closed
round John Greylston like a circle of rebuking angels. Not for the
first time were they with him when Annie found him beneath the old
pines. Ever since that morning of violent and unjust anger they had
been struggling in his heart, growing stronger, it seemed, every
hour in their reproachful tenderness. Those loving, silent
attentions to his wishes John Greylston had noted, and they rankled
like sharp thorns in his soul. He was not worthy of them; this he
knew. How he loathed himself for his sharp and angry words! He had
it in his heart to tell his sister this, but an overpowering shame
held him back.

"If I only knew how Madge felt towards me," he said many times to
himself, "then I could speak; but I have been such a brute. She can
do nothing else but repulse me;" and this threw around him that
chill reserve which kept Margaret's generous and forgiving heart at
a distance.

Even every-day life has its wonders, and perhaps not one of the
least was that this brother and sister, so long fellow-pilgrims, so
long readers of each other's hearts, should for a little while be
kept asunder by mutual blindness. Yet the hand which is to chase the
mists from their darkened eyes, even now is raised, what though it
be but small? God in his wisdom and mercy will cause its strength to
be sufficient.

When John Greylston gave his niece no answer, she looked intently in
his face and said,

"You will not tell me what you have been thinking about; but I can
guess, Uncle John. I know the reason you did not take Aunt Margaret
to the rock to see the sunset."

"Do you?" he asked, startled from his composure, his face flushing
deeply.

"Yes; for I would not rest until aunty told me the whole story, and
I just came out to talk to you about it. Now, Uncle John, don't
frown, and draw away your hand; just listen to me a little while; I
am sure you will be glad." Then she repeated, in her pretty, girlish
way, touching in its earnestness, all Miss Greylston had told her.
"Oh, if you had only heard her say those sweet things, I know you
would not keep vexed one minute longer! Aunt Margaret told me that
she did not blame you at all, only herself; that she loved you
dearly, and she is so sorry because you seem cold and angry yet, for
she wants so very, very much to beg your forgiveness, and tell you
all this, dear Uncle John, if you would only--"

"Annie," he suddenly interrupted, drawing her closely to his bosom;
"Annie, you precious child, in telling me all this you have taken a
great weight off of my heart. You have done your old uncle a world
of good. God bless you a thousand times! If I had known this at
once; if I had been sure, from the first, of Margaret's forgiveness
for my cruel words, how quickly I would have sought it. My dear,
noble sister!" The tears filled John Greylston's dark blue eyes, but
his smile was so exceedingly tender and beautiful, that Annie drew
closer to his side.

"Oh, that lovely smile!" she cried, "how it lights your face; and
now you look so good and forgiving, dearer and better even than a
king. Uncle John, kiss me again; my heart is so glad! shall I run
now and tell Aunt Margaret all this sweet news?"

"No, no, darling little peace-maker, stay here; I will go to her
myself;" and he hurried away.

Annie Bermond sat alone upon the hill, musingly platting the long
grass together, but she heeded not the work of her fingers. Her face
was bright with joy, her heart full of happiness. Dear child! in one
brief hour she had learned the blessedness of that birthright which
is for all God's sons and daughters, if they will but claim it. I
mean _the privilege of doing good, of being useful_.

Miss Greylston sat by the parlour window, just where she could see
who crossed the lawn. She was waiting with a kind of nervous
impatience for Annie. She heard a footstep, but it was only Liddy
going down to the dairy. Then Reuben went by on his way to the
meadow, and all was silent again. Where was Annie?--but now quick
feet sounded upon the crisp and faded leaves. Miss Margaret looked
out, and saw her brother coming,--then she was sure Annie had in
some way missed him, and she drew back from the window keenly
disappointed, not even a faint suspicion of the blessed truth
crossing her mind. As John Greylston entered the hall, a sudden and
irresistible desire prompted Margaret to go and tell him all the
loving and forgiving thoughts of her heart, no matter what his mood
should be. So she threw down her work, and went quickly towards the
parlour door. And the brother and sister met, just on the threshold.

"John--John," she said, falteringly, "I must speak to you; I cannot
bear this any longer."

"Nor can I, Margaret."

Miss Greylston looked up in her brother's face; it was beaming with
love and tenderness. Then she knew the hour of reconciliation had
come, and with a quick, glad cry, she sprang into his arms and laid
her head down upon his shoulder.

"Can you ever forgive me, Madge?"

She made no reply--words had melted into tears, but they were
eloquent, and for a little while it was quite still in the parlour.

"You shall blame yourself no longer, Margaret. All along you have
behaved like a sweet Christian woman as you are, but I have been an
old fool, unreasonable and cross from the very beginning. Can you
really forgive me all those harsh words, for which I hated myself
not ten hours after they were said? Can you, indeed, forgive and
forget these? Tell me so again."

"John," she said, raising her tearful face from his shoulder, "I do
forgive you most completely, with my whole heart, and, O! I wanted
so to tell you this two days ago, but your coldness kept me back. I
was afraid your anger was not over, and that you would repel me."

"Ah, that coldness was but shame--deep and painful shame. I was
needlessly harsh with you, and moments of reflection only served to
fasten on me the belief that I had lost all claim to your love, that
you could not forgive me. Yes! I did misjudge you, Madge, I know,
but when I looked back upon the past, and all your faithful love for
me, I saw you as I had ever seen you, the best of sisters, and then
my shameful and ungrateful conduct rose up clearly before me. I felt
so utterly unworthy."

Miss Greylston laid her finger upon her brother's lips. "Nor will I
listen to you blaming yourself so heavily any longer. John, you had
cause to be angry with me; I was unreasonably urgent about the
trees," and she sighed; "I forgot to be gentle and patient; so you
see I am to blame as well as yourself."

"But I forgot even common kindness and courtesy;" he said gravely.
"What demon was in my heart, Margaret, I do not know. Avarice, I am
afraid, was at the bottom of all this, for rich as I am, I somehow
felt very obstinate about running into any more expense or trouble
about the road; and then, you remember, I never could love inanimate
things as you do. But from this time forth I will try--and the
pines"--

"Let the pines go down, my dear brother, I see now how unreasonable
I have been," suddenly interrupted Miss Greylston; "and indeed these
few days past I could not look at them with any pleasure; they only
reminded me of our separation. Cut them down: I will not say one
word."

"Now, what a very woman you are, Madge! Just when you have gained
your will, you want to turn about; but, love, the trees shall not
come down. I will give them to you; and you cannot refuse my
peace-offering; and never, whilst John Greylston lives, shall an axe
touch those pines, unless you say so, Margaret."

He laughed when he said this, but her tears were falling fast.

"Next month will be November; then comes our birth-day; we will be
fifty years old, Margaret. Time is hurrying on with us; he has given
me gray locks, and laid some wrinkles on your dear face; but that is
nothing if our hearts are untouched. O, for so many long years, ever
since my Ellen was snatched from me,"--and here John Greylston
paused a moment--"you have been to me a sweet, faithful comforter.
Madge, dear twin sister, your love has always been a treasure to me;
but you well know for many years past it has been my _only_ earthly
treasure. Henceforth, God helping me, I will seek to restrain my
evil temper. I will be more watchful; if sometimes I fail, Margaret,
will you not love me, and bear with me?"

Was there any need for that question? Miss Margaret only answered by
clasping her brother's hand more closely in her own. As they stood
there in the autumn sunlight, united so lovingly, hand in hand, each
silently prayed that thus it might be with them always; not only
through life's autumn, but in that winter so surely for them
approaching, and which would give place to the fair and beautiful
spring of the better land.

Annie Bermond's bright face looked in timidly at the open door.

"Come here, darling, come and stand right beside your old uncle and
aunt, and let us thank you with all our hearts for the good you have
done us. Don't cry any more, Margaret. Why, fairy, what is the
matter with you?" for Annie's tears were falling fast upon his hand.

"I hardly know, Uncle John; I never felt so glad in my life before,
but I cannot help crying. Oh, it is so sweet to think the cloud has
gone."

"And whose dear hand, under God's blessing, drove the cloud away,
but yours, my child?"

Annie was silent; she only clung the tighter to her uncle's arm, and
Miss Greylston said, with a beaming smile,

"Now, Annie, we see the good purpose God had in sending you here
to-day. You have done for us the blessed work of a peace-maker."

Annie had always been dear to her uncle and aunt, but from that
golden autumn day, she became, if such a thing could be, dearer than
ever--bound to them by an exceedingly sweet tie.

Years went by. One snowy evening, a merry Christmas party was
gathered together in the wide parlour at Greylston Cottage,--nearly
all the nephews and nieces were there. Mrs. Lennox, the "Sophy" of
earlier days, with her husband; Richard Bermond and his pretty
little wife were amongst the number; and Annie, dear, bright
Annie--her fair face only the fairer and sweeter for time--sat,
talking in a corner with young Walter Selwyn. John Greylston went
slowly to the window, and pushed aside the curtains, and as he stood
there looking out somewhat gravely in the bleak and wintry night, he
felt a soft hand touch him, and he turned and found Annie Bermond by
his side.

"You looked so lonely, my dear uncle."

"And that is the reason you deserted Walter?" he said, laughing.
"Well, I will soon send you back to him. But, look out here first,
Annie, and tell me what you see;" and she laid her face close to the
window-pane, and, after a minute's silence, said,

"I see the ground white with snow, the sky gleaming with stars, and
the dear old pines, tall and stately as ever."

"Yes, the pines; that is what I meant, my child. Ah, they have been
my silent monitors ever since that day; you remember it, Annie!
Bless you, child! how much good you did us then."

But Annie was silently crying beside him. John Greylton wiped his
eyes, and then he called his sister Margaret to the window.

"Annie and I have been looking at the old pines, and you can guess
what we were thinking about. As for myself," he added, "I never see
those trees without feeling saddened and rebuked. I never recall
that season of error, without the deepest shame and grief. And still
the old pines stand. Well, Madge, one day they will shade our
graves; and of late I have thought that day would dawn very soon."

Annie Bermond let the curtain fall very slowly forward, and buried
her face in her hands; but the two old pilgrims by her side, John
and Margaret Greylston, looked at each other with a smile of hope
and joy. They had long been "good and faithful servants," and now
they awaited the coming of "the Master," with a calm, sweet
patience, knowing it would be well with them, when He would call
them hence.

The pines creaked mournfully in the winter wind, and the stars
looked down upon bleak wastes, and snow-shrouded meadows; yet the
red blaze heaped blithely on the hearth, taking in, in its fair
light, the merry circle sitting side by side, and the thoughtful
little group standing so quietly by the window. And even now the
picture fades, and is gone. The curtain falls--the story of John and
Margaret Greylston is ended.






THE WORLD WOULD BE THE BETTER FOR IT.





IF men cared less for wealth and fame,
  And less for battle-fields and glory;
If, writ in human hearts, a name
  Seemed better than in song and story;
If men, instead of nursing pride,
  Would learn to hate and to abhor it--
    If more relied
    On Love to guide,
The world would be the better for it.

If men dealt less in stocks and lands,
  And more in bonds and deeds fraternal;
If Love's work had more willing hands
  To link this world to the supernal;
If men stored up Love's oil and wine,
  And on bruised human hearts would pour it;
    If "yours" and "mine"
    Would once combine,
The world would be the better for it.

If more would act the play of Life,
  And fewer spoil it in rehearsal;
If Bigotry would sheathe its knife
  Till Good became more universal;
If Custom, gray with ages grown,
  Had fewer blind men to adore it--
    If talent shone
    In truth alone,
The world would be the better for it.

If men were wise in little things--
  Affecting less in all their dealings--
If hearts had fewer rusted strings
  To isolate their kindly feelings;
If men, when Wrong beats down the Right,
  Would strike together and restore it--
    If Right made Might
    In every fight,
The world would be the better for it.






TWO SIDES TO A STORY.





"HAVE you seen much of your new neighbours, yet?" asked Mrs. Morris,
as she stepped in to have an hour's social chat with her old friend,
Mrs. Freeman.

"Very little," was the reply. "Occasionally I have seen the lady
walking in her garden, and have sometimes watched the sports of the
children on the side-walk, but this is all. It is not like the
country, you know. One may live here for years, and not become
acquainted with the next-door neighbours."

"Some may do so," replied Mrs. Morris, "but, for my part, I always
like to know something of those around me. It is not always
desirable to make the acquaintance of near neighbours, but by a
little observation it is very easy to gain an insight into their
characters and position in society. The family which has moved into
the house next to yours, for instance, lived near to me for nearly
two years, and although I never spoke to one of them, I can tell you
of some strange transactions which took place in their house."

"Indeed!" replied Mrs. Freeman, with little manifestation of
interest or curiosity; but Mrs. Morris was too eager to communicate
her information to notice her friend's manner, and lowering her
voice to a confidential tone, continued:--

"There is an old lady in their family whom they abuse in the most
shocking manner. She is very rich, and they by threats and
ill-treatment extort large sums of money from her."

"A singular way of inducing any one to bestow favours," replied Mrs.
Freeman, dryly. "Why does not the old lady leave there?"

"Bless your heart, my dear friend, she cannot get an opportunity!
They never suffer her to leave the house unattended. Once or twice,
indeed, she succeeded in getting into the street, but they
discovered her in a moment, and actually forced her into the house.
You smile incredulously, but if you had been an eye-witness of their
proceedings, as I have, or had heard the screams of the poor
creature, and the heavy blows which they inflict, you would be
convinced of the truth of what I tell you."

"I do not doubt the truth of your story in the least, my dear Mrs.
Morris. I only think that in this case, as in most others, there
must be two sides to the story. It is almost incredible that such
barbarous treatment could continue for any great length of time
without discovery and exposure."

"Oh, as to that, people are not fond of getting themselves into
trouble by meddling with their neighbours' affairs. I am very
cautious about it myself. I would not have mentioned this matter to
any one but an old friend like yourself. It seemed best to put you
on your guard."

"Thank you," was the smiling reply. "It is hardly probable that I
shall be called upon to make any acquaintance with my new neighbours
but if I am, I certainly shall not forget your caution."

Satisfied that she had succeeded, at least partially, in awakening
the suspicions of her friend, Mrs. Morris took her departure, while
Mrs. Freeman, quite undisturbed by her communications, continued her
usual quiet round of domestic duties, thinking less of the affairs
of her neighbours than of those of her own household.

Occasionally she saw the old lady whom Mrs. Morris had mentioned
walking in the adjoining garden, sometimes alone, and sometimes
accompanied by the lady of the house, or one of the children. There
was nothing striking in her appearance. She looked cheerful and
contented, and showed no signs of confinement or abuse. Once, when
Mrs. Freeman was in her garden, she had looked over the fence, and
praised the beauty of her flowers, and when a bunch was presented to
her, had received them with that almost childish delight which aged
people often manifest.

Weeks passed on, and the remarks of Mrs. Morris were almost
forgotten, when Mrs. Freeman was aroused one night by loud cries,
apparently proceeding from the adjoining house; and on listening
intently could plainly distinguish the sound of heavy blows, and
also the voice of the old lady in question, as if in earnest
expostulation and entreaty.

Mrs. Freeman aroused her husband, and together they listened in
anxiety and alarm. For nearly an hour the sounds continued, but at
length all was again quiet. It was long, however, before they could
compose themselves to rest. It was certainly strange and
unaccountable, and there was something so inhuman in the thought of
abusing an aged woman that their hearts revolted at the idea.

Still Mrs. Freeman maintained, as was her wont, that there must be
two sides to the story; and after vainly endeavouring to imagine
what the other side could be, she fell asleep, and was undisturbed
until morning.

All seemed quiet the next day, and Mrs. Freeman had somewhat
recovered from the alarm of the previous night, when she was again
visited by her friend, Mrs. Morris. As usual, she had confidential
communications to make, and particularly wished the advice of Mrs.
Freeman in a matter which she declared weighed heavily upon her
mind; and being assured that they should be undisturbed, began at
once to impart the weighty secret.

"You remember Mrs. Dawson, who went with her husband to Europe, a
year or two ago?"

"Certainly I do," was the reply. "I was well acquainted with her."

"Do you recollect a girl who had lived with her for several years? I
think her name was Mary Berkly."

"Quite well. Mrs. Dawson placed great confidence in her, and wished
to take her abroad, but Mary was engaged to an honest carpenter, in
good business, and wisely preferred a comfortable house in her own
country."

"She had other reasons, I suspect," replied Mrs. Morris,
mysteriously, "but you will hear. This Mary Berkly, or as she is now
called, Mary White, lives not far from my present residence. Her
husband is comfortably off, and his wife is not obliged to work,
excepting in her own family, but still she will occasionally, as a
favour, do up a few muslins for particular persons. You know she was
famous for her skill in those things. The other day, having a few
pieces which I was particularly anxious to have look nice, I called
upon her to see if she would wash them for me. She was not at home,
but her little niece, who lives with her, a child of four years old,
said that Aunt Mary would be in directly, and asked me to walk into
the parlour. I did so, and the little thing stood by my side
chattering away like a magpie. In reply to my questions as to
whether she liked to live with her aunt, what she amused herself
with, &c., &c., she entered into a long account of her various
playthings, and ended by saying that she would show me a beautiful
new doll which her good uncle had given her, if I would please to
unlock the door of a closet near where I was sitting, as she could
not turn the key.

"To please the child I unlocked the door. She threw it wide open,
and to my astonishment I saw that it was filled with valuable silver
plate, china, and other articles of similar kind, some of which I
particularly remembered having seen at Mrs. Dawson's."

"Perhaps she gave them to Mary," suggested Mrs. Freeman. "She was
quite attached to her."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Mrs. Morris. "Valuable silver plate is not
often given to servants. But I have not yet finished. Just as the
child had found the doll Mrs. White entered, and on seeing the
closet-door open, said sternly to the child,

"'Rosy, you did very wrong to open that door without my leave. I
shall not let you take your doll again for a week;' and looking very
red and confused, she hastily closed it, and turned the key. Now, to
my mind, these are suspicious circumstances, particularly as I
recollect that Mr. and Mrs. Dawson were robbed of silver plate
shortly before they went to Europe, and no trace could be found of
the thieves."

"True," replied Mrs. Freeman, thoughtfully; "I recollect the robbery
very well. Still I cannot believe that Mary had anything to do with
it. I was always pleased with her modest manner, and thought her an
honest, capable girl."

"She is very smooth-faced, I know," answered Mrs. Morris, "but
appearances are certainly against her. I am confident that the
articles I saw belonged to Mrs. Dawson."

"There may be another side to the story, however," remarked her
friend; "but why not mention your suspicions to Mrs. Dawson? You
know she has returned, and is boarding in the upper part of the
city. I have her address, somewhere."

"I know where she lives; but would you really advise me to meddle
with the affair? I shall make enemies of Mr. and Mrs. White, if they
hear of it, and I like to have the good-will of all, both, rich and
poor."

"I do not believe that Mary would take anything wrongfully," replied
Mrs. Freeman; "but if my suspicions were as fully aroused as yours
seem to be, I presume I should mention what I saw to Mrs. Dawson, if
it were only for the sake of hearing the other side of the story,
and thus removing such unpleasant doubts from my mind. And, indeed,
if you really think that the articles which you saw were stolen, it
becomes your duty to inform the owners thereof, or you become, in a
measure, a partaker of the theft."

"That is true," said Mrs. Morris, rising, "and in that way I might
ultimately gain the ill-will of Mrs. Dawson; therefore I think I
will go at once and tell her my suspicions."

"Which, I am convinced, you will find erroneous," replied Mrs.
Freeman.

"We shall see," was the answer of her friend, accompanied by an
ominous shake of the head; and promising to call upon Mrs. Freeman
on her return, she took leave.

During her absence, the alarming cries from the next house were
again heard; and presently the old lady appeared on the side-walk,
apparently in great agitation and alarm, and gazing wildly about
her, as if seeking a place of refuge; but she was instantly seized
in the forcible manner Mrs. Morris had described, and carried into
the house.

"This is dreadful!" exclaimed Mrs. Freeman. "What excuse can there
be for such treatment?" and for a moment her heart was filled with
indignation toward her supposed barbarous neighbours; but a little
reflection caused her still to suspend her judgment, and endeavour
to learn both sides of the story.

As she sat ruminating on this singular occurrence, and considering
what was her duty in regard to it, she was aroused by the entrance
of Mrs. Morris, who, with an air of vexation and disappointment,
threw herself upon the nearest chair, exclaiming,

"A pretty piece of work I have been about! It is all owing to your
advice, Mrs. Freeman. If it had not been for you I should not have
made such a fool of myself."

"Why, what has happened to you?" asked Mrs. Freeman, anxiously.
"What advice have I given you which has caused trouble?"

"You recommended my calling upon Mrs. Dawson, did you not?"

"Certainly: I thought it the easiest way to relieve your mind from
painful suspicions. What did she say?"

"Say! I wish you could have seen the look she gave me when I told
her what I saw at Mrs. White's. You know her haughty manner? She
thanked me for the trouble I had taken on her account, and begged
leave to assure me that she had perfect confidence in the honesty of
Mrs. White. The articles which had caused me so much unnecessary
anxiety were intrusted to her care when they went to Europe, and it
had not yet been convenient to reclaim them. I cannot tell you how
contemptuously she spoke. I never felt so mortified in my life."

"There is no occasion for feeling so, if your intentions were good,"
answered Mrs. Freeman; "and certainly it must be a relief to you to
hear the other side of the story. Nothing less would have convinced
you of Mrs. White's honesty."

Mrs. Morris was prevented from replying by the sudden and violent
ringing of the bell, and an instant after the door was thrown open,
and the old lady, whose supposed unhappy condition had called forth
their sympathies, rushed into the room.

"Oh, save me! save me!" she exclaimed, frantically. "I am
pursued,--protect me, for the love of Heaven!"

"Poor creature!" said Mrs. Morris. "You see that I was not mistaken
in this story, at least. There can be no two sides to this."

"Depend upon it there is," replied Mrs. Freeman; but she courteously
invited her visiter to be seated, and begged to know what had
occasioned her so much alarm.

The poor lady told a plausible and piteous tale of ill-treatment,
and, indeed, actual abuse. Mrs. Morris listened with a ready ear,
and loudly expressed her horror and indignation. Mrs. Freeman was
more guarded. There was something in the old lady's appearance and
manners that excited an undefinable feeling of fear and aversion.
Mrs. Freeman felt much perplexed as to the course she ought to
pursue, and looked anxiously at the clock to see if the time for her
husband's return was near.

It still wanted nearly two hours, and after a little more
consideration she decided to go herself into the next door, ask for
an interview with the lady of the house, frankly state what had
taken place, and demand an explanation. This resolution she
communicated in a low voice to Mrs. Morris, who opposed it as
imprudent and ill-judged.

"Of course they will deny the charge," she argued, "and by letting
them know where the poor creature has taken shelter, you will again
expose her to their cruelty. Besides, you will get yourself into
trouble. My advice to you is to keep quiet until your husband
returns, and then to assist the poor lady secretly to go to her
friends in the country, who she says will gladly receive her."

"But I am anxious to hear both sides of the story before I decide to
assist her," replied Mrs. Freeman.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed her friend. "Even you must see that there
cannot be two sides to this story. There is no possible excuse for
cruelty, and to an inoffensive, aged woman."

While they were thus consulting together, their visiter regarded
them with a troubled look, and a fierce gleaming eye, which did not,
escape Mrs. Freeman's observation; and just as Mrs. Morris finished
speaking, the maniac sprang upon her, like a tiger on his prey, and,
seizing her by the throat, demanded what new mischief was plotting
against her.

The screams of the terrified women drew the attention of the son of
the old lady, who had just discovered her absence, and was hastening
in search of her. At once suspecting the truth, he rushed without
ceremony into his neighbour's house, and speedily rescued Mrs,
Morris from her unpleasant and somewhat dangerous situation. After
conveying his mother to her own room, and consigning her to strict
custody, he returned, and respectfully apologized to Mrs. Freeman
for what had taken place.

"His poor mother," he said, "had for several years been subject to
occasional fits of insanity. Generally she had appeared harmless,
excepting as regarded herself. Unless prevented by force, she would
sometimes beat her own flesh in a shocking manner, uttering at the
same time loud cries and complaints of the abuse of those whom she
supposed to be tormenting her.

"In her lucid intervals she had so earnestly besought them not to
place her in the asylum for the insane, but to continue to bear with
her under their own roof, that they had found it impossible to
refuse their solemn promise to comply with her wishes.

"For themselves, their love for her rendered them willing to bear
with her infirmities, but it should be their earnest care that their
neighbours should not again be disturbed."

Mrs. Freeman kindly expressed her sympathy and forgiveness for the
alarm which she had experienced, and the gentleman took leave.

Poor Mrs. Morris had remained perfectly silent since her release;
but as the door closed on their visiter, and her friend kindly
turned to inquire how she found herself, she recovered her speech,
and exclaimed, energetically,

"I will never, never say again that there are not two sides to a
story. If I am ever tempted to believe one side without waiting to
hear the other, I shall surely feel again the hands of that old
witch upon my throat."

"Old witch!" repeated Mrs. Freeman. "Surely she demands our sympathy
as much as when we thought her suffering under ill-treatment. It is
indeed a sad thing to be bereft of reason. But this will be a useful
lesson to both of us: for I will readily acknowledge that in this
instance I was sometimes tempted to forget that there are always
'two sides to a story.'"






LITTLE KINDNESSES.





NOT long since, it was announced that a large fortune had been left
to a citizen of the United States by a foreigner, who, some years
before, had "become ill" while travelling in this country, and whose
sick-bed was watched with the utmost care and kindness by the
citizen referred to. The stranger recovered, continued his journey,
and finally returned to his own country. The conduct of the American
at a moment so critical, and when, without relatives or friends, the
invalid was languishing in a strange land, was not forgotten. He
remembered it in his thoughtful and meditative moments, and when
about to prepare for another world, his gratitude was manifested in
a truly signal manner. A year or two ago, an individual in this city
was labouring under great pecuniary difficulty. He was unexpectedly
called upon for a considerable sum of money; and, although his means
were abundant, they were not at that time immediately available.
Puzzled and perplexed, he hesitated as to his best course, when, by
the merest chance, he met an old acquaintance, and incidentally
mentioned the facts of the case. The other referred to an act of
kindness that he had experienced years before, said that he bad
never forgotten it, and that nothing would afford him more pleasure
than to extend the relief that was required, and thus show, his
grateful appreciation of the courtesy of former years! The kindness
alluded to was a mere trifle, comparatively speaking, and its
recollection had passed entirely from the memory of the individual
who had performed it. Not so, however, with the obliged. He had
never forgotten it, and the result proved, in the most conclusive
manner, that he was deeply grateful.

We have mentioned the two incidents with the object of inculcating
the general policy of courtesy and kindness, of sympathy and
assistance, in our daily intercourse with our fellow-creatures. It
is the true course under all circumstances. "Little kindnesses"
sometimes make an impression that "lingers and lasts" for years.
This is especially the case with the sensitive, the generous, and
the high-minded. And how much may be accomplished by this duty of
courtesy and humanity! How the paths of life may be smoothed and
softened! How the present may be cheered, and the future rendered
bright and beautiful!

There are, it is true, some selfish spirits, who can neither
appreciate nor reciprocate a courteous or a generous act. They are
for themselves--"now and for ever"--if we may employ such a
phrase--and appear never to be satisfied. You can never do enough
for them. Nay, the deeper the obligation, the colder the heart. They
grow jealous, distrustful, and finally begin to hate their
benefactors. But these, we trust, are "the exceptions," not "the
rule." Many a heart has been won, many a friendship has been
secured, many a position has been acquired, through the exercise of
such little kindnesses and courtesies as are natural to the generous
in spirit and the noble of soul--to all, indeed, who delight, not
only in promoting their own prosperity, but in contributing to the
welfare of every member of the human family. Who cannot remember
some incident of his own life, in which an individual, then and
perhaps now a stranger--one who has not been seen for years, and
never may be seen again on this side the grave, manifested the true,
the genuine, the gentle spirit of a gentleman and a Christian, in
some mere trifle--some little but impulsive and spontaneous act,
which nevertheless developed the whole heart, and displayed the real
character! Distance and time may separate, and our pursuits and
vocations may be in paths distinct, dissimilar, and far apart. Yet,
there are moments--quiet, calm, and contemplative, when memory will
wander back to the incidents referred to, and we will feel a secret
bond of affinity, friendship, and brotherhood. The name will be
mentioned with respect if not affection, and a desire will be
experienced to repay, in some way or on some occasion, the generous
courtesy of the by-gone time. It is so easy to be civil and
obliging, to be kindly and humane! We not only thus assist the
comfort of others, but we promote our own mental enjoyment. Life,
moreover, is full of chance's and changes. A few years, sometimes,
produce extraordinary revolutions in the fortunes of men. The
haughty of to-day may be the humble of to-morrow; the feeble may be
the powerful; the rich may be the poor, But, if elevated by
affluence or by position, the greater the necessity, the stronger
the duty to be kindly, courteous, and conciliatory to those less
fortunate. We can afford to be so; and a proper appreciation of our
position, a due sympathy for the misfortunes of others, and a
grateful acknowledge to Divine Providence, require that we should be
so. Life is short at best. We are here a few years--we sink into the
grave--and even our memory is phantom-like and evanescent. How
plain, then, is our duty! It is to be true to our position, to our
conscience, and to the obligations imposed upon us by society, by
circumstances, and by our responsibility to the Author of all that
is beneficent and good.






LEAVING OFF CONTENTION BEFORE IT BE MEDDLED WITH.





WE are advised to leave off contention before it be meddled with, by
one usually accounted a very wise man. Had he never given the world
any other evidence of superior wisdom, this admonition alone would
have been sufficient to have established his claims thereto. It
shows that he had power to penetrate to the very root of a large
share of human misery. For what is the great evil in our condition
here? Is it not misunderstanding, disagreement, alienation,
contention, and the passions and results flowing from these? Are not
contempt, and hatred, and strife, and alteration, and slander, and
evil-speaking, the things hardest to bear, and most prolific of
suffering, in the lot of human life? The worst woes of life are such
as spring from, these sources.

Is there any cure for these maladies? Is there anything to prevent
or abate these exquisite sufferings? The wise man directs our
attention to a remedial preventive in the advice above referred to.
His counsel to those whose lot unites them in the same local
habitations and name to those who are leagued in friendship or
business, in the changes of sympathy and the chances of collision,
is, to suppress anger or dissatisfaction, to be candid and
charitable in judging, and, by all means, to leave off contention
before it be meddled with. His counsel to all is to endure injury
meekly, not to give expression to the sense of wrong, even when we
might seem justified in resistance or complaint. His counsel is to
yield something we might fairly claim, to pardon when we might
punish, to sacrifice somewhat of our rights for the sake of peace
and friendly affection. His counsel is not to fire at every
provocation, not to return evil for evil, not to cherish any fires
of revenge, burning to be even with the injurious person. His
counsel is to curb our imperiousness, to repress our impatience, to
pause in the burst of another's feeling, to pour water upon the
kindling flames, or, at the very least, to abstain from adding any
fresh fuel thereto.

One proof of the superior wisdom of this counsel is, that few seem
to appreciate or perceive it. To many it seems no great virtue or
wisdom, no great and splendid thing, in some small issue of feeling
or opinion, in the family or among friends, to withhold a little, to
tighten the rein upon some headlong propensity, and await a calm for
fair adjustment. Such a course is not usually held to be a proof of
wisdom or virtue; and men are much more ready to praise and think
well of smartness, and spirit, and readiness for an encounter. To
leave off contention before it is meddled with does not command any
very general admiration; it is too quiet a virtue, with no striking
attitudes, and with lips which answer nothing. This is too often
mistaken for dullness, and want of proper spirit. It requires
discernment and superior wisdom to see a beauty in such repose and
self-control, beyond the explosions of anger and retaliation. With
the multitude, self-restraining meekness under provocation is a
virtue which stands quite low in the catalogue. It is very
frequently set down as pusillanimity and cravenness of spirit. But
it is not so; for there is a self-restraint under provocation which
is far from being cowardice, or want of feeling, or shrinking from
consequences; there is a victory over passionate impulses which is
more difficult and more meritorious than a victory on the bloody
battle-field. It requires more power, more self-command, often, to
leave off contention, when provocation and passion are causing the
blood to boil, than to rush into it.

Were this virtue more duly appreciated, and the admonition of the
Wise Man more extensively heeded, what a change would be effected in
human life! How many of its keenest sufferings would be annihilated!
The spark which kindles many great fires would be withheld; and,
great as are the evils and sufferings caused by war, they are not as
great, probably, as those originating in impatience and want of
temper. The fretfulness of human life, it seems not hard to believe,
is a greater evil, and destroys more happiness, than all the bloody
scenes of the, battle-field. The evils of war have generally
something to lighten the burden of them in a sense of necessity, or
of rights or honour invaded; but there is nothing of like importance
to alleviate the sufferings caused by fretfulness, impatience, want
of temper. The excitable peevishness which kindles at trifles, that
roughens the daily experience of a million families, that scatters
its little stings at the table and by the hearth-stone, what does
this but unmixed harm? What ingredient does it furnish but of gall?
Its fine wounding may be of petty consequence in any given case, and
its tiny darts easily extracted; but, when habitually carried into
the whole texture of life, it destroys more peace than plague and
famine and the sword. It is a deeper anguish than grief; it is a
sharper pang than the afflicted moan with; it is a heavier pressure
from human hands than when affliction lays her hand upon you. All
this deduction from human comfort, all this addition to human
suffering, may be saved, by heeding the admonition of wisdom given
by one of her sons. When provoked by the follies or the passions,
the offences or neglects, the angry words or evil-speaking of
others, restrain your propensity to complain or contend; leave off
contention before you take the first step towards it. You will then
be greater than he that taketh a city. You will be a genial
companion in your family and among your neighbours. You will be
loved at home and blessed abroad. You will be a source of comfort to
others, and carry a consciousness of praiseworthiness in your own
bosom. On the contrary, an acrid disposition, a readiness to enter
into contention, is like vinegar to the teeth, like caustic to an
open sore. It eats out all the beauty, tenderness, and affection of
domestic and social life. For all this the remedy is simple. Put a
restraint upon your feelings; give up a little; take less than
belongs to you; endure more than should be put upon you; make
allowance for another's judgment or educational defects; consider
circumstances and constitution; leave off contention before it be
meddled with. If you do otherwise, quick resentment and stiff
maintenance of your position will breed endless disputes and
bitterness. But happy will be the results of the opposite course,
accomplished every day and every hour in the family, with friends,
with companions, with all with whom you have any dealings or any
commerce in life.

Let any one set himself to the cultivation of this virtue of
meekness and self-restraint, and he will find that it cannot be
secured by one or a few efforts, however resolute; by a few
struggles, however severe. It requires industrious culture; it
requires that he improve every little occasion to quench strife and
fan concord, till a constant sweetness smooths the face of domestic
life, and kindness and tenderness become the very expression of the
countenance. This virtue of self-control must grow by degrees. It
must grow by a succession of abstinences from returning evil for
evil, by a succession of leaving off contention before the first
angry word escapes.

It may help to cultivate this virtue, to practise some forethought.
When tempted to irritable, censorious speech, one might with
advantage call to recollection the times, perhaps frequent, when
words uttered in haste have caused sorrow or repentance. Then,
again, the fact might be called to mind, that when we lose a friend,
every harsh word we may have spoken rises to condemn us. There is a
resurrection, not for the dead only, but for the injuries we have
fixed in their hearts--in hearts, it may be, bound to our own, and
to which we owed gentleness instead of harshness. The shafts of
reproach, which come from the graves of those who have been wounded
by our fretfulness and irritability, are often hard to bear. Let
meek forbearance and self-control prevent such suffering, and guard
us against the condemnations of the tribunal within.

There is another tribunal, also, which it were wise to think of. The
rule of that tribunal is, that if we forgive not those who trespass
against us, we ourselves shall not be forgiven. "He shall have
judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy." Only, then, if we
do not need, and expect never to beg the mercy of the Lord to
ourselves, may we withhold our mercy from our fellow-men.






"ALL THE DAY IDLE."





WHEREFORE idle?--when the harvest beckoning,
  Nods its ripe tassels to the brightening sky?
Arise and labour ere the time of reckoning,
  Ere the long shadows and the night draw night.

Wherefore idle?--Swing the sickle stoutly!
  Bind thy rich sheaves exultingly and fast!
Nothing dismayed, do thy great task devoutly--
  Patient and strong, and hopeful to the last!

Wherefore idle?--Labour, not inaction,
  Is the soul's birthright, and its truest rest;
Up to thy work!--It is Nature's fit exaction--
  He who toils humblest, bravest, toils the best.

Wherefore idle?--God himself is working;
  His great thought wearieth not, nor standeth still,
In every throb of his vast heart is lurking
  Some mighty purpose of his mightier will.

Wherefore idle?--Not a leaf's slight rustle
  But chides thee in thy vain, inglorious rest;
Be a strong actor in the great world,--bustle,--
  Not a, weak minion or a pampered guest!

Wherefore idle?--Oh I _my_ faint soul, wherefore?
  Shake first from thine own powers dull sloth's control;
Then lift thy voice with an exulting "Therefore
  Thou, too, shalt conquer, oh, thou striving soul!"






THE BUSHEL OF CORN.





FARMER GRAY had a neighbour who was not the best-tempered man in the
world though mainly kind and obliging. He was shoemaker. His name
was Barton. One day, in harvest-time, when every man on the farm was
as busy as a bee, this man came over to Farmer Gray's, and said, in
rather a petulant tone of voice,

"Mr. Gray, I wish you would send over, and drive your geese home."

"Why so, Mr. Barton; what have my geese been doing?" said the
farmer, in a mild, quiet-tone.

"They pick my pigs' ears when they are eating, and go into my
garden, and I will not have it!" the neighbour replied, in a still
more petulant voice.

"I am really sorry it, Neighbour Barton, but what can I do?"

"Why, yoke them, and thus keep them on your own premises. It's no
kind of a way to let your geese run all over every farm and garden
in the neighborhood."

"But I cannot see to it, now. It is harvest-time, Friend Barton, and
every man, woman, and child on the farm has as much as he or she can
do. Try and bear it for a week or so, and then I will see if I can
possibly remedy the evil."

"I can't bear it, and I won't bear it any longer!" said the
shoemaker. "So if you do not take care of them, Friend Gray, I shall
have to take care of them for you."

"Well, Neighbour Barton, you can do as you please," Farmer Gray
replied, in his usual quiet tone. "I am sorry that they trouble you,
but I cannot attend to them now."

"I'll attend to them for you, see if I don't," said the shoemaker,
still more angrily than when he first called upon Farmer Gray; and
then turned upon his heel, and strode off hastily towards his own
house, which was quite near to the old farmer's.

"What upon earth can be the matter with them geese?" said Mrs. Gray,
about fifteen minutes afterwards.

"I really cannot tell, unless Neighbour Barton is taking care of
them. He threatened to do so, if I didn't yoke them right off."

"Taking care of them! How taking care of them?"

"As to that, I am quite in the dark. Killing them, perhaps. He said
they picked at his pigs' ears, and drove them away when they were
eating, and that he wouldn't have it. He wanted me to yoke them
right off, but that I could not do, now, as all the hands are busy.
So, I suppose, he is engaged in the neighbourly business of taking
care of our geese."

"John! William! run over and see what Mr. Barton is doing with my
geese," said Mrs. Gray, in a quick and anxious tone, to two little
boys who were playing near.

The urchins scampered off, well pleased to perform any errand.

"Oh, if he has dared to do anything to my geese, I will never
forgive him!" the good wife said, angrily.

"H-u-s-h, Sally! make no rash speeches. It is more than probable
that he has killed some two or three of them. But never mind, if he
has. He will get over this pet, and be sorry for it."

"Yes; but what good will his being sorry do me? Will it bring my
geese to life?"

"Ah, well, Sally, never mind. Let us wait until we learn what all
this disturbance is about."

In about ten minutes the children came home, bearing the bodies of
three geese, each without a head.

"Oh, is not that too much for human endurance?" cried Mrs. Gray.
"Where did you find them?"

"We found them lying out in the road," said the oldest of the two
children, "and when we picked them up, Mr. Barton said, 'Tell your
father that I have yoked his geese for him, to save him the trouble,
as his hands are all too busy to do it.'"

"I'd sue him for it!" said Mrs. Gray, in an indignant tone.

"And what good would that do, Sally?"

"Why, it would do a great deal of good. It would teach him better
manners. It would punish him; and he deserves punishment."

"And punish us into the bargain. We have lost three geese, now, but
we still have their good fat bodies to eat. A lawsuit would cost us
many geese, and not leave us even so much as the feathers, besides
giving us a world of trouble and vexation. No, no, Sally; just let
it rest, and he will be sorry for it, I know."

"Sorry for it, indeed! And what good will his being sorry for it do
us, I should like to know? Next he will kill a cow, and then we must
be satisfied with his being sorry for it! Now, I can tell you, that
I don't believe in that doctrine. Nor do I believe anything about
his being sorry--the crabbed, ill-natured wretch!"

"Don't call hard names, Sally," said Farmer Gray, in a mild,
soothing tone. "Neighbour Barton was not himself when he killed the
geese. Like every other angry person, he was a little insane, and
did what he would not have done had he been perfectly in his right
mind. When you are a little excited, you know, Sally, that even you
do and say unreasonable things."

"Me do and say unreasonable things!" exclaimed Mrs. Gray, with a
look and tone of indignant astonishment; "me do and say unreasonable
things, when I am angry! I don't understand you, Mr. Gray."

"May-be I can help you a little. Don't you remember how angry you
were when Mr. Mellon's old brindle got into our garden, and trampled
over your lettuce-bed, and how you struck her with the oven-pole,
and knocked off one of her horns?"

"But I didn't mean to do that, though."

"No; but then you were angry, and struck old Brindle with a right
good will. And if Mr. Mellon had felt disposed, he might have
prosecuted for damages."

"But she had no business there."

"Of course not. Neither had our geese any business in Neighbour
Barton's yard. But, perhaps, I can help you to another instance,
that will be more conclusive, in regard to your doing and saying
unreasonable things, when you are angry. You remember the patent
churn?"

"Yes; but never mind about that."

"So you have not forgotten how unreasonable you was about the churn.
It wasn't good for anything--you knew it wasn't; and you'd never put
a jar of cream into it as long as you lived--that you wouldn't. And
yet, on trial, you found that churn the best you had ever used, and
you wouldn't part with it on any consideration. So you see, Sally,
thai even you can say and do unreasonable things, when you are
angry, just as well as Mr. Barton can. Let us then consider him a
little, and give him time to get over his angry fit. It will be much
better to do so."

Mrs. Gray saw that her husband was right, but still she felt
indignant at the outrage committed on her geese. She did not,
however, say anything about suing the shoemaker--for old Brindle's
head, from which the horn had been knocked off, was not yet entirely
well, and one prosecution very naturally suggested the idea of
another. So she took her three fat geese, and after stripping off
their feathers, had them prepared for the table.

On the next morning, as Farmer Gray was going along the road, he met
the shoemaker, and as they had to pass very near to each other, the
farmer smiled, and bowed, and spoke kindly. Mr. Barton looked and
felt very uneasy, but Farmer Gray did not seem to remember the
unpleasant incident of the day before.

It was about eleven o'clock of the same day that one of Farmer
Gray's little boys came running to him, and crying,

"Oh, father! father! Mr. Barton's hogs are in our cornfield."

"Then I must go and drive them out," said Mr. Gray, in a quiet tone.

"Drive them out!" ejaculated Mrs. Gray; "drive 'em out, indeed! I'd
shoot them, that's what I'd do! I'd serve them as he served my geese
yesterday."

"But that wouldn't bring the geese to life again, Sally."

"I don't care if it wouldn't. It would be paying him in his own
coin, and that's all he deserves."

"You know what the Bible says, Sally, about grievous words, and they
apply with stronger force to grievous actions. No, no, I will return
Neighbour Barton good for evil. That is the best way. He has done
wrong, and I am sure is sorry for it. And as I wish him still to
remain sorry for so unkind and unneighbourly an action, I intend
making use of the best means for keeping him sorry."

"Then you will be revenged on him, anyhow."

"No, Sally--not revenged. I hope I have no such feeling. For I am
not angry with Neighbour Barton, who has done himself a much greater
wrong than he has done me. But I wish him to see clearly how wrong
he acted, that he may do so no more. And then we shall not have any
cause to complain of him, nor he any to be grieved, as I am sure he
is, at his own hasty conduct. But while I am talking here, his hogs
are destroying my corn."

And so saying, Farmer Gray hurried off, towards his cornfield. When
he arrived there, he found four large hogs tearing down the stalks,
and pulling off and eating the ripe ears of corn. They had already
destroyed a good deal. But he drove them out very calmly, and put up
the bars through which they had entered, and then commenced
gathering up the half-eaten ears of corn, and throwing them out into
the lane for the hogs, that had been so suddenly disturbed in the
process of obtaining a liberal meal. As he was thus engaged, Mr.
Barton, who had from his own house seen the farmer turn the hogs out
of his cornfield, came hurriedly up, and said,

"I am very sorry, Mr. Gray, indeed I am, that my hogs have done
this! I will most cheerfully pay you for what they have destroyed."

"Oh, never mind, Friend Barton--never mind. Such things will happen,
occasionally. My geese, you know, annoy you very much, sometimes."

"Don't speak of it, Mr. Gray. They didn't annoy me half as much as I
imagined they did. But how much corn do you think my hogs have
destroyed? One bushel, or two bushels? or how much? Let it be
estimated, and I will pay for it most cheerfully."

"Oh, no. Not for the world, Friend Barton. Such things will happen
sometimes. And, besides, some of my men must have left the bars
down, or your hogs could never have got in. So don't think any more
about it. It would be dreadful if one neighbour could not bear a
little with another."

All this cut poor Mr. Barton to the heart. His own ill-natured
language and conduct, at a much smaller trespass on his rights,
presented itself to his mind, and deeply mortified him. After a few
moments' silence, he said,

"The fact is, Mr. Gray, I shall feel better if you will let me pay
for this corn. My hogs should not be fattened at your expense, and I
will not consent to its being done. So I shall insist on paying you
for at least one bushel of corn, for I am sure they have destroyed
that much, if not more."

But Mr. Gray shook his head and smiled pleasantly, as he replied,

"Don't think anything more about it, Neighbour Barton. It is a
matter deserving no consideration. No doubt my cattle have often
trespassed on you and will trespass on you again. Let us then bear
and forbear."

All this cut the shoemaker still deeper, and he felt still less at
ease in mind after he parted from the farmer than he did before. But
on one thing he resolved, and that was, to pay Mr. Gray for the corn
which his hogs had eaten.

"You told him your mind pretty plainly, I hope," said Mrs. Gray, as
her husband came in.

"I certainly did," was the quiet reply.

"And I am glad you had spirit enough to do it! I reckon he will
think twice before he kills any more of my geese!"

"I expect you are right, Sally. I don't think we shall be troubled
again."

"And what did you say to him? And what did he say for himself?"

"Why he wanted very much to pay me for the corn his pigs had eaten,
but I wouldn't hear to it. I told him that it made no difference in
the world; that such accidents would happen sometimes."

"You did?"

"Certainly, I did."

"And that's the way you spoke your mind to him?"

"Precisely. And it had the desired effect. It made him feel ten
times worse than if I had spoken angrily to him. He is exceedingly
pained at what he has done, and says he will never rest until he has
paid for that corn. But I am resolved never to take a cent for it.
It will be the best possible guarantee I can have for his kind and
neighbourly conduct hereafter."

"Well, perhaps you are right," said Mrs. Gray, after a few moments
of thoughtful silence. "I like Mrs. Barton very much--and now I come
to think of it, I should not wish to have any difference between our
families."

"And so do I like Mr. Barton. He has read a good deal, and I find it
very pleasant to sit with him, occasionally, during the long winter
evenings. His only fault is his quick temper--but I am sure it is
much better for us to bear with and soothe that, than to oppose rand
excite it and thus keep both his family and our own in hot water."

"You are certainly right," replied Mrs. Gray; "and I only wish that
I could always think and feel as you do. But I am little quick, as
they say."

"And so is Mr. Barton. Now just the same consideration that you
would desire others to have for you, should you exercise towards Mr.
Barton, or any one else whose hasty temper leads him into words or
actions that, in calmer and more thoughtful moments, are subjects of
regret."

On the next day, while Mr. Gray stood in his own door, from which he
could see over the two or three acres of ground that the shoemaker
cultivated, he observed two of his cows in his neighbour's
cornfield, browsing away in quite a contented manner. As he was
going to call one of the farm hands to go over and drive them out,
he perceived that Mr. Barton had become aware of the mischief that
was going on, and had already started for the field of corn.

"Now we will see the effect of yesterday's lesson," said the farmer
to himself; and then paused to observe the manner of the shoemaker
towards his cattle in driving them out of the field. In a few
minutes Mr. Barton came up to the cows, but, instead of throwing
stones at them, or striking them with a stick, he merely drove them
out in a quiet way, and put up the bars through which they had
entered.

"Admirable!" ejaculated Farmer Gray.

"What is admirable?" asked his wife, who came within hearing
distance at the moment.

"Why the lesson I gave our friend Barton yesterday. It works
admirably."

"How so?"

"Two of our cows were in his cornfield a few minutes ago, destroying
the corn at a rapid rate."

"Well! what did he do to them?" in a quick, anxious tone.

"He drove them out."

"Did he stone them, or beat them?"

"Oh no. He was gentle as a child towards them."

"You are certainly jesting."

"Not I. Friend Barton has not forgotten that his pigs were in my
cornfield yesterday, and that I turned them out without hurting a
hair of one of them. Now, suppose I had got angry and beaten his
pigs, what do you think the result would have been? Why, it is much
more than probable that one or both of our fine cows would have been
at this moment in the condition of Mr. Mellon's old Brindle."

"I wish you wouldn't say anything more about old Brindle," said Mrs.
Gray, trying to laugh, while her face grew red in spite of her
efforts to keep down her feelings.

"Well, I won't, Sally, if it worries you. But it is such a good
illustration that I can't help using it sometimes."

"I am glad he didn't hurt the cows," said Mrs. Gray, after a pause.

"And so am I, Sally. Glad on more than one account. It shows that he
has made an effort to keep down his hasty, irritable temper--and if
he can do that, it will be a favour conferred on the whole
neighbourhood, for almost every one complains, at times, of this
fault in his character."

"It is certainly the best policy, to keep fair weather with him,"
Mrs. Gray remarked, "for a man of his temper could annoy us a good
deal."

"That word policy, Sally, is not a good word," replied her husband.
"It conveys a thoroughly selfish idea. Now, we ought to look for
some higher motives of action than mere policy--motives grounded in
correct and unselfish principles."

"But what other motive but policy could we possibly have for putting
up with Mr. Barton's outrageous conduct?"

"Other, and far higher motives, it seems to me. We should reflect
that Mr. Barton has naturally a hasty temper, and that when excited
he does things for which he is sorry afterwards--and that, in nine
cases out of ten, he is a greater sufferer from those outbreaks than
any one else. In our actions towards him, then, it is a much higher
and better motive for us to be governed by a desire to aid him in
the correction of this evil, than to look merely to the protection
of ourselves from its effects. Do you not think so?"

"Yes. It does seem so."

"When thus moved to action, we are, in a degree, regarding the whole
neighbourhood, for the evil of which we speak affects all. And in
thus suffering ourselves to be governed by such elevated and
unselfish motives, we gain all that we possibly could have gained
under the mere instigation of policy--and a great deal more. But to
bring the matter into a still narrower compass. In all our actions
towards him and every one else, we should be governed by the simple
consideration--is it right? If a spirit of retaliation be not right,
then it cannot be indulged without a mutual injury. Of course, then,
it should never prompt us to action. If cows or hogs get into my
field or garden, and destroy my property, who is to blame most? Of
course, myself. I should have kept my fences in better repair, or my
gate closed. The animals, certainly, are not to blame, for they
follow only the promptings of nature; and their owners should not be
censured, for they know nothing about it. It would then be very
wrong for me to injure both the animals and their owners for my own
neglect, would it not?"

"Yes,--I suppose it would."

"So, at least, it seems to me. Then, of course, I ought not to
injure Neighbour Barton's cows or hogs, even if they do break into
my cornfield or garden, simply because it would be wrong to do so.
This is the principle upon which we should act, and not from any
selfish policy."

After this there was no trouble about Farmer Gray's geese or cattle.
Sometimes the geese would get among Mr. Barton's hogs, and annoy
them while eating, but it did not worry him as it did formerly. If
they became too troublesome he would drive them away, but not by
throwing sticks and stones at them as he once did.

Late in the fall the shoemaker brought in his bill for work. It was
a pretty large bill, with sundry credits.

"Pay-day has come at last," said Farmer Gray, good-humouredly, as
the shoemaker presented his account.

"Well, let us see!" and he took the bill to examine it item after
item.

"What is this?" he asked, reading aloud.

"'Cr. By one bushel of corn, fifty cents.'"

"It's some corn I had from you."

"I reckon you must be mistaken. You never got any corn from me."

"Oh, yes I did. I remember it perfectly. It is all right."

"But when did you get it, Friend Barton? I am sure that I haven't
the most distant recollection of it."

"My hogs got it," the shoemaker said, in rather a low and hesitating
tone.

"Your hogs!"

"Yes. Don't you remember when my hogs broke into your field, and
destroyed your corn?"

"Oh, dear! is that it? Oh, no, no, Friend Barton! Ii cannot allow
that item in the bill."

"Yes, but you must. It is perfectly just, and I shall never rest
until it is paid."

"I can't, indeed. You couldn't help the hogs getting into my field;
and then you know, Friend Barton (lowering his tone), my geese were
very troublesome!"

The shoemaker blushed and looked confused; but Farmer Gray slapped
him familiarly on the shoulder, and said, in a lively, cheerful way,

"Don't think any more about it, Friend Barton! And hereafter let us
endeavour to 'do as we would be done by,' and then everything will
go on as smooth as clock-work."

"But you will allow that item in the bill?" the shoemaker urged
perseveringly.

"Oh, no, I couldn't do that. I should think it wrong to make you pay
for my own or some of my men's negligence in leaving the bars down."

"But then (hesitatingly), those geese--I killed three. Let it go for
them."

"If you did kill them, we ate them. So that is even. No, no, let the
past be forgotten, and if it makes better neighbours and friends of
us, we never need regret what has happened."

Farmer Gray remained firm, and the bill was settled, omitting the
item of "corn." From that time forth he never had a better neighbour
than the shoemaker. The cows, hogs, and geese of both would
occasionally trespass, but the trespassers were always kindly
removed. The lesson was not lost on either of them--for even Farmer
Gray used to feel, sometimes, a little annoyed when his neighbour's
cattle broke into his field. But in teaching the shoemaker a lesson,
he had taken a little of it himself.






THE ACCOUNT.





THE clock from the city hall struck one;
The merchant's task was not yet done;
He knew the old year was passing away,
And his accounts must all be settled that day;
He must know for a truth how much he should win,
So fast the money was rolling in.

He took the last cash-book, from the pile,
And he summed it up with a happy smile;
For a just and upright man was he,
Dealing with all most righteously,
And now he was sure how much he should win,
How fast the money was rolling in.

He heard not the soft touch on the door--
He heard not the tread on the carpeted floor--
So still was her coming, he thought him alone,
Till she spake in a sweet and silvery tone:
"Thou knowest not yet how much thou shalt win--
How fast the money is rolling in."

Then from 'neath her white, fair arm, she took
A golden-clasped, and, beautiful book--
"'Tis my account thou hast to pay,
In the coming of the New Year's day--
Read--ere thou knowest how much thou shalt win,
How fast the money is rolling in."

He open'd the clasps with a trembling hand--
Therein was Charity's firm demand:
"To the widow, the orphan, the needy, the poor,
Much owest thou of thy yearly store;
Give, ere thou knowest how much thou shalt win--
While fast the money is rolling in."

The merchant took from his box of gold
A goodly sum for the lady bold;
His heart was richer than e'er before,
As she bore the prize from the chamber door.
Ye who would know how much ye can win,
Give, when the money is rolling in.






CONTENTMENT BETTER THAN WEALTH.





"IT is vain, to urge, Brother Robert. Out into the world I must go.
The impulse is on me. I should die of inaction here."

"You need not be inactive. There is work to do. I shall never be
idle."

"And such work! Delving in, and grovelling close to the ground. And
for what? Oh no Robert. My ambition soars beyond your 'quiet cottage
in a sheltered vale.' My appetite craves something more than simple
herbs, and water from the brook. I have set my heart on attaining
wealth; and where there is a will there is always a way."

"Contentment is better than wealth."

"A proverb for drones."

"No, William, it is a proverb for the wise."

"Be it for the wise or simple, as commonly, understood, it is no
proverb for me. As poor plodder along the way of life, it were
impossible for me to know content. So urge no farther, Robert. I am
going out into the world a wealth-seeker, and not until wealth is
gained do I purpose to return."

"What of Ellen, Robert?"

The young man turned quickly towards his brother, visibly disturbed,
and fixed his eyes upon him with an earnest expression.

"I love her as my life," he said, with a strong emphasis on his
words.

"Do you love wealth more than life, William?"

"Robert!"

"If you love Ellen as your life, and leave her for the sake of
getting riches, then you must love money more than life."

"Don't talk to me after this fashion. I love her tenderly and truly.
I am going forth as well for her sake as my own. In all the good
fortune that comes as a meed of effort, she will be the sharer."

"You will see her before you leave us?"

"No; I will neither pain her nor myself by a parting interview. Send
her this letter and this ring."

A few hours later, and there brothers stood with tightly-grasped
hands, gazing into each other's faces.

"Farewell, Robert."

"Farewell, William. Think of the old homestead as still your home.
Though it is mine, in the division of our patrimony, let your heart
come back to it as yours. Think of it as home; and, should Fortune
cheat you with the apples of Sodom, return to it again. Its doors
will ever be open, and its hearth-fire bright for you as of old.
Farewell!"

And they turned from each other, one going out into the restless
world, an eager seeker for its wealth and honours; the other to
linger among the pleasant places dear to him by every association of
childhood, there to fill up the measure of his days--not idly, for
he was no drone in the social hive.

On the evening of that day two maidens sat alone, each in the
sanctuary of her own chamber. There was a warm glow on the cheeks of
one, and a glad light in her eyes. Pale was the other's face, and
wet her drooping lashes. And she that sorrowed held an open letter
in her hand. It was full of tender words; but the writer loved
wealth more than the maiden, and had gone forth to seek the mistress
of his soul. He would "come back," but when? Ah, what a veil of
uncertainty was upon the future! Poor, stricken heart! The other
maiden--she of the glowing cheeks and dancing eyes--held also a
letter in her hand. It was from the brother of the wealth-seeker;
and it was also full of loving words; and it said that, on the
morrow, he would come to bear her as his bride to his pleasant home.
Happy maiden!

Ten years have passed. And what of the wealth-seeker? Has he won the
glittering prize? What of the pale-faced maiden he left in tears?
Has he returned to her? Does she share now his wealth and honour?
Not since the day he went forth from the home of his childhood has a
word of intelligence from the wanderer been received; and to those
he left behind him he is as one who has passed the final bourne. Yet
he still dwells among the living.

In a far-away, sunny clime stands a stately mansion. We will not
linger to describe the elegant interior, to hold up before the
reader's imagination a picture of rural beauty, exquisitely
heightened by art, but enter its spacious hall, and pass up to one
of its most luxurious chambers. How hushed and solemn the pervading
atmosphere! The inmates, few in number, are grouped around one on
whose white forehead Time's trembling finger has written the word
"Death!" Over her bends a manly form. There--his face is towards
you. Ah! you recognise the wanderer--the wealth-seeker. What does he
here? What to him is the dying one? His wife! And has he, then,
forgotten the maiden whose dark lashes lay wet on her pale cheeks
for many hours after she read his parting words? He has not
forgotten, but been false to her. Eagerly sought he the prize, to
contend for which he went forth. Years came and departed; yet still
hope mocked him with ever-attractive and ever-fading illusions.
To-day he stood with his hand just ready to seize the object of his
wishes, to-morrow a shadow mocked him. At last, in an evil hour, he
bowed down his manhood prostrate even to the dust in woman worship,
and took to himself a bride, rich in golden, attractions, but poorer
as a woman than ever the beggar at her father's gate. What a thorn
in his side she proved! A thorn ever sharp and ever piercing. The
closer he attempted to draw her to his bosom, the deeper went the
points into his own, until, in the anguish of his soul, again and
again he flung her passionately from him.

Five years of such a life! Oh, what is there of earthly good to
compensate therefor? But in this last desperate throw did the
worldling gain the wealth, station, and honour he coveted? He had
wedded the only child of a man whose treasure might be counted by
hundreds of thousands; but, in doing so, he had failed to secure the
father's approval or confidence. The stern old man regarded him as a
mercenary interloper, and ever treated him as such. For five years,
therefore, he fretted and chafed in the narrow prison whose gilded
bars his own hands had forged. How often, during that time, had his
heart wandered back to the dear old home, and the beloved ones with
whom he had passed his early years! And, ah! how many, many times
came between him and the almost hated countenance of his wife the
gentle, the loving face of that one to whom he had been false! How
often her soft blue eyes rested on his own How often he started and
looked up suddenly, as if her sweet voice came floating on the air!

And so the years moved on, the chain galling more deeply, and a
bitter sense of humiliation as well as bondage robbing him of all
pleasure in his life.

Thus it is with him when, after ten years, we find him waiting, in
the chamber of death, for the stroke that is to break the fetters
that so long have bound him. It has fallen. He is free again. In
dying, the sufferer made no sign. Suddenly she plunged into the dark
profound, so impenetrable to mortal eyes, and as the turbid waves
closed, sighing over her, he who had called her wife turned from the
couch on which her frail body remained, with an inward "Thank God! I
am a man again!"

One more bitter dreg yet remained for his cup. Not a week had gone
by ere the father of his dead wife spoke to him these cutting
words:--

"You were nothing to me while my daughter lived--you are less than
nothing to me now. It was my wealth, not my child you loved. She has
passed away. What affection would have given to her, dislike will
never bestow on you. Henceforth we are strangers."

When the next sun went down on that stately mansion, which the
wealth-seeker had coveted, he was a wanderer again--poor,
humiliated, broken in spirit.

How bitter had been the mockery of all his early hopes! How terrible
the punishment he had suffered!

One more eager, almost fierce struggle with alluring fortune, with
which the worldling came near steeping his soul in crime, and then
fruitless ambition died in his bosom.

"My brother said well," he murmured, as a ray of light fell suddenly
on the darkness of his spirit; "'contentment is better than wealth.'
Dear brother! Dear old home! Sweet Ellen! Ah, why did I leave you?
Too late! too late! A cup, full of the wine of life, was at my lips;
but, I turned my head away, asking for a more fiery and exciting
draught. How vividly comes before me now that parting scene! I am
looking into my brother's face. I feel the tight grasp of his hand.
His voice is in my ears. Dear brother! And his parting words, I hear
them now, even more earnestly than when they were first spoken.
'Should fortune cheat you with the apples of Sodom, return to your
home again. Its doors will ever be open, and its hearth-fires bright
for you as of old.' Ah, do the fires still burn? How many years have
passed since I went forth! And Ellen? Even if she be living and
unchanged in her affections, I can never lay this false heart at her
feet. Her look of love would smite me as with a whip of scorpions."

The step of time has fallen so lightly on the flowery path of those
to whom contentment was a higher boon than wealth, but few footmarks
were visible. Yet there had been changes in the old homestead. As
the smiling years went by, each, as it looked in at the cottage
window, saw the home circle widening, or new beauty crowning the
angel brows of happy children. No thorn to his side had Robert's
gentle wife proved. As time passed on, closer and closer was she
drawn to his bosom; yet never a point had pierced him. Their home
was a type of Paradise.

It is near the close of a summer day. The evening meal is spread,
and they are about gathering round the table, when a stranger
enters. His words are vague and brief, his manner singular, his air
slightly mysterious. Furtive, yet eager glances go from face to
face.

"Are these all your children?" he asks, surprise and admiration
mingling in his tones.

"All ours, and, thank God, the little flock is yet unbroken."

The stranger averts his face. He is disturbed by emotions that it is
impossible to conceal.

"Contentment is better than wealth," he murmurs. "Oh that I had
comprehended the truth."

The words were not meant for others; but the utterance had been too
distinct. They have reached the ears of Robert, who instantly
recognises in the stranger his long-wandering, long-mourned brother.

"William!"

The stranger is on his feet. A moment or two the brothers stand
gazing at each other, then tenderly embrace.

"William!"

How the stranger starts and trembles! He had not seen, in the quiet
maiden, moving among and ministering to the children so
unobtrusively, the one he had parted from years before--the one to
whom he had been so false. But her voice has startled his ears with
the familiar tones of yesterday.

"Ellen!" Here is an instant oblivion of all the intervening years.
He has leaped back over the gulf, and stands now as he stood ere
ambition and lust for gold lured him away from the side of his first
and only love. It is well both for him and the faithful maiden that
he cannot so forget the past as to take her in his arms and clasp
her almost wildly to his heart. But for this, conscious shame would
have betrayed his deeply-repented perfidy.

And here we leave them, reader. "Contentment is better than wealth."
So the worldling proved, after a bitter experience, which may you be
spared! It is far better to realize a truth perceptibly, and thence
make it a rule of action, than to prove its verity in a life of
sharp agony. But how few are able to rise into such a realization!






RAINBOWS EVERYWHERE.





BENDING over a steamer's side, a face looked down into the clear,
green depths of Lake Erie, where the early moonbeams were showering
rainbows through the dancing spray, and chasing the white-crusted
waves with serpents of gold. The face was clouded with thought, a
shade too sombre, yet there glowed over it something like a
reflection from the iris-hues beneath. A voice of using was borne
away into the purple and vermilion haze that twilight began to fold
over the bosom of the lake.

"Rainbows! Ye follow me everywhere! Gloriously your arches arose
from the horizon of the prairies, when the storm-king and the god of
day met within them to proclaim a treaty and an alliance. You
spanned the Father of Waters with a bridge that put to the laugh
man's clumsy structures of chain, and timber, and wire. You floated
in a softening veil before the awful grandeur of Niagara; and here
you gleam out from the light foam in the steamboat's wake.

"Grateful am I for you, oh rainbows! for the clouds, the drops, and
the sunshine of which you are wrought, and for the gift of vision
through which my spirit quaffs the wine of your beauty.

"Grateful also for faith, which hangs an ethereal halo over the
fountains of earthly joy, and wraps grief in robes so resplendent
that, like Iris of the olden time, she is at once recognised as a
messenger from Heaven.

"Blessings on sorrow, whether past or to come! for in the clear
shining of heavenly love, every tear-drop becomes a pearl. The storm
of affliction crushes weak human nature to the dust; the glory of
the eternal light overpowers it; but, in the softened union of both,
the stricken spirit beholds the bow of promise, and knows that it
shall not utterly be destroyed. When we say that for us there is
nothing but darkness and tears, it is because we are weakly brooding
over the shadows within us. If we dared look up, and face our
sorrow, we should see upon it the seal of God's love, and be calm.

"Grant me, Father of Light, whenever my eyes droop heavily with the
rain of grief, at least to see the reflection of thy signet-bow upon
the waves over which I am sailing unto thee. And through the steady
toiling of the voyage, through the smiles and tears of every day's
progress, let the iris-flash appear, even as now it brightens the
spray that rebounds from the labouring wheels."

The voice died away into darkness which returned no answer to its
murmurings. The face vanished from the boat's side, but a flood of
light was pouring into the serene depths of a trusting soul.

THE END.
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