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The Home Mission

by T. S. Arthur · English · Gutenberg #4630 · 317,503 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Home Mission

Author: T. S. Arthur


        
Release date: November 1, 2003 [eBook #4630]
                Most recently updated: September 11, 2012

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4630

Credits: Produced by Charles Aldarondo


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOME MISSION ***




Produced by Charles Aldarondo










THE HOME MISSION.


By

T. S. ARTHUR.



BOSTON:

PHILADELPHIA:

1853.






CONTENTS.


  A VISION OF CONSOLATION
  THE STEP-MOTHER
  POWER OF KINDNESS
  BEAR AND FORBEAR
  THE SOCIAL SERPENT
  THE YOUNG MOTHER
  THE GENTLE WARNING
  KATE'S EXPERIMENT
  "MY FORTUNE'S MADE"
  THE GOOD MATCH
  THE BROTHER'S TEMPTATION
  THE HOME OF TASTE
  THE TWO SISTERS
  THE EVENING PRAYER
  A PEEVISH DAY, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
  SISTERS
  BROTHERS
  HOME
  A GLEAM OF SUNSHINE ON THE PATH OF A MONEY-LENDER
  ENGAGED AT SIXTEEN
  THE DAUGHTER
  PASSING AWAY
  THE LOVE SECRET




PREFACE.


IF it were possible to trace back to their beginnings, in each
individual, those good or evil impulses that have become ruling
affections, in most cases the origin would not be found until we had
reached the home of childhood. Here it is that impressions are made,
which become lasting as existence itself. But the influence of home
is not alone salutary or baneful in early years. Wherever a home
exists, there will be found the nursery of all that is excellent in
social or civil life, or of all that is deformed. Every man and
woman we meet in society, exhibit, in unmistakable characters, the
quality of their homes. The wife, the husband, the children, the
guest, bear with them daily a portion of the spirit pervading the
little circle from which they have come forth. If the sun shines
there, a light will be on their countenances; but shadows, if clouds
are in the sky of home. If there be disorder, defect of principle,
discord among the members, neglect of duty, and absence of kind
offices, the sphere of those who constitute that home can hardly be
salutary. They will add little to the common stock of good in the
social life around them. We need not say how different will be the
influence of those whose home-circle is pervaded by higher, purer,
and truer principles.

A word to the wise is, we are told, sufficient. He, therefore, who
speaks a true word in the ear of the wise, has planted a seed that
will surely spring up and yield good fruit. May we hope that all
into whose hands this little book is destined to come are wise, and
that the few suggestive words spoken therein, as "hints to make home
happy," will fall into good ground. If this be so, "The Home
Mission" will not be fruitless. Though no annual reports of what it
has accomplished are made, its silent and unobtrusive work, we
trust, will be none the less effectual.




THE HOME MISSION.




A VISION OF CONSOLATION.


THE tempest of grief which, for a time, had raged so wildly in the
heart of Mrs. Freeland, exhausted by its own violence, sobbed itself
away, and the stricken mother passed into the land of dreams.

To the afflicted, sleep comes with a double blessing--rest is given
to the wearied body and to the grieving spirit. Often, very often,
the Angel of Consolation bends to the dreaming ear, and whispers
words of hope and comfort that from no living lips had yet found
utterance.

And it was so now with the sleeping mother. A few hours only had
passed since she stood looking down, for the last time, on the fair
face of her youngest born. Over his bright, blue eyes, into whose
heavenly depths she had so loved to gaze, the pale lids had closed
for ever. Still lingered around his lips the smile left there by the
angels, as, with a kiss of love, they received his parting spirit.
In the curling masses of his rich, golden hair, the shadows nestled
away, as of old, while his tiny fingers held a few white blossoms,
as with a living grasp. Was it death or sleep? So like a sleeping
child the sweet boy lay, that it seemed every moment as if his lips
would unclose, his eyes open to the light, and his voice come to the
listening ear with its tones of music.

If to the mother had come this illusion, it remained not long. Wild
with grief, she turned away as the sweet face she had so loved to
gaze upon was hidden from her straining eyes for ever.

Hidden from her eyes, did we say? Only hidden from her natural eyes.
Still he was before the eyes of her spirit in all his living beauty.
But, to her natural affections, he was lost--even as he had faded
from before her natural eyes; and, in the agony of bereavement, it
seemed that her heart would break. Back to her darkened chamber she
went. Her nearest and dearest friends gathered around, seeking
lovingly to sustain her in her great affliction; but she refused to
be comforted.

At length, as at first said, the tempest of grief, which, for a
time, raged so violently in the heart of Mrs. Freeland, sobbed
itself away, and the stricken mother passed into the land of dreams.

For the most part, dreams are fantastic. Yet they are not always so.
In states of deep sorrow or strong trial, when the heart turns from
the natural world, hopeless of aid or consolation, truth often comes
in dreams and similitudes.

The mother found herself in the company of two beautiful maidens, in
the very flower of youth; and as she gazed earnestly into their
faces, which seemed transparent from an inward celestial light, she
saw expectation therein--loving expectation. They stood beneath the
eastern portico of a pleasant dwelling, around which stately
trees--the branches vocal with the song of feathered
minstrels--lifted their green tops far up into the crystal air.
Flowers of a thousand hues and sweet odours were woven into forms
and figures of exquisite beauty upon the carpet of living green
spread over the teeming earth, while groups of little children
sported one with another, and mingled their happy voices with the
melody of birds.

Yet, amid all this external joy and beauty, the hand of grief still
lay upon the mother's heart; and when she looked upon the sportive
infants around her, she sighed for her own babe. Even as she sighed,
one of the maidens turned to her and said, while her whole
countenance was lit up with a glow of delight--

"It has come. A new babe is born unto heaven."

And, as she spoke, she gathered her arms quickly to her bosom, and
the wondering mother saw lying thereon her own child. The other
maiden was already bending over the infant--already had she greeted
its coming with a kiss of love. Quickly both retired within the
dwelling, and the bereaved mother went with them, eager to receive
the babe she had lost.

"Oh, my child! my child!" she said. "Give me my child."

And ere the words had died upon her lips, the maiden who had
received the babe gave it into her arms, when she clasped it with a
wild delight, and rained tears of gladness upon its face.

For a time, the two maidens looked upon the mother in silence, and
in their bright countenances love and pity were blended. At length,
one of them said to her, (and she smiled sweetly, and spoke with an
exquisite, penetrating tenderness,)--

"Your heart is full of love for your babe?"

"He is dearer to me than life--dearer than a thousand lives,"
replied the mother quickly, drawing the babe closer to her bosom.

"Love seeks to bless the object of its regard."

There was a meaning in the words and tone of the maiden, as she said
this, that caused the mother to look into her face earnestly.

"This is not the land of sickness, of sorrow, of death," resumed the
maiden, "but the land of eternal life and blessedness. Into this
land your babe has been born. You are here only as a visitant, and
must soon return to bear a few more trials and pains, a few more
conflicts with evil; but the end is your preparation for these
heavenly regions."

A shadow fell instantly upon the mother's heart. Tears rushed to her
eyes, and she drew her arms more tightly about her babe.

"Shall we keep this babe in our heavenly home, or will you bear it
with you back to the dark, cold, sad regions of mortality?"

"Do not take from me my more than life!" sobbed the mother wildly.
"Oh! I cannot give you my child;" and more eagerly she hugged it to
her breast.

For a time there was silence. Then one of the maidens laid gently
her hand upon the mother, and she lifted her bowed head.

"Come," said the maiden.

The mother arose, and the two walked into the open air, and passing
through the group of children sporting on the lawn and in the
gardens, went for what seemed the space of a mile, until they came
to a forest, into the depths of which they penetrated; and, for a
time, the farther they went the darker and more gloomy it became,
until scarcely a ray of light from the arching sky came down through
the dense and tangled foliage. At last they were beyond the forest.

"Look," said the companion.

The mother lifted her eyes--the babe had strangely passed from her
arms. A dwelling, familiar in aspect, stood near, and through an
open window she saw a sick child lying upon a bed, and knew it as
her own. Its little face was distorted by pain and flushed with
fever; and as it tossed restlessly to and fro, its moans filled her
ears. She stretched forth her hands, yearning to give some relief;
even as she did so, the scene faded from her view, and next she saw
an older child, bearing still the linaments of her own. There was
the same broad, white forehead and clustering curls; the same large,
bright eyes and full, ruddy lips; but, alas! not the soft vail of
innocence which had given the features of the babe such a heavenly
charm. The fine brow was contracted with passion; the eyes flashed
with an evil light; and the lips were tightly drawn, and with
something of defiance, against the teeth. The boy was resisting,
with a stern determination, the will of the parents--was setting at
naught those early salutary restraints which are the safeguard of
youth.

"Oh! my unhappy boy!" cried the mother.

The scene changed as she spoke. The boy, now grown up to manhood,
once more stood before her. Alas! how had the light of innocence
faded from his countenance, giving place to a shadow of evil, the
very darkness of which caused a cold shudder to pass through the
mother's frame.

"Look again," said the maiden, as this scene was fading.

But the mother hid her face in her hands, and turned weeping away.

"Look again." And this time there was something so heart-cheering in
the maiden's voice, that the mother lifted her tearful eyes. She was
back again in the beautiful place from which she had gone forth a
little while before, and her babe, beautiful as innocence itself,
lay sweetly sleeping in the arms of the lovely maiden who had
received it on its first entrance into heaven. With a heart full of
joy, the mother now bent over the slumbering babe, kissing it again
and again.

"Grieving mother," said the angel-maiden, in tones of flute-like
softness, "God saw that it would not be good for your child to
remain on earth, and he therefore removed it to this celestial
region, where no evil can ever penetrate. To me, as an angel-mother,
it has been given; and I will love it and care for it with a love as
pure and tender as the love that yearns in your bosom. As its
infantile mind opens, I will pour in heavenly instruction, that it
may grow in wisdom and become an angel. Will you not let me have it
freely?"

"But why may I not remain here and be its heavenly mother? Oh! I
will love and care for it with a tenderness and devotion equal to,
if not exceeding yours."

Even while the mother spoke there was a change. She saw before her
other objects of affection. There was her husband, sitting in deep
dejection, sorrowing for the loss of one who was dear as his own
life; while three children, the sight of whom stirred her maternal
heart to its profoundest depths, lay sleeping in each other's arms,
the undried tears yet glistening on their lashes.

The wife and mother stretched forth her hands toward these beloved
ones, eager to be with them again and turn their grief into
gladness. But, in a moment, there passed another change. The
pleasant home in which her children had been sheltered for years, no
longer held them; the fold had been broken up and the tender lambs
scattered. One of these little ones the mother saw, sitting apart
from a group of sportive children, weeping over some task work. The
bloom on her cheek had faded--its roundness was gone--the light of
her beautiful eyes was quenched in tears. And, as she looked, a
woman came to the child and spoke to her harshly. She was about
springing forward, when another scene was presented. Her first-born,
a noble-spirited boy, to whose future she had ever looked with pride
and pleasure, stood before her. Alas! how changed. Every thing about
him showed the want of a mother's care and considerate affection;
and from his dear, young face had already vanished the look of
joyous innocence she had so loved to contemplate.

Again the mother was in the presence of the angel-maiden, to whose
loving arms a good God had confided the babe, which, in his wisdom,
he had removed from the earth. And the angel-maiden, as she looked
first at the babe in her arms and then at the mother, smiled sweetly
and said--

"He is safe here; will you not let him remain?"

And, with a gushing heart, the mother answered, "Not for worlds
would I take him with me into the outer life of nature. Oh, no! He
is safe--let him remain."

"And you will return to those who still need your love and care?"

"Yes, yes," said the mother, earnestly. "Let me go to them again.
Let me be their angel on earth."

And she bent hastily to the heaven-born babe, kissing it with
tearful fondness.

There came now another change. The mother was back again in her
chamber of sorrow; and undried tears were yet upon her cheeks. But
she was comforted and reconciled to the great affliction which had
been sent for good from heaven.

Those who saw Mrs. Freeland in the first wild grief that followed
the loss of her babe, wondered at her serene composure when she came
again among them. And they wondered long, for she spoke not of this
Vision of Consolation. It was too sacred a thing to be revealed, to
any save the companion of her life.




THE STEP-MOTHER.


THERE are few positions in social life of greater trial and
responsibility than that of a step-mother; and it too rarely happens
that the woman who assumes this position, is fitted for the right
discharge of its duties. In far too many cases, the widower is
accepted as a husband because he has a home, or a position to offer,
while the children are considered as a drawback in the bargain. But
it sometimes happens, that a true woman, from genuine affection,
unites herself with a widower, and does it with a loving regard for
his children, and with the purpose in her mind of being to them, as
far as in her power lies, a wise and tender mother.

Such a woman was Agnes Green. She was in her thirty-second year when
Mr. Edward Arnold, a widower with four children, asked her to become
his wife. At twenty-two, Agnes had loved as only a true woman can
love. But the object of that love proved himself unworthy, and she
turned away from him. None knew how deep the heart-trial through
which she passed--none knew how intensely she suffered. In part, her
pale face and sobered brow witnessed, but only in part; for many
said she was cold, and some even used the word heartless, when they
spoke of her. From early womanhood a beautiful ideal of manly
excellence had filled her mind; and with this ideal she had invested
one who proved false to the high character. At once the green things
of her heart withered and for a long time its surface was a barren
waste. But the woman was yet strong in her. She must love something.
So she came forth from her heart-seclusion, and let her affections,
like a refreshing and invigorating stream, flow along many channels.
She was the faithful friend, the comforter in affliction, the wise
counsellor. More than once had she been approached with offers of
marriage, by men who saw the excellence of her character, and felt
that upon any dwelling, in which she was the presiding spirit, would
rest a blessing. But none of them were able to give to the even
pulses of her heart a quicker motion.

At last she met Mr. Arnold. More than three years had passed since
the mother of his children was removed by death, and, since that
time, he had sought, with all a father's tenderness and devotion, to
fill her place to them. How imperfectly, none knew so well as
himself. As time went on, the want of a true woman's affectionate
care for his children was more and more felt. All were girls except
the youngest, their ages ranging from twelve downward, and this made
their mother's loss so much the more a calamity. Moreover, his
feeling of loneliness and want of companionship, so keenly felt in
the beginning, instead of diminishing, increased.

Such was his state of mind when he met Agnes Green. The attraction
was mutual, though, at first, no thought of marriage came into the
mind of either. A second meeting stirred the placid waters in the
bosom of Agnes Green. Conscious of this, and fearful lest the
emotion she strove to repress might become apparent to other eyes,
she assumed a certain reserve, not seen in the beginning, which only
betrayed her secret, and at once interested Mr. Arnold, who now
commenced a close observation of her character. With every new
aspect in which this was presented, he saw something that awakened
admiration; something that drew his spirit nearer to her as one
congenial. And not the less close was her observation.

When, at length, Mr. Arnold solicited the hand of Agnes Green, she
was ready to respond. Not, however, in a selfish and self-seeking
spirit; not in the narrow hope of obtaining some great good for
herself, was her response made, but in full view of her woman's
power to bless, and with an earnest, holy purpose in her heart, to
make her presence in his household indeed a blessing.

"I must know your children better than I know them now, and they
must know me better than they do, before I take the place you wish
me to assume," was her reply to Mr. Arnold, when he spoke of an
early marriage.

And so means were taken to bring her in frequent contact with the
children. The first time she met them intimately, was at the house
of a friend. Mary, the oldest girl, she found passionate and
self-willed; Florence, the second, good-natured, but careless and
slovenly; while Margaret, the third, was in ill health, and
exceedingly peevish. The little brother, Willy, was a beautiful,
affectionate child, but in consequence of injudicious management,
very badly spoiled. Take them altogether, they presented rather an
unpromising aspect; and it is no wonder that Agnes Green had many
misgivings at heart, when the new relation contemplated, and its
trials and responsibilities, were pictured to her mind.

The earnestly-asked question by Mr. Arnold, after this first
interview,--"What do you think of my children?"--was not an easy one
to answer. A selfish, unscrupulous woman, who looked to the
connection as something to be particularly desired on her own
account, and who cared little about duties and responsibilities,
might have replied, "Oh, they are lovely children!" or, "I am
delighted with them!" Not so Agnes Green. She did not reply
immediately, but mused for some moments, considerably embarrassed,
and in doubt what to say. Mr. Arnold was gazing intently in her
face.

"They do not seem to have made a favourable impression," said he,
speaking with some disappointment in his tone and manner.

A feeble flush was visible in the face of Agnes Green, and also a
slight quiver of the lips as she answered:

"There is too much at stake, as well in your case as my own, to
warrant even a shadow of concealment. You ask what I think of your
children, and you expect me to answer truly?"

"I do," was the almost solemnly-spoken reply.

"My first hurried, yet tolerably close, observation, has shown me,
in each, a groundwork of natural good."

"As their father," replied Mr. Arnold, in some earnestness of
manner, "I know there is good in them,--much good. But they have
needed a mother's care."

"When you have said that, how much has been expressed! If the garden
is not cultivated, and every weed carefully removed, how quickly is
it overrun with things noxious, and how feeble becomes the growth of
all things good and beautiful! It is just so with the mind. Neglect
it, and bad habits and evil propensities will assuredly be quickened
into being, and attain vigorous life."

"My children are not perfect, I know, but--"

Mr. Arnold seemed slightly hurt. Agnes Green interrupted him, by
saying, in a mild voice, as she laid her hand gently upon his arm:

"Do not give my words a meaning beyond what they are designed to
convey. If I assume the place of a mother to your children, I take
upon myself all the responsibilities that the word 'mother'
involves. Is not this so?"

"Thus I understand it."

"My duty will be, not only to train these children for a happy and
useful life here, but for a happy and useful life hereafter."

"It will."

"It is no light thing, Mr. Arnold, to assume the place of a mother
to children who, for three years, have not known a mother's
affectionate care. I confess that my heart shrinks from the
responsibility, and I ask myself over and over again, 'Have I the
requisite wisdom, patience, and self-denial?'"

"I believe you have," said Mr. Arnold, who was beginning to see more
deeply into the heart of Agnes. "And now," he added, "tell me what
you think of my children."

"Mary has a quick temper, and is rather self-willed, if my
observation is correct, but she has a warm heart. Florence is
thoughtless, and untidy in her person, but possesses a happy temper.
Poor Maggy's ill health has, very naturally, soured her disposition.
Ah, what can you expect of a suffering child, who has no mother?
Your little Willy is a lovely boy, somewhat spoiled--who can wonder
at this?--but possessing just the qualities to win for him kindness
from every one."

"I am sure you will love him," said Mr. Arnold, warmly.

"I have no doubt on that subject," replied Agnes Green. "And now,"
she added, "after what I have said, after showing you that I am
quick to see faults, once more give this matter earnest
consideration. If I become your wife, and take the place of a mother
to these children, I shall, at once,--wisely and lovingly, I
trust,--begin the work of removing from their minds every noxious
weed that neglect may have suffered to grow there. The task will be
no light one, and, in the beginning, there may be rebellion against
my authority. To be harsh or hard is not in my nature. But a sense
of duty will make me firm. Once more, I say, give this matter
serious consideration. It is not yet too late to pause."

Mr. Arnold bent his head in deep reflection. For many minutes he sat
in silent self-communion, and sat thus so long, that the heart of
Agnes Green began to beat with a restricted motion, as if there was
a heavy pressure on her bosom. At last Mr. Arnold looked up, his
eyes suddenly brightening, and his face flushing with animation.
Grasping her hands with both of his, he said:

"I have reflected, Agnes, and I do not hesitate. Yes, I will trust
these dear ones to your loving guardianship. I will place in your
hands their present and eternal welfare, confident that you will be
to them a true mother."

And she was. As often as it could be done before the time appointed
for the marriage, she was brought in contact with the children.
Almost from the beginning, she was sorry to find in Mary, the oldest
child, a reserve of manner, and an evident dislike toward her, which
she in vain sought to overcome. The groundwork of this she did not
know. It had its origin in a remark made by the housekeeper, who,
having learned from some gossipping relative of Mr. Arnold that a
new wife was soon to be brought home, and, also, who this new wife
was to be, made an imprudent allusion to the fact, in a moment of
forgetfulness.

"Your new mother will soon put you straight, my little lady," said
she, one day, to Mary, who had tried her beyond all patience.

"My new mother! Who's she, pray?" was sharply demanded.

"Miss Green," replied the unreflecting housekeeper. "Your father's
going to bring her home one of these days, and make her your mother,
and she'll put you all right--she'll take down your fine airs, my
lady!"

"Will she?" And Mary, compressing her lips tightly, and drawing up
her slender form to its full height, looked the image of defiance.

From that moment a strong dislike toward Miss Green ruled in the
mind of Mary; and she resolved, should the housekeeper's assertion
prove true, not only to set the new authority at defiance, but to
inspire, if possible, the other children with her own feelings.

The marriage was celebrated at the house of Mr. Arnold, in the
presence of his own family and a few particular friends, Agnes
arriving at the hour appointed.

After the ceremony, the children were brought forward, and presented
to their new mother. The youngest, as if strongly drawn by invisible
chords of affection, sprung into her lap, and clasped his little
arms lovingly about her neck. He seemed very happy. The others were
cold and distant, while Mary fixed her eyes upon the wife of her
father, with a look so full of dislike and rebellion, that no one
present was in any doubt as to how she regarded the new order of
things.

Mr. Arnold was a good deal fretted by this unexpected conduct on the
part of Mary; and, forgetful of the occasion and its claims, spoke
to her with some sternness. He was recalled to self-possession by
the smile of his wife, and her gently-uttered remark, that reached
only his own ear:

"Don't seem to notice it. Let it be my task to overcome prejudices."

During the evening Mary did not soften in the least toward her
step-mother. On the next morning, when all met, for the first time,
at the breakfast table, the children gazed askance at the calm,
dignified woman who presided at the table, and seemed ill at ease.
On Mary's lip, and in her eye, was an expression so like contempt,
that it was with difficulty her father could refrain from ordering
her to her own room.

The meal passed in some embarrassment. At its conclusion, Mr. Arnold
went into the parlour, and his wife, entering at once upon her
duties, accompanied the children to the nursery, to see for herself
that the two oldest were properly dressed for school. Mary, who had
preceded the rest, was already in contention with the housekeeper.
Just as Mrs. Arnold--so we must now call her--entered the room, Mary
exclaimed, sharply:

"I don't care what you say, I'm going to wear this bonnet!"

"What's the trouble?" inquired Mrs. Arnold, calmly.

"Why, you see, ma'am," replied the housekeeper, "Mary is bent on
wearing her new, pink bonnet to school, and I tell her she mustn't
do it. Her old one is good enough."

"Let me see the old one," said Mrs. Arnold. She spoke in a very
pleasant tone of voice.

A neat, straw bonnet, with plain, unsoiled trimming, was brought
forth by the housekeeper, who remarked:

"It's good enough to wear Sundays, for that matter."

"I don't care if it is, I'm not going to wear it today. So don't
bother yourself any more about it."

"Oh, yes, Mary, you will," said Mrs. Arnold, very kindly, yet
firmly.

"No, I won't!" was the quick, resolute answer. And she gazed,
unflinchingly, into the face of her step-mother.

"I'll call your father, my young lady! This is beyond all
endurance!" said the housekeeper, starting for the door.

"Hannah!" The mild, even voice of Mrs. Arnold checked the excited
housekeeper. "Don't speak of it to her father,--I'm sure she doesn't
mean what she says. She'll think better of it in a moment."

Mary was hardly prepared for this. Even while she stood with
unchanged exterior, she felt grateful to her step-mother for
intercepting the complaint about to be made to her father. She
expected some remark or remonstrance from Mrs. Arnold. But in this
she was mistaken. The latter, as if nothing unpleasant had occurred,
turned to Florence, and after a light examination of her dress, said
to the housekeeper:

"This collar is too much soiled; won't you bring me another?"

"Oh, it's clean enough," replied Florence, knitting her brows, and
affecting impatience. But, even as she spoke, the quick, yet gentle
hands of her step-mother had removed the collar from her neck.

"Do you think it clean enough now?" said she, as she placed the
soiled collar beside a fresh one, which the housekeeper had brought.

"It _is_ rather dirty," replied Florence, smiling.

And now Mrs. Arnold examined other articles of her dress, and had
them changed, re-arranged her hair, and saw that her teeth were
properly brushed. While this was progressing, Mary stood a little
apart, a close observer of all that passed. One thing she did not
fail to remark, and that was the gentle firmness of her step-mother,
which was in strong contrast with the usual scolding, jerking, and
impatience of the housekeeper, as manifested on these occasions.

By the time Florence was ready for school, Mary's state of mind had
undergone considerable change, and she half regretted the exhibition
of ill temper and insulting disobedience she had shown. Yet was she
in no way prepared to yield. To her surprise, after Florence was all
ready, her step-mother turned to her and said, in a mild, cheerful
voice, as if nothing unpleasant had occurred,

"Have you a particular reason for wishing to wear your new bonnet,
this morning, Mary?"

"Yes, ma'am, I have." The voice of Mary was changed considerably,
and her eyes fell beneath the mild, but penetrating, gaze of her
step-mother.

"May I ask you the reason?"

There was a pause of some moments; then Mary replied:

"I promised one of the girls that I'd wear it. She asked me to. She
wanted to see it."

"Did you tell Hannah this?"

"No, ma'am. It wouldn't have been any use. She never hears to
reason."

"But you'll find me very different, Mary," said Mrs. Arnold,
tenderly. "I shall ever be ready to hear reason."

All this was so far from what Mary had anticipated, that her mind
was half bewildered. Her step-mother's clear sight penetrated to her
very thoughts.

Taking her hand, she drew her gently to her side. An arm was then
placed lovingly around her.

"My dear child,"--it would have been a hard heart, indeed, that
could have resisted the influence of that voice, "let us understand
each other in the beginning. You seem to look upon me as an enemy,
and yet I wish to be the very best friend you have in the world. I
have come here, not as an exacting and overbearing tyrant, but to
seek your good and promote your happiness in every possible way. I
will love you; and may I not expect love in return? Surely you will
not withhold that."

As Mrs. Arnold spoke thus, she felt a slight quiver in the hand she
had taken in her own. She continued:

"I cannot hope to fill the place of your dear mother, now in heaven.
Yet even as she loved you, would I love you, my child." The voice of
Mrs. Arnold had become unsteady, through excess of feeling. "As she
bore with your faults, I will bear with them; as she rejoiced over
every good affection born in your heart, so will I rejoice."

Outraged by the conduct of Mary, the housekeeper had gone to Mr.
Arnold, whom she found in the parlour, and repeated to him, with a
colouring of her own, the insolent language his child had used. The
father hurried up stairs in a state of angry excitement. No little
surprised was he, on entering the nursery, to see Mary sobbing on
the breast of her step-mother, whose gentle hands were softly
pressed upon the child's temples, and whose low, soothing voice was
speaking to her words of comfort for the present, and cheerful hope
for the future.

Unobserved by either, Mr. Arnold stood for a moment, and then softly
retired, with a gush of thankfulness in his heart, that he had found
for his children so true and good a mother.

With Mary there was no more trouble. From that hour, she came wholly
under the influence of her step-mother, learning day by day, as she
knew her better, to love her with a more confiding tenderness.
Wonderful was the change produced on the children of Mr. Arnold in a
single year. They had, indeed, found a mother.

It is painful to think how different would have been the result, had
the step-mother not been a true woman. Wise and good she was in her
sphere; loving and unselfish; and the fruit of her hand was sweet to
the taste, and beautiful to look upon.

How few are like her! How few who assume the position of
step-mother,--a position requiring patience, long-suffering, and
unflinching self-denial,--are fitted for the duties they so lightly
take upon themselves! Is it any wonder their own lives are made, at
times, miserable, or that they mar, by passion or exacting tyranny,
the fair face of humanity, in the children committed to their care?
Such lose their reward.

POWER OF KINDNESS.

"TOM! Here!" said a father to his boy, speaking in tones of
authority.

The lad was at play. He looked toward his father, but did not leave
his companions.

"Do you hear me, sir?" spoke the father, more sternly than at first.

With an unhappy face and reluctant step, the boy left his play and
approached his parent.

"Why do you creep along at a snail's pace?" said the latter,
angrily. "Come quickly, I want you. When I speak, I look to be
obeyed instantly. Here, take this note to Mr. Smith, and see that
you don't go to sleep by the way. Now run as fast as you can go."

The boy took the note. There was a cloud upon his brow. He moved
away, but at a slow pace.

"You, Tom! Is that doing as I ordered? Is that going quickly?"
called the father, when he saw the boy creeping away. "If you are
not back in half an hour, I will punish you."

But the words had but little effect. The boy's feelings were hurt by
the unkindness of the parent. He experienced a sense of injustice; a
consciousness that wrong had been done him. By nature he was like
his father, proud and stubborn; and these qualities of his mind were
aroused, and he indulged in them, fearless of consequences.

"I never saw such a boy," said the father, speaking to a friend who
had observed the occurrence. "My words scarcely make an impression
on him."

"Kind words often prove most powerful," said the friend. The father
looked surprised.

"Kind words," continued the friend, "are like the gentle rain and
the refreshing dews; but harsh words bend and break like the angry
tempest. The first develop and strengthen good affections, while the
others sweep over the heart in devastation, and mar and deform all
they touch. Try him with kind words; they will prove a hundred fold
more powerful."

The latter seemed hurt by the reproof; but it left him thoughtful.
An hour passed away ere his boy returned. At times during his
absence he was angry at the delay, and meditated the infliction of
punishment. But the words of remonstrance were in his ears, and he
resolved to obey them. At last the lad came slowly in with a cloudy
countenance, and reported the result of his errand. Having stayed
far beyond his time, he looked for punishment, and was prepared to
receive it with an angry defiance. To his surprise, after delivering
the message he had brought, his father, instead of angry reproof and
punishment, said kindly, "Very well, my son; you can go out to play
again."

The boy went out, but was not happy. He had disobeyed and disobliged
his father, and the thought of this troubled him. Harsh words had
not clouded his mind nor aroused a spirit of reckless anger. Instead
of joining his companions, he went and sat down by himself, grieving
over his act of disobedience. As he thus sat, he heard his name
called. He listened.

"Thomas, my son," said his father, kindly. The boy sprang to his
feet, and was almost instantly beside his parent.

"Did you call, father?"

"I did, my son. Will you take this package to Mr. Long for me?"

There was no hesitation in the boy's manner. He looked pleased at
the thought of doing his father a service, and reached out his hand
for the package. On receiving it, he bounded away with a light step.

"There is a power in kindness," said the father, as he sat musing,
after the lad's departure. And even while he sat musing over the
incident, the boy came back with a cheerful, happy face, and said--

"Can I do any thing else for you, father?"

Yes, there is the power of kindness. The tempest of passion can only
subdue, constrain, and break; but in love and gentleness there is
the power of the summer rain, the dew, and the sunshine.




BEAR AND FORBEAR.


"DON'T talk to me in such a serious strain, Aunt Hannah. One would
really think, from what you say, that James and I would quarrel
before we were married a month."

"Not so soon as that, Maggy dear. Heaven grant that it may not come
so soon as that! But, depend upon it, child, if you do not make
'bear and forbear' your motto, many months will not have passed,
after your wedding-day, without the occurrence of some serious
misunderstanding between you and your husband."

"If anybody else were to say that to me, Aunt Hannah, I would be
very angry."

"For which you would be a very foolish girl. But it is generally the
way that good advice is taken, it being an article of which none
think they stand in need."

"But what in the world can there be for James and I to have
differences about? I am sure that I love him most truly; and I am
sure he loves me as fondly as I love him. In mutual love there can
be no strife--no emulation, except in the performance of good
offices. Indeed, aunt, I think you are far too serious."

"Over the bright sky bending above you, my dear niece, I would not,
for the world, bring a cloud even as light as the filmy, almost
viewless gossamer. But I know that clouds must hide its clear, calm,
passionless blue, either earlier or later in life. And what I say
now, is with the hope of giving you the prescience required to avoid
some of the storms that may threaten to break upon your head."

"Neither cloud nor storm will ever come from that quarter of the sky
from which you seem to apprehend danger."

"Not if both you and James learn to bear and forbear in your conduct
toward each other."

"We cannot act otherwise."

"Then there will be no danger."

Margaret Percival expressed herself sincerely. She could not believe
that there was the slightest danger of a misunderstanding ever
occurring between her and James Canning, to whom she was shortly to
be married. The well-meant warning of her aunt, who had seen and
felt more in life than she yet had, went therefore for nothing.

A month elapsed, and the young and lovely Maggy pledged her faith at
the altar. As the bride of Canning, she felt that she was the
happiest creature in the world. Before her was a path winding amid
green and flowery places, and lingering by the side of still waters;
while a sunny sky bent over all.

James Canning was a young lawyer of some talent, and the possessor
of a good income independent of his profession. Like others, he had
his excellencies and his defects of character. Naturally, he was of
a proud, impatient spirit, and, from a child, had been restless
under dictation. As an offset to this, he was a man of strict
integrity, generous in his feelings, and possessed of a warm heart.
Aunt Hannah had known him since he was a boy, and understood his
character thoroughly; and it was this knowledge that caused her to
feel some concern for the future happiness of her niece, as well as
to speak to her timely words of caution. But these words were not
understood.

"We've not quarrelled yet, Aunt Hannah, for all your fears," said
the young wife, three or four months after her marriage.

"For which I am truly thankful," replied Aunt Hannah. "Still, I
would say now, as I did before, 'Bear and forbear.'"

"That is, I must BEAR every thing and FORBEAR in every thing. I
hardly think that just, aunt. I should say that James ought to do a
little of this as well as me."

"Yes, it is his duty as well as yours. But you should not think of
his duty to you, Maggy, only of your duty to him. That is the most
dangerous error into which you can fall, and one that will be almost
certain to produce unhappiness."

"Would you have a wife never think of herself?"

"The less she thinks of herself, perhaps, the better; for the more
she thinks of herself, the more she will love herself. But the more
she thinks of her husband, the more she will love him and seek to
make him happy. The natural result of this will be, that her husband
will feel the warmth and perceive the unselfishness of her love;
this will cause him to lean toward her with still greater
tenderness, and prompt him to yield to her what otherwise he might
have claimed for himself."

"Then it is the wife who must act the generous, self-sacrificing
part?"

"If I could speak as freely to James as I can speak to you, Maggy, I
should not fail to point out his duty of bearing and forbearing, as
plainly as I point out yours. All should be mutual, of course. But
this can never be, if one waits for the other. If you see your duty,
it is for you to do it, even if he should fail in his part."

"I don't know about that, aunt. I think, as you said just now, that
all this is mutual."

"I am sorry you cannot or will not understand me, Maggy," replied
Aunt Hannah.

"I am sorry too, aunt; but I certainly do not. However, don't, pray,
give yourself any serious concern about James and me. I assure you
that we are getting along exceedingly well; and why this should not
continue is more than I can make out."

"Well, dear, I trust that it may. There is no good reason why it
should not. You both have virtues enough to counterbalance all
defects of character."

On the evening of that very day, as the young couple sat at the
tea-table, James Canning said, as his wife felt, rather unkindly, at
the same time that there was a slight contraction of his brow--

"You seem to be very much afraid of your sugar, Maggy. I never get a
cup of tea or coffee sweet enough for my taste."

"You must have a sweet palate. I am sure it is like syrup, for I put
in several large lumps of sugar," replied Margaret, speaking in a
slightly offended tone.

"Taste it, will you?" said Canning, pushing his cup across the table
with an impatient air.

Margaret sipped a little from the spoon, and then, with an
expression of disgust in her face, said--

"Pah! I'd as lief drink so much molasses. But here's the sugar bowl.
Sweeten it to your taste."

Canning helped himself to more sugar. As he did so his wife noticed
that his hand slightly trembled, and also that his brow was drawn
down, and his lips more arched than usual.

"It's a little matter to get angry about," she thought to herself.
"Things are coming to a pretty pass, if I'm not to be allowed to
speak."

The meal was finished in silence. Margaret felt in no humour to
break the oppressive reserve, although she would have been glad,
indeed, to have heard a pleasant word from the lips of her husband.
As for Canning, he permitted himself to brood over the words and
manner of his wife, until he became exceedingly fretted. They were
so unkind and so uncalled for. The evening passed unsocially. But
morning found them both in a better state of mind. Sleep has a
wonderful power in restoring to the mind its lost balance, and in
calming down our blinding passions. During the day, our thoughts and
feelings, according with our natural state, are more or less marked
by the disturbances that selfish purposes ever bring; but in sleep,
while the mind rests and our governing ends lie dormant, we come
into purer spiritual associations, and the soul, as well as the
body, receives a healthier tone.

The morning, therefore, found Canning and his wife in better states
of mind. They were as kind and as affectionate as usual in their
words and conduct, although, when they sat down to the breakfast
table, they each experienced a slight feeling of coldness on being
reminded, too sensibly, of the unpleasant occurrence of the previous
evening. Margaret thought she would be sure to please her husband in
his coffee, and therefore put into his cup an extra quantity of
sugar, making it so very sweet that he could with difficulty swallow
it. But a too vivid recollection of what had taken place on the
night before, caused him to be silent about it. The second cup was
still sweeter. Canning managed to sip about one-third of this, but
his stomach refused to take any more. Noticing that her husband's
coffee, an article of which he was very fond, stood, nearly
cup-full, beside his plate, after he had finished his breakfast,
Margaret said--

"Didn't your coffee suit you?"

"It was very good; only a little too sweet."

"Then why didn't you say so?" she returned, in a tone that showed
her to be hurt at this reaction upon what she had said on the
previous evening. "Give me your cup, and let me pour you out some
more."

"No, I thank you, Margaret, I don't care about any more."

"Yes, you do. Come, give me your cup. I shall be hurt if you don't.
I'm sure there is no necessity for drinking the coffee, if not to
your taste. I don't know what's come over you, James."

"And I'm sure I don't know what's come over you," Canning thought,
but did not say. He handed up his cup, as his wife desired. After
filling it with coffee, she handed it back, and then reached him the
sugar and cream.

"Sweeten it to your own taste," she said, a little fretfully; "I'm
sure I tried to make it right."

Canning did as he was desired, and then drank the coffee, but it was
with the utmost difficulty that he could do so.

This was the first little cloud that darkened the sky of their
wedded life; And it did not fairly pass away for nearly a week. Nor
then did the days seem as bright as before. The cause was
slight--very slight--but how small a thing will sometimes make the
heart unhappy. How trifling are the occurrences upon which we often
lay, as upon a foundation, a superstructure of misery! Had the
earnestly urged precept of Aunt Hannah been regarded,--had the
lesson--"Bear and Forbear," been well learned and understood by
Margaret, this cloud had never dimmed the sun of their early love. A
pleasant word, in answer to her husband's momentary impatience,
would have made him sensible that he had not spoken with propriety,
and caused him to be more careful in future. As it was, both were
more circumspect, but it was from pride instead of love,--and more
to protect self than from a tender regard for each other.

Only a month or two passed before there was another slight
collision. It made them both more unhappy than they were before. But
the breach was quickly healed. Still scars remained, and there were
times when the blood flowed into these cicatrices so feverishly as
to cause pain. Alas! wounds of the spirit do not close any more
perfectly than do wounds of the body--the scars remain forever.

And thus the weeks and months went by. Neither of the married
partners had learned the true secret of happiness in their holy
relation,--neither of them felt the absolute necessity of bearing
and forbearing. Little inequalities of character, instead of being
smoothed off by gentle contact, were suffered to strike against each
other, and produce, sometimes, deep and painful wounds--healing, too
often, imperfectly; and too often remaining as festering sores.

And yet Canning and his wife loved each other tenderly, and felt,
most of their time, that they were very happy. There were little
things in each that each wished the other would correct, but neither
felt the necessity of self-correction.

The birth of a child drew them together at a time when there was
some danger of a serious rupture. Dear little Lilian, or "Lilly," as
she was called, was a chord of love to bind them in a closer union.

"I love you more than ever, Maggy," Canning could not help saying to
his wife, as he kissed first her lips and then the soft cheek of his
child, a month after the babe was born.

"And I am sure I love you better than I did, if that were possible,"
returned Margaret, looking into her husband's face with a glance of
deep affection.

As the babe grew older the parent's love for it continued to
increase, and, with this increase, their happiness. The chord which
had several times jarred harshly between them, slept in profound
peace.

But, after this sweet calm, the surface of their feelings became
again ruffled. One little incongruity of character after another
showed itself in both, and there was no genuine spirit of
forbearance in either of them to meet and neutralize any sudden
effervescence of the mind. Lilly was not a year old, before they had
a serious misunderstanding that made them both unhappy for weeks. It
had its origin in a mere trifle, as such things usually have. They
had been taking tea and spending an evening with a friend, a widow
lady, for whom Mrs. Canning had a particular friendship. As there
was no gentleman present during the evening, the time passed rather
heavily to Canning, who could not get interested in the conversation
of the two ladies. Toward nine o'clock he began to feel restless and
impatient, and to wonder if his wife would not soon be thinking
about going home. But the time passed wearily until ten o'clock, and
still the conversation between the two ladies was continued with
undiminished interest, and, to all appearance, was likely to
continue until midnight.

Canning at length became so restless and wearied that he said,
thinking that his wife did not probably know how late it was,--

"Come, Margaret, isn't it 'most time to go home?"

Mrs. Canning merely looked into her husband's face, but made no
answer.

More earnestly than ever the ladies now appeared to enter upon the
various themes for conversation that presented themselves, all of
which were very frivolous to the mind of Canning, who was
exceedingly chafed by his wife's indifference to his suggestion
about going home. He determined, however, to say no more if she sat
all night. Toward eleven o'clock she made a movement to depart, and
after lingering in the parlor before she went up stairs to put on
her things, and in the chamber after her things were on, and on the
stairs, in the passage, and at the door, she finally took the arm of
her husband and started for home. Not a word was uttered by either
until they had walked the distance of two squares, when Margaret,
unable to keep back what she wanted to say any longer, spoke thus,--

"James, I will thank you, another time, when we are spending an
evening out, not to suggest as publicly as you did to-night that it
is time to go home. It's very bad manners, let me tell you, in the
first place; and in the second place, I don't like it at all. I do
not wish people to think that I have to come and go just at your
beck or nod. I was about starting when you spoke to me, but sat an
hour longer just on purpose."

The mind of Canning, already fretted, was set on fire by this.

"You did?" he said.

"Yes, I did. And I can tell you, once for all, that I wish this to
be the last time you speak to me as you did to-night."

It was as much as the impatient spirit of Canning could do to keep
from replying--

"It's the last time I will ever speak to you at all," and then
leaving her in the street, with the intention of never seeing her
again. But suddenly he thought of Lilly, and the presence of the
child in his mind kept back the mad words from his lips. Not one
syllable did he utter during their walk home, although his wife said
much to irritate rather than soothe him. Nor did a sentence pass his
lips that night.

At the breakfast table on the next morning, the husband and wife
were coldly polite to each other. When the meal was completed,
Canning retired to his office, and his wife sought her chamber to
weep. The latter half repented of what she had done, but her
contrition was not hearty enough to prompt to a confession of her
fault. The fact that she considered her husband to blame, stood in
the way of this.

Reserve and coldness marked the intercourse of the unhappy couple
for several weeks; and then the clouds began to break, and there
were occasional glimpses of sunshine.

But, before there was a clear sky, some trifling occurrence put them
again at variance. From this time, unhappily, one circumstance after
another transpired to fret them with each other, and to separate,
rather than unite them. Daily, Canning grew more cold and reserved,
and his wife met him in a like uncompromising spirit. Even their
lovely child--their darling blue-eyed Lilly--with her sweet little
voice and smiling face, could not soften their hearts toward each
other.

To add fuel to this rapidly enkindling fire of discord, was the fact
that Mrs. Canning was on particularly intimate terms with the wife
of a man toward whom her husband entertained a settled and
well-grounded dislike, and visited her more frequently than she did
any one of her friends. He did not interfere with her in the matter,
but it annoyed him to hear her speak, occasionally, of meeting Mr.
Richards at his house, and repeating the polite language he used to
her, when he detested the character of Richards, and had not spoken
to him for more than a year.

One day Mrs. Canning expressed a wish to go in the evening to a
party.

"It will be impossible for me to go to-night, or, indeed, this
week," Canning said. "I am engaged in a very important case, which
will come up for trial on Friday, and it will take all my time
properly to prepare for it. I shall be engaged every evening, and
perhaps late every night."

Mrs. Canning looked disappointed, and said she thought he might
spare her one evening.

"You know I would do so, Margaret, with pleasure," he replied, "but
the case is one involving too much to be endangered by any
consideration. Next week we will go to a party."

When Canning came home to tea, he found his wife dressed to go out.

"I'm going to the party, for all you can't go with me," said she.

"Indeed! With whom are you going?"

"Mrs. Richards came in to see me after dinner, when I told her how
much disappointed I was about not being able to go to the party
to-night. She said that she and her husband were going, and that it
would give them great pleasure to call for me. Am I not fortunate?"

"But you are not going with Mr. and Mrs. Richards?"

"Indeed I am! Why not?"

"Margaret! You must not go."

"Must not, indeed! You speak in quite a tone of authority, Mr.
Canning;" and the wife drew herself up haughtily.

"Authority, or no authority, Margaret"--Canning now spoke calmly,
but his lips were pale--"I will never consent that my wife shall be
seen in a public assembly with Richards. You know my opinion of the
man."

"I know you are prejudiced against him, though I believe unjustly."

"Madness!" exclaimed Canning, thrown off his guard. "And this from
you?"

"I don't see that you have any cause for getting into a passion, Mr.
Canning," said his wife, with provoking coolness. "And, I must say,
that you interfere with my freedom rather more than a husband has
any right to do. But, to cut this matter short, let me tell you,
once for all, that I am going to the assembly to-night with Mr. and
Mrs. Richards. Having promised to do so, I mean to keep my promise."

"Margaret, I positively forbid your going!" said Canning, in much
excitement.

"I deny your right to command me! In consenting to become your wife,
I did not make myself your slave; although it is clear from this,
and other things that have occurred since our marriage, that you
consider me as occupying that position."

"Then it is your intention to go with this man?" said Canning, again
speaking in a calm but deep voice.

"Certainly it is."

"Very well. I will not make any threat of what I will do, Margaret.
But this I can assure you, that lightly as you may think of this
matter, if persevered in, it will cause you more sorrow than you
have ever known. Go! Go against my wish--against my command, if you
will have it so--and when you feel the consequence, lay the blame
upon no one but yourself. And now let me say to you, Margaret, that
your conduct as a wife has tended rather to estrange your husband's
heart from you than to win his love. I say this now, because I may
not have--"

"James! It is folly for you to talk to me after that fashion,"
exclaimed Margaret, breaking in upon him. "I--"

But before she could finish the sentence, Canning had left the room,
closing the door hard after him.

Just an hour from this time, Mr. and Mrs. Richards called in their
carriage for Mrs. Canning, who went with them to the assembly. An
hour was a long period for reflection, and ought to have afforded
sufficient time for the wife of Canning to come to a wiser
determination than that from which she acted.

Not half a dozen revolutions of the carriage wheels had been made,
however, before Margaret repented of what she had done. But it was
now too late. The pleasure of the entertainment passed before her,
but it found no response in her breast. She saw little but the pale,
compressed lip and knit brow of her husband, and heard little but
his word of disapproval. Oh! how she did long for the confused
pageant that was moving before her, and the discordant mingling of
voices and instruments, to pass away, that she might return and tell
him that she repented of all that she had done.

At last the assembly broke up, and she was free to go back again to
the home that had not, alas! proved as pleasant a spot to her as her
imagination had once pictured it.

"And that it has not been so," she murmured to herself, "he has not
been all to blame."

On being left at the door, Mrs. Canning rang the bell impatiently.
As soon as admitted, she flew up stairs to meet her husband,
intending to confess her error, and beg him earnestly to forgive her
for having acted so directly in opposition to his wishes. But she
did not find him in the chamber. Throwing off her bonnet and shawl,
she went down into the parlours, but found all dark there.

"Where is Mr. Canning?" she asked of a servant.

"He went away about ten o'clock, and has not returned yet," was
replied.

This intelligence caused Mrs. Canning to lean hard on the
stair-railing for support. She felt in an instant weak almost as an
infant.

Without further question, she went back to her chamber, and looked
about fearfully on bureaus and tables for a letter addressed to her
in her husband's handwriting. But nothing of this met her eye. Then
she sat down to await her husband's return. But she waited long.
Daylight found her an anxious watcher; he was still away.

The anguish of mind experienced during that unhappy night, it would
be vain for us to attempt to picture. In the morning, on descending
to the parlour, she found on one of the pier-tables a letter bearing
her name. She broke the seal tremblingly. It did not contain many
words, but they fell upon her heart with an icy coldness.


"MARGARET: Your conduct to-night has decided me to separate myself
from a woman who I feel neither truly loves nor respects me. The
issue which I have for some time dreaded has come. It is better for
us to part than to live in open discord. I shall arrange every thing
for your comfortable support, and then leave the city, perhaps for
ever. You need not tell our child that her father lives. I would
rather she would think him dead than at variance with her mother.

'JAMES CANNING.'"


These were the words. Their effect was paralyzing. Mrs. Canning had
presence of mind enough to crush the fatal letter into her bosom,
and strength enough to take her back to her chamber. When there, she
sunk powerless upon her bed, and remained throughout the day too
weak in both body and mind to rise or think. She could do little
else but feel.

Five years from the day of that unhappy separation, we find Mrs.
Canning in the unobtrusive home of Aunt Hannah, who took the almost
heart-broken wife into the bosom of her own family, after the
passage of nearly a year had made her almost hopeless of ever seeing
him again. No one knew where he was. Only once did Margaret hear
from him, and that was on the third day after he had parted from
her, when he appeared in the court-room, and made a most powerful
argument in favour of the client whose important case had prevented
his going with his wife to the assembly. After that he disappeared,
and no one could tell aught of him. A liberal annuity had been
settled upon his wife, and the necessary papers to enable her to
claim it transmitted to her under a blank envelope.

Five years had changed Margaret sadly. The high-spirited, blooming,
happy woman, was now a meek, quiet, pale-faced sufferer. Lilly had
grown finely, all unconscious of her mother's suffering, and was a
very beautiful child. She attracted the notice of everyone.

"Aunt Hannah," said Margaret, one day after this long, long period
of suffering, "I have what you will call a strange idea in my mind.
It has been visiting me for weeks, and now I feel much inclined to
act from its dictates. You know that Mr. and Mrs. Edwards are going
to Paris next month. Ever since Mrs. Edwards mentioned it to me, I
have felt a desire to go with them. I don't know why, but so it is.
I think it would do me good to go to Paris and spend a few months
there. When a young girl, I always had a great desire to see London
and Paris; and this desire is again in my mind."

"I would go, then," said Aunt Hannah, who thought favourably of any
thing likely to divert the mind of her niece from the brooding
melancholy in which it was shrouded.

To Paris Mrs. Canning went, accompanied by her little daughter, who
was the favourite of every one on board the steamer in which they
sailed. In this gray city, however, she did not attain as much
relief of mind as she had anticipated. She found it almost
impossible to take interest in any thing, and soon began to long for
the time to come when she could go back to the home and heart of her
good Aunt Hannah. The greatest pleasure she took was in going with
Lilly to the Gardens of the Tuileries, and amid the crowd there to
feel alone with nature in some of her most beautiful aspects. Lilly
was always delighted to get there, and never failed to bring
something in her pocket for the pure white swans that floated so
gracefully in the marble basin into which the water dashed cool and
sparkling from beautiful fountains.

One day, while the child was playing at a short distance from her
mother, a man seated beside a bronze statue, over which drooped a
large orange tree, fixed his eyes upon her admiringly, as hundreds
of others had done. Presently she came up and stood close to him,
looking up into the face of the statue. The man said something to
her in French, but Lilly only smiled and shook her head.

"What is your name, dear?" he then said in English.

"Lilly," replied the child.

A quick change passed over the man's face. With much more interest
in his voice, he said--

"Where do you live? In London?"

"Oh no, sir; I live in America."

"What is your name besides Lilly?"

"Lilly Canning, sir."

The man now became strongly agitated. But he contended vigorously
with his feelings.

"Where is your mother, dear?" he asked, taking her hand as he spoke,
and gently pressing it between his own.

"She is here, sir," returned Lilly, looking inquiringly into the
man's face.

"Here!"

"Yes, sir. We come here every day."

"Where is your mother now?"

"Just on the other side of the fountain. You can't see her for the
lime-tree."

"Is your father here, also?" continued the man.

"No, I don't know where my father is." "Is he dead?" "No, sir;
mother says he is not dead, and that she hopes he will come home
soon. Oh! I wish he would come home. We would all love him so!"

The man rose up quickly, and turning from the child, walked
hurriedly away. Lilly looked after him for a moment or two, and then
ran back to her mother.

On the next day Lilly saw the same man sitting under the bronze
statue. He beckoned to her, and she went to him.

"How long have you been in Paris, dear?" he asked.

"A good many weeks," she replied.

"Are you going to stay much longer?"

"I don't know. But mother wants to go home."

"Do you like to live in Paris?"

"No, sir. I would rather live at home with mother and Aunt Hannah."

"You live with Aunt Hannah, then?"

"Yes, sir. Do you know Aunt Hannah?" and the child looked up
wonderingly into the man's face.

"I used to know her," he replied.

Just then Lilly heard her mother calling her, and she started and
ran away in the direction from which the voice came. The man's face
grew slightly pale, and he was evidently much agitated. As he had
done on the evening previous, he rose up hastily and walked away.
But in a short time he returned, and appeared to be carefully
looking about for some one. At length he caught sight of Lilly's
mother. She was sitting with her eyes upon the ground, the child
leaning upon her, and looking into her face, which he saw was thin
and pale, and overspread with a hue of sadness. Only for a few
moments did he thus gaze upon her, and then he turned and walked
hurriedly from the garden.

Mrs. Canning sat alone with her child that evening, in the
handsomely-furnished apartments she had hired on arriving in Paris.

"He told you that he knew Aunt Hannah?" she said, rousing up from a
state of deep thought.

"Yes, ma. He said he used to know her."

"I wonder"--

A servant opened the door, and said that a gentleman wished to see
Mrs. Canning.

"Tell him to walk in," the mother of Lilly had just power to say. In
breathless suspense she waited for the space of a few seconds, when
the man who had spoken to Lilly in the Gardens of the Tuileries
entered and closed the door after him.

Mrs. Canning raised her eyes to his face. It was her husband! She
did not cry out nor spring forward. She had not the power to do
either.

"That's him now, mother!" exclaimed Lilly.

"It's your father!" said Mrs. Canning, in a deeply breathed whisper.

The child sprung toward him with a quick bound and was instantly
clasped in his arms.

"Lilly, dear Lilly!" he sobbed, pressing his lips upon her brow and
cheeks. "Yes! I am your father!"

The wife and mother sat motionless and tearless with her eyes fixed
upon the face of her husband. After a few passionate embraces,
Canning drew the child's arms from about his neck, and setting her
down upon the floor, advanced slowly toward his wife. Her eyes were
still tearless, but large drops were rolling over his face.

"Margaret!" he said, uttering her name with great tenderness.

He was by her side in time to receive her upon his bosom, as she
sunk forward in a wild passion of tears.

All was reconciled. The desolate hearts were again peopled with
living affections. The arid waste smiled in greenness and beauty.

In their old home, bound by threefold cords of love, they now think
only of the past as a severe lesson by which they have been taught
the heavenly virtue of forbearance. Five years of intense suffering
changed them both, and left marks that after years can never efface.
But selfish impatience and pride were all subdued, and their hearts
melted into each other, until they became almost like one heart.
Those who meet them now, and observe the deep, but unobtrusive
affection with which they regard each other, would never imagine,
did they not know their previous history, that love, during one
period of that married life, had been so long and so totally
eclipsed.




THE SOCIAL SERPENT.


A LADY, whom we will call Mrs. Harding, touched with the destitute
condition of a poor, sick widow, who had three small children,
determined, from an impulse of true humanity, to awaken, if
possible, in the minds of some friends and neighbours, an interest
in her favour. She made a few calls, one morning, with this end in
view, and was gratified to find that her appeal made a favourable
impression. The first lady whom she saw, a Mrs. Miller, promised to
select from her own and children's wardrobe a number of cast-off
garments for the widow, and to aid her in other respects, at the
same time asking Mrs. Harding to call in on the next day, when she
would be able to let her know what she could do.

Pleased with her reception, and encouraged to seek further aid for
the widow, Mrs. Harding withdrew and took her way to the house of
another acquaintance. Scarcely had she left, when a lady, named
Little, dropped in to see Mrs. Miller. To her the latter said, soon
after her entrance:

"I've been very much interested in the case of a poor widow this
morning. She is sick, with three little children dependent on her,
and destitute of almost every thing. Mrs. Harding was telling me
about it."

"Mrs. Harding!" The visitor's countenance changed, and she looked
unutterable things. "I wonder!" she added, in well assumed surprise,
and then was silent.

"What's the matter with Mrs. Harding?" asked Mrs. Miller.

"I should think," said Mrs. Little, "that she was in nice business,
running around, gossiping about indigent widows, when some of her
own relatives are so poor they can hardly keep soul and body
together."

"Is this really so?" asked Mrs. Miller.

"Certainly it is. I had it from my chambermaid, whose sister is cook
next door to where a cousin of Mrs. Harding's lives, and she says
they are, one half of their time, she really believes, in a starving
condition."

"But does Mrs. Harding know this?"

"She ought to know it, for she goes there sometimes, I hear."

"She didn't come merely to gossip about the poor widow," said Mrs.
Miller. "Her errand was to obtain something to relieve her
necessities."

"Did you give her any thing?" asked Mrs. Little.

"No; but I told her to call and see me to-morrow, when I would have
something for her."

"Do you want to know my opinion of this matter?" said Mrs. Little,
drawing herself up, and assuming a very important air.

"What is your opinion?"

"Why, that there is no poor widow in the case at all."

"Mrs. Little!"

"You needn't look surprised. I'm in earnest. I never had much faith
in Mrs. Harding, at the best."

"I _am_ surprised. If there was no poor widow in the case, what did
she want with charity?"

"She has poor relations of her own, for whom, I suppose, she's
ashamed to beg. So you see my meaning now."

"You surely wrong her."

"Don't believe a word of it. At any rate, take my advice, and be the
almoner of your own bounty. When Mrs. Harding comes again, ask her
the name of this poor widow, and where she resides. If she gives you
a name and residence, go and see for yourself."

"I will act on your suggestion," said Mrs. Miller. "Though I can
hardly make up my mind to think so meanly of Mrs. Harding; still,
from the impression your words produce, I deem it only prudent to
be, as you term it, the almoner of my own bounty."

The next lady upon whom Mrs. Harding called, was a Mrs. Johns, and
in her mind she succeeded in also awakening an interest for the poor
widow.

"Call and see me to-morrow," said Mrs. Johns, "and I'll have
something for you."

Not long after Mrs. Harding's departure, Mrs. Little called, in her
round of gossipping visits, and to her Mrs. Johns mentioned the case
of the poor widow, that matter being, for the time, uppermost in her
thoughts.

"Mrs. Harding's poor widow, I suppose," said Mrs. Little, in a
half-sneering, half-malicious tone of voice.

Mrs. Johns looked surprised, as a matter of course.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing, much. Only I've heard of this destitute widow before."

"You have?"

"Yes, and between ourselves,"--the voice of Mrs. Little became low
and confidential--"it's the opinion of Mrs. Miller and myself, that
there is no poor widow in the case."

"Mrs. Little! You astonish me! No poor widow in the case! I can't
understand this. Mrs. Harding was very clear in her statement. She
described the widow's condition, and very much excited my
sympathies. What object can she have in view?"

"Mrs. Miller and I think," said the visitor, "and with good reason,
that this poor widow is only put forward as a cover."

"As a cover to what?"

"To some charities that she has reasons of her own for not wishing
to make public."

"Still in the dark. Speak out more plainly."

"Plainly, then, Mrs. Johns, we have good reasons for believing, Mrs.
Miller and I, that she is begging for some of her own poor
relations. Mrs. Miller is going to see if she can find the widow."

"Indeed! That's another matter altogether. I promised to do
something in the case, but shall now decline. I couldn't have
believed such a thing of Mrs. Harding! But so it is; you never know
people until you find them out."

"No, indeed, Mrs. Johns. You never spoke a truer word in your life,"
replied Mrs. Little, emphatically.

On the day following, after seeing the poor widow, ministering to
some of her immediate wants, and encouraging her to expect more
substantial relief, Mrs. Harding called, as she had promised to do,
on Mrs. Miller. A little to her surprise, that lady received her
with unusual coldness; and yet, plainly, with an effort to seem
friendly.

"You have called about the poor widow you spoke of yesterday?" said
Mrs. Miller.

"Such is the object of my present visit."

"What is her name?"

"Mrs. Aitken."

"Where did you say she lived?"

The residence was promptly given.

"I've been thinking," said Mrs. Miller, slightly colouring, and with
some embarrassment, "that I would call in and see this poor woman
myself."

"I wish you would," was the earnest reply of Mrs. Harding. "I am
sure, if you do so, all your sympathies will be excited in her
favour."

As Mrs. Harding said this, she arose, and with a manner that showed
her feelings to be hurt, as well as mortified, bade Mrs. Miller a
formal good-morning, and retired. Her next call was upon Mrs. Johns.
Much to her surprise, her reception here was quite as cold; in fact,
so cold, that she did not even refer to the object of her visit, and
Mrs. Johns let her go away without calling attention to it herself.
So affected was she by the singular, and to her unaccountable change
in the manner of these ladies, that Mrs. Harding had no heart to
call upon two others, who had promised to do something for the
widow, but went home disappointed, and suffering from a troubled and
depressed state of feeling.

So far as worldly goods were concerned, Mrs. Harding could not boast
very large possessions. She was herself a widow; and her income,
while it sufficed, with economy, to supply the moderate wants of her
family, left her but little for luxuries, the gratification of
taste, or the pleasures of benevolence. Quick to feel the wants of
the needy, no instance of destitution came under her observation
that she did not make some effort toward procuring relief.

What now was to be done? She had excited the sick woman's hopes--had
promised that her immediate wants, and those of her children, should
be supplied. From her own means, without great self-denial, this
could not be effected. True, Mrs. Miller and Mrs. Johns had both
promised to call upon the poor widow, and, in person, administer
relief. But Mrs. Harding did not place much reliance on this; for
something in the manner of both ladies impressed her with the idea
that their promise merely covered a wish to recede from their first
benevolent intentions.

"Something must be done" said she, musingly. And then she set
herself earnestly to the work of devising ways and means. Where
there is a will there is a way. No saying was ever truer than this.

It was, perhaps, a week later, that Mrs. Little called again upon
Mrs. Miller.

"What of Mrs. Harding's poor widow?" said the former, after some
ill-natured gossip about a mutual friend.

"Oh, I declare! I've never thought of the woman since," replied Mrs.
Miller, in a tone of self-condemnation. "And I promised Mrs. Harding
that I would see her. I really blame myself."

"No great harm done, I presume," said Mrs. Little.

"I don't know about that. I'm hardly prepared to think so meanly of
Mrs. Harding as you do. At any rate, I'm going this day to redeem my
promise."

"What promise?"

"The promise I made Mrs. Harding, that I would see the woman she
spoke of, and relieve her, if in need."

"You'll have all your trouble for nothing."

"No matter, I'll clear my conscience, and that is something. Come,
wont you go with me?"

Mrs. Little declined the invitation at first; but, strongly urged by
Mrs. Miller, she finally consented. So the two ladies forthwith took
their way toward the neighbourhood in which Mrs. Harding had said
the needy woman lived. They were within a few doors of the house,
which had been very minutely described by Mrs. Harding, when they
met Mrs. Johns.

"Ah!" said the latter, with animation, "just the person, of all
others, I most wished to see. How could you, Mrs. Miller, so greatly
wrong Mrs. Harding?"

"Me wrong her, Mrs. Johns? I don't understand you." And Mrs. Miller
looked considerably astonished.

"Mrs. Little informed me that you had good reasons for believing all
this story about a poor widow to be a mere subterfuge, got up to
cover some doings of her own that Mrs. Harding was ashamed to bring
to the light."

"Mrs. Little!" There was profound astonishment in the tones of Mrs.
Miller, and her eyes had in them such an indignant light, as she
fixed them upon her companion, that the latter quailed under her
gaze.

"Acting from this impression," resumed Mrs. Johns, "I declined
placing at her disposal the means of relief promised; but, instead,
told her that I would myself see the needy person for whom she asked
aid. This I have, until now, neglected to do; and this neglect, or
indifference I might rather call it, has arisen from a belief that
there was no poor widow in the case. Wrong has been done, Mrs.
Miller, great wrong! How could you have imagined such baseness of
Mrs. Harding?"

"And there _is_ a poor, sick widow, in great need?" said Mrs.
Miller, now speaking calmly, and with regained self-possession.

"There is a sick widow," replied Mrs. Johns, "but not at present in
great need. Mrs. Harding has supplied immediate wants."

"Well, Mrs. Little!" Mrs. Miller again turned her eyes, searchingly,
upon her companion.

"I--I--thought so. It was my impression--I had good reason
for--I--I" stammered Mrs. Little.

"It should have been enough for you to check a benevolent impulse in
my case by your unfounded suggestions. Not content with this,
however, you must use my name in still further spreading your unjust
suspicions, and actually make me the author of charges against a
noble-minded woman, which had their origin in your own evil
thoughts."

"I will not bear such language!" said the offended Mrs. Little,
indignantly; and turning with an angry toss of the head, she left
the ladies to their own reflections.

"I am taught one good lesson from this circumstance," said Mrs.
Miller, as they walked away; "and that is, never to even seem to
have my good opinion of another affected by the allegations and
surmises of a social gossip. Such people always suppose the worst,
and readily pervert the most unselfish actions into moral offences.
The harm they do is incalculable."

"And, as in the present case," remarked Mrs. Johns, "they make
others responsible for their base suggestions. Had Mrs. Little not
coupled your name with the implied charges against Mrs. Harding, my
mind would not have been poisoned against her."

"While not a breath of suspicion had ever crossed mine until Mrs.
Little came in, and wantonly intercepted the stream of benevolence
about to flow forth to a needy, and, I doubt not, most worthy
object."

"We have made of her an enemy. At least you have; for you spoke to
her with smarting plainness," said Mrs. Johns.

"Better the enmity of such than their friendship," replied Mrs.
Miller. "Their words of detraction cannot harm so much as the poison
of evil thoughts toward others, which they ever seek to infuse. Your
dearest friend is not safe from them, if she be pure as an angel.
Let her name but pass your lips, and instantly it is breathed upon,
and the spotless surface grows dim."




THE YOUNG MOTHER.


[The following brief passage is from our story, "The Wife," in the
series "Maiden," "Wife," and "Mother."]

A NEW chord vibrated in Anna's heart, and the music was sweeter far
in her spirit's ear, than any before heard. She was changed.
Suddenly she felt that she was a new creature. Her breast was filled
with deeper, purer, and tenderer emotions. She was a mother! A babe
had been born to her! A sweet pledge of love lay nestling by her
side, and drawing its life from her bosom. She was happy--how happy
cannot be told. A mother only can _feel_ how happy she was on first
realizing the new emotions that thrill in a young mother's heart.

As health gradually returned to her exhausted frame, and friends
gathered around her with warm congratulations, Anna felt that she
was indeed beginning a new life. Every hour her soul seemed to
enlarge, and her mind to be filled with higher and purer thoughts.
Before the birth of her babe, she suffered much more than even her
husband had supposed, both in body and mind. Her spirits were often
so depressed that it required her utmost effort to receive him with
her accustomed cheerfulness at each period of his loved return. But,
living as she did in the ever active endeavour to bless others, she
strove daily and hourly to rise above every infirmity. Now, all was
peace within--holy peace. There came a Sabbath rest of deep,
interior joy, that was sweet, unutterably sweet. Body and spirit
entered into this rest. No wind ruffled the still, bright waters of
her life. She was the same, and yet not the same.

"I cannot tell you, dear husband! how happy I am," she said, a few
weeks after her babe was born. "Nor can I describe the different
emotions that pervade my heart. When our babe is in my arms, and
especially when it lies at my bosom, it seems as if angels were near
me."

"And angels are near you," replied her husband. "Angels love
innocence, and especially infants, that are forms of innocence. They
are present with them, and the mother shares the blessed company,
for she loves her babe with an unselfish love, and this the angels
can perceive, and, through it, affect her with a measure of their
own happiness.

"How delightful the thought! Above all, is the mother blessed. She
suffers much--her burden is hard to bear--the night is dark--but the
morning that opens upon her is the brightest a human soul knows
during its earthly pilgrimage. And no wonder. She has performed the
highest and holiest of offices--she has given birth to an immortal
being--and her reward is with her."

Hartley had loved his wife truly, deeply, tenderly. Every day, he
saw more and more in her to admire. There was an order, consistency,
and harmony in her character as a wife, that won his admiration. In
the few months they had passed since their marriage, she had filled
her place to him, perfectly. Without seeming to reflect how she
should regulate her conduct toward her husband, in every act of her
wedded life she had displayed true wisdom, united with unvarying
love. All this caused his heart to unite itself more and more
closely with hers. But now, that she held to him the twofold
relation of a wife and mother, his love was increased fourfold. He
thought of her, and looked upon her, with increased tenderness.

"Mine, by a double tie," he said, with a full realization of his
words, when he first pressed his lips upon the brow of his child,
and then, with a fervour unfelt before, upon the lips of his wife.
"As you have been a good wife, you will be a good mother," he added,
with emotion.

THE GENTLE WARNING.

"Do not accept the offer, Florence," said her friend Carlotti.

A shade of disappointment went over the face of the fair girl, who
had just communicated the pleasing fact that she had received an
offer of marriage.

"You cannot be happy as the wife of Herman Leland," added Carlotti.

"How little do you know this heart," returned the fond girl.

"It is because I know it so well that I say what I do. If your love
be poured out for Herman Leland, Florence, it will be as water on
the desert sand."

"Why do you affirm this, Carlotti?"

"A woman can truly love only the moral virtue of her husband."

"I do not clearly understand you."

"It is only genuine goodness of heart that conjoins in marriage."

"Well?"

"Just so far as selfish and evil affections find a place in the mind
of either the husband or wife, will be the ratio of unhappiness in
the marriage state. If there be any truth in morals, or in the
doctrine of affinities, be assured that this is so. It is neither
intellectual attainments nor personal attractions that make
happiness in marriage. Far, very far from it. All depends upon the
quality of the affections. If these be good, happiness will come as
a natural consequence; but if they be evil, misery will inevitably
follow so close a union."

"Then you affirm that Mr. Leland is an evil-minded man?"

"Neither of us know him well enough to say this positively,
Florence. Judging from what little I have seen, I should call him a
selfish man; and no selfish man can be a good man, for selfishness
is the basis of all evil."

"I am afraid you are prejudiced against him, Carlotti."

"If I have had any prejudices in the matter, Florence, they have
been in his favour. Well-educated, refined in his manners, and
variously accomplished, he creates, on nearly all minds, a
favourable impression. Such an impression did I at first feel. But
the closer I drew near to him, the less satisfied did I feel with my
first judgment. On at least two occasions, I have heard him speak
lightly of religion."

"Of mere cant and sectarianism, perhaps."

"No; he once spoke lightly of a mother for making it a point to
require all her children to repeat their prayers before going to
bed. On another occasion, he alluded to one of the sacraments of the
church in a way that produced an inward shudder. From that time, I
have looked at him with eyes from which the scales have been
removed; and the more I seek to penetrate beneath the surface of his
character, the more do I see what repels me. Florence, dear, let me
urge you, as one who tenderly loves you and earnestly desires to see
you happy, to weigh the matter well ere you assent to this
proposal."

"I'm afraid, Carlotti," said Florence in reply to this, "that you
have let small causes influence your feelings toward Mr. Leland. We
all speak lightly, at times, even on subjects regarded as
sacred--not because we despise them, but from casual thoughtlessness.
It was, no doubt, so with Mr. Leland on the occasion to which you
refer."

"We are rarely mistaken, Florence," replied Carlotti, "as to the
real sentiment involved in the words used by those with whom we
converse. Words are the expressions of thoughts, and these the form
of affections. What a man really feels in reference to any subject,
will generally appear in the tones of his voice, no matter whether
he speak lightly or seriously. Depend upon it, this is so. It was
the manner in which Leland spoke that satisfied me as to his real
feelings, more than the language he used. Judging him in this way, I
am well convinced that, in his heart, he despises religion; and no
man who does this, can possibly make a right-minded woman happy."

The gentle warning of Carlotti was not wholly lost on Florence. She
had great confidence in the judgment of her friend, and did not feel
that it would be right to wholly disregard her admonitions.

"What answer can I make?" said she, drawing a long sigh. "He urges
an early response to his suit."

"Duty to yourself, Florence, demands a time for consideration.
Marriage is a thing of too vital moment to be decided upon
hurriedly. Say to him in reply, that his offer is unexpected, and
that you cannot give an immediate answer, but will do so at the
earliest possible moment."

"So cold a response may offend him."

"If it does, then he will exhibit a weakness of character unfitting
him to become the husband of a sensible woman. If he be really
attracted by your good qualities, he will esteem you the more for
this act of prudence. He will understand that you set a high regard
upon the marriage relation, and do not mean to enter into it unless
you know well the person to whom you commit your happiness in this
world, and, in all probability, the next."

"A coldly calculating spirit, Carlotti, that nicely weighs and
balances the merits and defects of one beloved, is, in my view,
hardly consonant with true happiness in marriage. All have defects
of character. All are born with evil inclinations of one kind or
another. Love seeks only for good in the object of affection.
Affinities of this kind are almost spontaneous in their birth. We
love more from impulse than from any clear appreciation of
character--perceiving good qualities by a kind of instinct rather
than searching for them."

"A doctrine, Florence," said Carlotti, "that has produced untold
misery in the married life. As I said at first, it is only the moral
virtue of her husband that a woman can love--it is only this, as a
uniting principle, that can make two married partners one. The
qualities of all minds express themselves in words and actions, and,
by a close observance of these latter, we may determine the nature
of the former. We cannot perceive them with sufficient clearness to
arrive at a sound judgment: the only safe method is to determine the
character of the tree by its fruits. Take sufficient time to arrive
at a knowledge of Mr. Leland's character by observation, and then
you can accept or reject him under the fullest assurance that you
are acting wisely."

"Perhaps you are right," murmured Florence. "I will weigh carefully
what you have said."

And she did so. Much to the disappointment of Mr. Leland, he
received a reply from Florence asking a short time for reflection.

When Florence next met the young man, there was, as a natural
consequence, some slight embarrassment on both sides. On separating,
Florence experienced a certain unfavourable impression toward him,
although she could not trace it to any thing he had said or done. At
their next meeting, Leland's reserve had disappeared, and he
exhibited a better flow of spirits. He was more off his guard than
usual, and said a good many things that rather surprised Florence.

Impatient of delay, Leland again pressed his suit; but Florence was
further than ever from being ready to give an answer. She was not
prepared to reject him, and as little prepared to give a favourable
answer. Her request to be allowed further time for consideration,
wounded his pride; and, acting under its influence, he determined to
have his revenge on her by suing for the hand of another maiden, and
bearing her to the altar while she was hesitating over the offer he
had made. With this purpose in view, he penned a kind and polite
note, approving her deliberation, and desiring her to take the
fullest time for reflection. "Marriage," said he, in this note, "is
too serious a matter to be decided upon hastily. It is a life-union,
and the parties who make it should be well satisfied that there
exists a mutual fitness for each other."

Two days passed after Florence received this note before seeing her
friend Carlotti. She then called upon her in order to have further
conversation on the subject of the proposal she had received. The
tenor of this note had produced a favourable change in her feelings,
and she felt strongly disposed to make a speedy termination of the
debate in her mind by accepting her attractive suitor.

"Are you not well?" was her first remark on seeing Carlotti, for her
friend looked pale and troubled.

"Not very well, dear," replied Carlotti, making an effort to assume
a cheerful aspect.

The mind of Florence was too intent on the one interesting subject
that occupied it to linger long on any other theme. But a short time
elapsed before she said, with a warmer glow on her cheeks--

"I believe I have made up my mind, Carlotti."

"About what?"

"The offer of Mr. Leland."

"Well, what is your decision?" Carlotti held her breath for an
answer.

"I will accept him."

Without replying, Carlotti arose, and going to a drawer, took
therefrom a letter addressed to herself and handing it to Florence,
said--

"Read that."

There was something ominous in the manner of Carlotti, which caused
Florence to become agitated. Her hands trembled as she unfolded the
letter. It bore the date of the day previous, and read thus:--


"MY DEAR CARLOTTI: From the first moment I saw you, I felt that you
were the one destined to make me happy or miserable. Your image has
been present to me, sleeping or waking, ever since. I can turn in no
way that it is not before me. The oftener I have met you, the more
have I been charmed by the gentleness, the sweetness, the purity,
and excellence of your character. With you to walk through life by
my side, I feel that my feet would tread a flowery way; but if
heaven have not this blessing in store for me, I shall be, of all
men, most miserable. My heart is too full to write more. And have I
not said enough? Love speaks in brief but eloquent language. Dear
young lady, let me hear from you speedily. I shall be wretched until
I know your decision. Heaven give my suit a favourable issue!

Yours, devotedly,

"HERMAN LELAND."


A deadly paleness overspread the countenance of Florence as the
letter dropped from her hands; and she leaned back against her
friend to prevent falling to the floor. But, in a little while, she
recovered herself.

"And this to _you_?" said she, with a quivering lip, as she gazed
earnestly into the face of her friend.

"Yes, Florence, that to _me_."

"Can I trust my own senses? Is there not some illusion? Let me look
at it again."

And Florence stooped for the letter, and fixed her eyes upon it once
more. The language was plain, and the handwriting she knew too well.

"False-hearted!" she murmured, in a low and mournful voice, covering
her face and sobbing.

"Yes, Florence," said her friend, "he is false-hearted. How thankful
am I that you have escaped! Evidently in revenge for your prudent
deliberation, he has sought an alliance with another. Had that other
one accepted his heartless proposal, he would have met your
favourable answer to his suit with insult."

For a long time, Florence wept on the bosom of her friend. Then her
feelings grew calmer, and her mind became clear.

"What an escape!" fell from her lips as she raised her head and
turned her still pale face toward Carlotti. "Thanks, my wiser
friend, for your timely, yet gentle warning! Your eyes saw deeper
than mine."

"Yes, yes; you have made an escape!" said Carlotti. "With such a
man, your life could only have been wretched."

"Have you answered his letter?" asked Florence.

"Not yet. But if you are inclined to do so, we will, on the same
sheet of paper and under the same envelope, each decline the honour
of an alliance. Such a rebuke he deserves, and we ought to give it."

And such a rebuke they gave.

A few months later, and Leland led to the altar a young lady reputed
to be an heiress.

A year afterward, just on the eve of Florence's marriage to a
gentleman in every way worthy to take her happiness in his keeping,
she sat alone with her fast friend Carlotti. They were conversing of
the bright future.

"And for all this joy, in store for me, Carlotti," said Florence,
leaning toward her friend and laying her hand affectionately on her
cheek, "I am indebted to you."

"To me? How to me, dear?" asked Carlotti.

"You saved me from an alliance with Leland. Oh, into what an abyss
of wretchedness would I have fallen! I heard to-day that, after
cruelly abusing poor Agnes in Charleston, where they removed, he
finally abandoned her. Can it be true?"

"It is, I believe, too true. Agnes came back to her friends last
week, bringing with her a babe. I have not seen her; but those who
have tell me that her story of suffering makes the heart ache. She
looks ten years older."

"Ah me!" sighed Florence. "Marriage--how much it involves! Even now,
as I stand at its threshold, with so much that looks bright in the
future, I tremble. Of Edward's excellent character and goodness of
heart, all bear testimony. He is every thing I could wish; but will
I make him happy?"

"Not all you could wish," said Carlotti, seriously. "None are
perfection here; and you must not expect this. You will find, in
your husband's character, faults. Anticipate this; but let the
anticipation prepare you to bear with rather than be hurt when they
appear, and do not seek too soon to correct them. It is said by a
certain deeply-seeing writer on spiritual themes, that when the
angels come to try one, they explore his mind only to find the good
therein, that they may excite it to activity. Be, then, your
husband's angel; explore his mind for the good it contains, and seek
to develop and strengthen it. Looking intently at what is good in
him, you will not be likely to see faults looming up and assuming a
magnitude beyond their real dimensions. But when faults appear, as
they assuredly will, compare them with your own; and, as you would
have him exercise forbearance toward you, do you exercise
forbearance toward him. Be wise in your love, my friend. Wisdom and
love are married partners. If you separate them, neither is a safe
guide. But if you keep them united, like a rower who pulls both
oars, you will glide swiftly forward in a smooth sea."

Florence bent her head as she listened, and every word of her friend
made its impression. Long after were they remembered and acted upon,
and they saved her from hours of pain. Florence is a happy wife; but
how near did she come to making shipwreck of her love-freighted
heart? There are times when, in thinking of it, she trembles.




KATE'S EXPERIMENT.


KATE HARBELL, a high-spirited girl, who had a pretty strong will of
her own, was about being married. Like a great many others of her
age and sex who approach the matrimonial altar, Kate's notions of
the marriage relation were not the clearest in the world.

Ferdinand Lee, the betrothed of Kate, a quiet, sensitive young man,
had, perhaps, as strong a will as the young lady herself, though it
was more under the control of reason. He was naturally impatient of
dictation or force, and a strong love of approbation made him feel
keenly any thing like satire, ridicule or censure. To point him to a
fault was to wound if not offend him. Here lay the weakness of his
character. All this, on the other side, was counterbalanced by kind
feelings, good sense, and manly principles. He was above all
meanness or dishonour.

Of course, Kate did not fully understand his character. Such a thing
as a young girl's accurate knowledge of the character of the man she
is about to marry, is of very rare occurrence. She saw enough of
good qualities to make her love him with tenderness and devotion;
but she also saw personal defects that were disagreeable in the
object of her affections. But she did not in the least doubt that
all these she could easily correct in him after she became his wife.

From a defect of education, or from a natural want of neatness and
order, Ferdinand Lee was inclined to carelessness in his attire;
and also exhibited a certain want of polish in his manners and
address that was, at times, particularly annoying to Kate.

"I'll break him of that when I get him," said the young lady to a
married friend, alluding to some little peculiarity both had
noticed.

"Don't be too certain," returned the lady, smiling.

"You'll see."

Kate tossed her head in a resolute way.

"I'll see you disappointed."

"Wait a little while. Before I'm his wife six months, you'll hardly
know the man, there'll be such a change."

"The change is far more likely to take place in you."

"Why do you say that, Mrs. Morton?" inquired Kate, looking grave.

"Because I think so. Men are not so easily brought into order, and
the attempt at reformation and correction by a young wife generally
ends in painful disappointment. If you begin this work you will, in
all probability, find yourself tasked beyond your ability. I speak
from some experience, having been married for about ten years, and
having seen a good many young girls come up into our ranks from the
walks of single blessedness. Take my advice, and look away from
Frederick's faults and disagreeable peculiarities as much as
possible, and think more of his manly traits of character--his fine
sentiments, and honourable principles."

"I do look at them and love them," replied Kate, with animation.
"These won my heart at first, and now unite me to him in bonds that
cannot be broken. But if on a precious gem there be a slight blemish
that mars its beauty, shall we not seek to remove the defect, and
thus give the jewel a higher lustre? Will you say, no?"

"I will, if in the act there be danger of injuring the gem."

"I don't understand you, Mrs. Morton?"

"Reflect for a moment, and see if my meaning is not apparent."

"You think I will offend him if I point out a fault, or seek to
correct it?"

"A result most likely to follow."

"I will not think so poorly of his good sense," answered Kate, with
some gravity of manner. The suggestion half offended her.

"None are perfect, my young friend; don't forget that," said Mrs.
Morton, with equal seriousness. "To think differently is a common
mistake of persons circumstanced as you are."

"It's no mistake of mine, let me assure you," replied Kate. "I can
see faults as quickly as any one. Love can't blind me. It is because
I see defects in Frederick that I wish to correct them."

"And you trust to his good sense to take the work of correction
kindly?"

"Certainly I do."

"Then you most probably think him more perfect than he really is.
Very few people can bear to be told of their faults, and fewer still
to be told of them by those they love. Love is expected to be blind
to defects; therefore, when it is seen looking at and pointing them
out, the feeling produced is, in the very nature of things, a
disagreeable one. Take my advice, and let Frederick's faults alone,
at least for a year after you are married; and even then put your
hand on them very lightly, and as if by accident."

"Do you think I could see him lounge, or, rather, slide down in his
chair in that ungraceful way, and not speak to him about it? Not I.
It makes me nervous now; and, if I wasn't afraid he might take it
unkindly, would call his attention to it."

"Do you think he will be less likely to take it unkindly after
marriage?"

"Certainly. Then I will have a right to speak to him about it."

"Then marriage will give you certain rights over your husband?"

"It will give him rights over me, and a very poor rule that is which
doesn't work both ways. Marriage will make him my husband; and,
surely, a wife may tell her husband that he is not perfect, without
offending him."

"Kate, Kate; you don't know what you are talking about, child!"

"I think I do."

"And I know you don't."

"Oh, well, Mrs. Morton, we won't quarrel about it," said Kate,
laughing. "I mean to make one of the best of wives, and have one of
the best of husbands to be found. He will require a little fixing up
to make him just to my mind, but don't you fear but what I'll do it
in the gentlest possible manner. Women have more taste than men, you
know, and a man never looks and acts just right until he gets a
woman to take charge of him."

A happy bride Kate became a few months after this little
conversation took place, and Lee thought himself the most fortunate
of men in obtaining such a lovely, accomplished, and right-minded
woman for a wife. Swiftly glided away the sweet honey-moon, without
a jar of discord, though, during the time, Kate saw a good many
things not exactly to her mind, and which she set down as needing
correction.

One evening, it was just five weeks after the marriage, and when
they were snugly settled in their own house, Frederick Lee was
seated before the grate, in a handsome rocking-chair, his body in a
position that it would have required a stretch of language to
pronounce graceful or becoming. He had drawn off one of his boots,
that was lying on the floor, and the leg from which it had been
taken was hanging over an arm of his chair. He had slipped forward
in the chair--his ordinary mode of sitting, or, rather, lying--so
far that his head, which, if he had been upright, would have been
even with the top of the back, was at least twelve inches below it.
To add to the effect of his position, he was swinging the bootless
leg that hung across the arm of the chair with a rapid, circling
motion. He had been reclining in this inelegant attitude for about
ten minutes, when Kate, who had permitted herself to become a good
deal annoyed by it, said to him, rather earnestly--

"Do, Frederick, sit up straight, and try and be a little more
graceful in your positions."

"What's that?" inquired the young man, as if he had not heard
distinctly.

"Can't you sit up straight?"

Kate smiled; but Lee saw that it was a forced smile.

"Oh, yes," he answered, indifferently. "I can sit up straight as an
arrow, but I find this attitude most agreeable."

"If you knew how you looked," said Kate.

"How do I look?" asked the young man, playfully.

"Oh! you look--you look more like a country clod-hopper than any
thing else."

There was a sharpness in Kate's tones that fell unpleasantly on the
ears of the young man.

"Do I, indeed!" was his rather cold remark. Yet he did not change
his position.

"Indeed, you do," said the wife, who was, by this time, beginning to
feel a good deal of irritation; for she saw that Frederick was not
inclined to respond in the way she had hoped, to her very reasonable
desire that he would assume a more graceful attitude. "The fact is,"
she continued, impelled to further utterance by the excited state of
her feelings, although she was conscious of having already said more
than was agreeable to her husband, "you ought to correct yourself of
these ungraceful and undignified habits. It shows a want of"--

Kate stopped suddenly. She felt that she was about using words that
would inevitably give offence.

"A want of what?" inquired Lee, in a low, firm voice, while he
continued to look his young wife steadily in the face.

Kate's eyes fell to the floor and she remained silent.

"Ungraceful and undignified. Humph!"

Lee was evidently hurt at this allegation, as the tone in which he
repeated the words clearly showed.

"Do you call your present attitude graceful?" Kate asked, rallying
herself under the reflection that she was right.

"It is comfortable for me; and, therefore, ought to be graceful in
your eyes," was the young man's perverse answer. Not the slightest
change had yet taken place in his position.

This was beyond what the high spirited lady could bear, and she
retorted with more feeling than discretion:

"Love is not blind in my case, I can assure you, Frederick, and
never will be. You are very ungraceful and untidy, and annoy me,
sometimes, excessively. I wish you would try to correct these
things."

"You do?"

There was something cool and provoking in the way Lee said this.

"I do, Frederick, and I'm in earnest."

The cheeks of Kate were in a glow, and her eyes lit up, and her lips
quivering.

"How long since you made the discovery that I was only a country
clod-hopper?" said Lee, who was particularly annoyed by Kate's
unexpected charges against his good-breeding.

"I didn't say you were only a country clod-hopper," replied Kate.

"I believe you used the words. My ears rarely deceive me. I must own
to feeling highly complimented."

"Do sit up straight, Frederick! Do take your leg from over the arm
of that chair! You make me so nervous that I can hardly contain
myself."

"Really! I thought a man was privileged to sit in any position he
pleased in his own house."

The excitement of Kate's mind had, by this time, reached a crisis.
Bursting into tears, she hurried from the room, and went sobbing up
to her chamber.

Here was a fine state of affairs, indeed! Was ever a man so perverse
and unreasonable?

Did Frederick Lee follow, quickly, his weeping wife? No; his pride
was too deeply wounded for that.

"A country clod-hopper! Undignified and ungraceful! Upon my word!"
Such were some of his mental ejaculations. And then, as his feelings
grew excited, he started up from his chair and began pacing the
floor, muttering, as he did so--

"It is rather late in the day to make this discovery! Why didn't she
find it out before? Humph!"

Meanwhile, Kate had thrown herself across her bed, where she lay,
weeping bitterly.

What a storm had suddenly been blown about their ears!

It was fully an hour before Frederick Lee's disturbed feelings began
to run at all clear. He was both surprised and offended. What could
all this mean? What had all at once come over his young wife?

"A country clod-hopper!" he muttered to himself over and over again.
"Ungraceful--ungenteel, and all that! Very complimentary, indeed!"

When Lee joined his wife in their chamber, two hours after she had
left him, he found that she had retired to bed and was sleeping.

On the next morning both looked very sober, and both were cold and
distant. A few words only passed between them. It was the same when
they met at dinner-time, and the same when Lee came home in the
evening. During the whole of this day, the thought of each was upon
the other; but it was not a forgiving thought. Kate cherished angry
feelings toward her husband; and Lee continued to be offended at the
freedom of expression which his young wife had ventured to use
toward him. Of course, both were very unhappy.

The formal intercourse of the tea-table having ended, Lee, feeling
little inclined to pass the evening with his reserved and
sober-looking partner, put on his hat, and merely remarking that he
would not return until bed-time, left the house. This act startled
Kate. With the jar of the closing door came a gush of tears. The
evening was passed alone. How wretched she felt as the hours moved
slowly on!

It was nearly eleven o'clock when Lee came home. By that time, the
mind of Kate was in an agony of suspense. More than once the thought
that he had abandoned her intruded itself, and filled her with fear
and anguish. What a relief to her feelings it was when she heard the
rattle of his night-key in the lock! But she could not meet him with
a smile. She could not throw her arms around his neck, and press her
hot cheek to his. No: for she felt that he was angry with her
without just cause, and had visited with unjust severity a light
offence--if, so far as she was concerned, her act were worthy to be
called an offence.

And so they looked coldly upon each other when they met, and then
averted their eyes.

The morning broke, but with no fairer promise of a sunny day. Clouds
obscured their whole horizon. Coldly they parted after the brief and
scarcely tasted meal. How wretched they were!

During the forenoon, Mrs. Morton, the friend of Mrs. Lee, called in
to see her young friend.

"Why, Kate! What has happened?" she exclaimed, the moment she saw
her.

Mrs. Lee tried to smile and look indifferent, as she answered--

"Happened? Why do you say that?"

"You look as if you hadn't a friend left in the world!"

"And I don't know that I have," said Mrs. Lee, losing, all at once,
her self-command, and permitting the ready tears to gush forth.

"Why, Kate, dear!" exclaimed Mrs. Morton, drawing her arm around the
neck of her young friend. "What is the meaning of all this?
Something wrong with Frederick?"

Kate was silent.

Mrs. Morton reflected for a moment, and then said--

"Been trying to correct some of his faults, ha?"

No answer. But the sobbing became less violent.

"Ah, Kate! Kate! I warned you of this."

"Warned me of what?"

Mrs. Lee lifted her head, and tried to assume an air of dignity as
she spoke.

"I warned you that Frederick would not bear it, if you attempted to
lay your hand upon his faults."

Kate raised her head higher, and compressed her lips. Still she did
not answer.

"A young husband, naturally enough, thinks himself faultless--at
least in the eyes of his wife."

"Very far from faultless is Frederick in my eyes," said Kate. "My
love is not blind, and so I told him."

"You did!"

"Yes, I did, and in so many words," replied Kate, with spirit.

"Ah, silly child!" returned her friend. "Already you have the reward
of your folly. I forewarned you how it would be."

"Are my wishes, feelings, and taste to be of no account whatever?"
said Kate, warmly. "Frederick is to be and do just what he pleases,
and I must say nothing, do nothing, and bear every thing. Was this
the contract between us? No, Mrs. Morton!"

The bright eyes of Mrs. Lee flashed with indignant fire.

"Come, come, Katy, dear! Don't let that impulsive heart of thine
lead thee too far aside from the path of prudence and safety. I am
sure that Frederick Lee is no self-willed, exacting, domestic
tyrant. I could not have been so deceived in him. But tell me the
particular cause of your trouble. What has been said and done? You
have given offence, and he has become offended. Tell me the whole
story, Kate, and then I'll know what to say and do for the
restoration of your peace."

"You are aware," said Kate, after a brief pause, and with a
deepening flush on her cheeks, "how awkward and untidy Frederick is
at times,--how he lounges in his chair, and throws his body into all
manner of ungraceful attitudes."

"Well?"

"This, as you know, has always annoyed me sadly. Night before last,
I felt so worried with him, that I could not help speaking right
out."

"Ah! when you were worried?"

"Of course. If I hadn't felt worried, I wouldn't have said any
thing."

"Indeed! Well, what did you say? Was your tone of voice low and full
of love, and your words as gentle as the falling dew?"

"Mrs. Morton!"

There was a half-angry, indignant expression in the voice of Kate.

"Did you lay your hand lightly, like the touch of a feather, upon
the fault you designed to correct, or did you grasp it rudely and
angrily?"

Kate's eyes drooped beneath those of her friend.

"You were annoyed and excited," continued Mrs. Morton. "This by your
own acknowledgment, and, in such a frame of mind, you charged with
faults the one who had vainly thought himself, at least in your
eyes, perfect. And he, as a natural consequence, was hurt and
offended. But what did you say to him?"

"I hardly know what I said, now," returned Kate. "But I know I used
the words ungraceful, undignified, and country clod-hopper."

"Why, Kate! I am surprised at you! And this to so excellent a man as
Frederick, who, from all the fair and gentle ones around him, chose
you to be his bosom friend and life companion. Kate, Kate! That was
unworthy of you. That was unkind to him. I do not wonder that he was
hurt and offended."

"Perhaps I was wrong, Mrs. Morton," said Kate, as tears began to
flow again. "But Frederick's want of order, grace, and neatness, is
dreadful. I cannot tell you how much it annoys me."

"You saw all this before you were married."

"Not all of it."

"You saw enough to enable you to judge of the rest."

"True; but then I always meant to correct these things in him. They
were but blemishes on a jewel of surpassing value."

"Ah, Kate, you have proved the truth of what I told you before your
marriage. It is not so easy a thing to correct the faults of a
husband--faults confirmed by long habit. Whenever a wife attempts
this, she puts in jeopardy, for the time being at least, her
happiness, as you have done. A man is but little pleased to make the
discovery that his wife thinks him no better than a country
clod-hopper; and it is no wonder that he should be offended, if she,
with strange indiscreetness and want of tact, tells him in plain
terms what she thinks. Your husband is sensitive, Kate."

"I know he is."

"And keenly alive to ridicule."

"I am not aware of that."

"Then your reading of his character is less accurate than mine.
Moreover, he has a pretty good opinion of himself."

"We all have that."

"And a strong will, quiet as he is in exterior."

"Not stronger, perhaps, than I have."

"Take my advice, Kate," said Mrs. Morton, seriously, "and don't
bring your will in direct opposition to his."

"And why not? Am I not his equal? He is no master of mine. I did not
sell myself as his slave, that his will should be my law!"

"Silly child! How madly you talk!" said Mrs. Morton. "Not for the
world would I have Frederick hear such utterance from your lips.
Does he not love you tenderly? Has he not, in every way, sought your
happiness thus far in your brief married life? Is he not a man of
high moral virtue? Does not your alliance with him rather elevate
than depress you in the social rank? And yet, forsooth, because he
lounges in his chair, and permits his body, at times, to assume
ungraceful attitudes, you must throw the apple of discord into your
pleasant home to mar its beautiful harmonies."

"Surely, a wife may be permitted to speak to her husband, and even
seek to correct his faults," said Kate.

"Better shut her eyes to his faults, if seeing them is to make them
both unhappy. You are in a very strange mood, Kate."

"Am I?" returned Mrs. Lee, querulously.

"You are; and the quicker it passes away, the better for both
yourself and husband."

"I don't know how soon it will pass away," sighed Kate, moodily.

"Good-morning," said Mrs. Morton, rising and making a motion to
depart.

"You are not going?"

Kate glanced up with a look of surprise.

"Yes; I am afraid to stay here any longer," was the affected serious
reply. "I might catch something of your spirit, and then my husband
would find a change in his pleasant home. Good-morning. May I see
you in a better state of mind when we meet again."

And saying this, Mrs. Morton passed from the room so quickly that
Kate could not arrest the movement; so she remained seated, though a
little disturbed by her friend and monitor's sudden departure.

What Mrs. Morton had said, although it seemed not to impress the
mind of her young friend, yet lingered there, and now began
gradually to do its work.

As for Frederick Lee, he was unhappy enough. The words of Kate had
stung him severely.

"And so, in her eyes, I am no better than a country clod-hopper!"

Almost every hour was this repeated--sometimes mentally and
sometimes aloud; and at each repetition it disturbed his feelings
and awakened an unforgiving spirit.

"A clod-hopper, indeed! Wonder she never made this discovery
before!"

This was the thought of Lee as he left his place of business to
return home, on the evening of the day on which Mrs. Morton called
upon Kate. Why would he not look away from this? Why would he ponder
over and magnify the offence of Kate? Why would he keep this ever
before his eyes? His self-love had been wounded. His pride had been
touched. The weapon of ridicule had been used against him, and to
ridicule he was morbidly sensitive. Kate should have read his
character more closely, and should have understood it better. But
she was ignorant of his weaknesses, and bore heavily upon them ere
aware of their existence.

It was in this brooding, clouded, and unforgiving state of mind that
Frederick Lee took his way homeward. On entering his dwelling, which
he did almost noiselessly, he went into the parlour and seated
himself in the very place where he was sitting when Kate began, so
unexpectedly to him, her unsuccessful work of reformation. Every
thing around reminded him of that unfortunate evening--even the
lounging position he so naturally assumed, sliding down, as he did,
in the chair, and throwing one of his legs over the arm.

"It is comfortable for me," said he, moodily to himself; "and it's
my own house. If she don't like it, let her--"

He did not finish the sentence, for he felt that his state of mind
was not what it should be, and that to speak thus of his wife was
neither just nor kind.

Unhappy young man! Is it thus you visit the light offence--for it
was light, in reality--of the loving and gentle young creature who
has given her happiness, her very life into your keeping? Could you
not bear a word from her? Are you so perfect, that her eyes must see
no defect? Is she never to dare, on penalty of your stern
displeasure, to correct a fault--to seek to lift you, by her purer
and better taste, above the ungraceful and unmanly habits consequent
upon a neglected boyhood? What if her hand was laid rather heavily
upon you? What if her feelings did prompt her to use words that had
better been left unsaid? It was the young wife's pride in her
husband that warmed her into undue excitement, and this you should
have at once comprehended.

If Frederick Lee did not think precisely as we have written, his
thoughts gradually inclined in that direction. Still he felt moody,
and his feelings warmed but little toward Kate.

Thus he sat for some ten or fifteen minutes. At the end of this
time, he heard light footsteps coming down the stairs. He knew them
to be those of his wife. He did not move nor make a sound, but
rather crouched lower in his chair, the back of which was turned
toward the door. But his thought was on his wife. He saw her with
the eyes of his mind--saw her with her clouded countenance. His
heart throbbed heavily against his side, and he partially held his
breath.

Now her footsteps moved along the passage, and now he was conscious
that she had entered the room where he sat. Not the slightest
movement did he make--not a sign did he give of his presence. There
he sat, shrinking down in his chair, moody, gloomy, and angry with
Kate in his heart.

Was she aware of his presence? Had she heard him enter the house?
Such were the questioning thoughts that were in his mind.

Footsteps moved across the room. Now Kate was at the mantel-piece, a
few feet from the chair he occupied, for he heard her lay a book
thereon. Now she passed to the back window, and throwing it up,
pushed open the shutters, giving freer entrance to the waning light.

A deep silence followed. Now the stillness is broken by a gentle
sigh that floats faintly through the room. How rebukingly smote that
sigh upon the ears of Lee! How it softened his heart toward Kate,
the young and loving wife of his bosom! A slower movement in the
current of his angry feelings succeeds to this. Then it becomes
still. There is a pause.

But where is Kate? Has she left the room? He listens for some
movement, but not the slightest sound meets his ear.

"Kate!" No, he did not utter the word aloud, in tender accents,
though it was in his heart and on his tongue. Nor did he start up or
move. No, as if spell-bound, he remained crouching down in his
chair.

All at once he is conscious that some one is bending above him, and,
in the next moment, warm lips touch his forehead, gently,
hesitatingly, yet with a lingering pressure.

"Kate! Dear Kate!"

He has sprung to his feet, and his arms are flung around his wife.

"Forgive me, Frederick, if I seemed unkind to you," sobbed Kate, as
soon as she could command her voice. "There was no unkindness in my
heart--only love."

"It is I who most need to ask forgiveness," replied Lee. "I who
have--"

"Hush! Not a word of that now," quickly returned Kate, placing her
hand upon his mouth. "Let the past be forgotten."

"And forgiven, too," said Lee, as he pressed his lips eagerly to
those of his wife.

How happy they were at this moment of reconciliation! How light
seemed the causes which had risen up to mar the beautiful harmony of
their lives! Haw weak and foolish both had been, as their acts now
appeared in eyes from which had fallen the scales of passion!

Both were wiser than in the aforetime. Kate tried to look away, as
much as possible, from the little faults which at first so much
annoyed her; while her husband turned his thoughts more narrowly
upon himself, at the same time that he made observation of other
men, and was soon well convinced that sundry changes in his habits
and manners might be made with great advantage. The more his eyes
were opened to these little personal defects, the more fully did he
forgive Kate for having in the beginning laid her hand upon them,
though not in the gentlest manner.

"Six months have passed since you were married," said Mrs. Morton
one day to Kate.

"Yes, six months have flown on wings of perfume," replied the happy
wife.

"I saw Frederick yesterday."

"Did you?"

"Yes; and I knew him the moment my eyes rested upon him."

"Knew him! Why shouldn't you know him?"

Kate looked a little surprised.

"I thought he was to be so changed under your hands in six months,
that I would hardly recognise him."

There was an arch look in Mrs. Morton's eyes, and a merry flutter in
her voice.

"Mrs. Morton! Now that is too bad!"

"Your experiment failed, did it not, dear?"

The door of the room in which the ladies were sitting opened at the
moment, and Frederick Lee entered.

"Not entirely," whispered Kate, as she bent to the ear of her
friend. "He is vastly improved--at least, in my eyes."

"And in others' eyes, too," thought Mrs. Morton, as she arose and
returned the young man's smiling salutation.




"MY FORTUNE'S MADE."


My young friend, Cora Lee, was a gay, dashing girl, fond of dress,
and looking always as if, to use a common saying, just out of a
bandbox. Cora was a belle, of course, and had many admirers. Among
the number of these, was a young man named Edward Douglass, who was
the very "pink" of neatness in all matters pertaining to dress, and
exceedingly particular in his observance of the little proprieties
of life.

I saw, from the first, that if Douglass pressed his suit, Cora's
heart would be an easy conquest, and so it proved.

"How admirably they are fitted for each other!" I remarked to my
husband, on the night of their wedding. "Their tastes are similar,
and their habits so much alike, that no violence will be done to the
feelings of either in the more intimate associations that marriage
brings. Both are neat in person and orderly by instinct, and both
have good principles."

"From all present appearances, the match will be a good one,"
replied my husband. There was, I thought, something like reservation
in his tone.

"Do you really think so?" I said, a little ironically, for Mr.
Smith's approval of the marriage was hardly warm enough to suit my
fancy.

"Oh, certainly! Why not?" he replied.

I felt a little fretted at my husband's mode of speaking, but made
no further remark on the subject. He is never very enthusiastic nor
sanguine, and did not mean, in this instance, to doubt the fitness
of the parties for happiness in the marriage state--as I half
imagined. For myself, I warmly approved of my friend's choice, and
called her husband a lucky man to secure, for his companion through
life, a woman so admirably fitted to make one like him happy. But a
visit which I paid to Cora one day about six weeks after the
honeymoon had expired, lessened my enthusiasm on the subject, and
awoke some unpleasant doubts. It happened that I called soon after
breakfast. Cora met me in the parlour, looking like a very fright.
She wore a soiled and rumpled morning wrapper; her hair was in
papers; and she had on dirty stockings, and a pair of old slippers
down at the heels.

"Bless me, Cora!" said I. "What is the matter? Have you been sick?"

"No. Why do you ask? Is my dishabille rather on the extreme?"

"Candidly, I think it is, Cora," was my frank answer.

"Oh, well! No matter," she carelessly replied, "my fortune's made."

"I don't clearly understand you," said I.

"I'm married, you know."

"Yes; I am aware of that fact."

"No need of being so particular in dress now."

"Why not?"

"Didn't I just say?" replied Cora. "My fortune's made. I've got a
husband."

Beneath an air of jesting, was apparent the real earnestness of my
friend.

"You dressed with a careful regard to taste and neatness, in order
to win Edward's love?" said I.

"Certainly I did."

"And should you not do the same in order to retain it?"

"Why, Mrs. Smith! Do you think my husband's affection goes no deeper
than my dress? I should be very sorry indeed to think that. He loves
me for myself."

"No doubt of that in the world, Cora. But remember that he cannot
see what is in your mind except by what you do or say. If he admires
your taste, for instance, it is not from any abstract appreciation
thereof, but because the taste manifests itself in what you do. And,
depend upon it, he will find it a very hard matter to approve and
admire your correct taste in dress, for instance, when you appear
before him, day after day, in your present unattractive attire. If
you do not dress well for your husband's eyes, for whose eyes, pray,
do you dress? You are as neat when abroad as you were before your
marriage."

"As to that, Mrs. Smith, common decency requires me to dress well
when I go upon the street or into company, to say nothing of the
pride one naturally feels in looking well."

"And does not the same common decency and natural pride argue as
strongly in favour of your dressing well at home, and for the eye of
your husband, whose approval and whose admiration must be dearer to
you than the approval and admiration of the whole world?"

"But he doesn't want to see me rigged out in silks and satins all
the time. A pretty bill my dressmaker would have against him! Edward
has more sense than that, I flatter myself."

"Street or ball-room attire is one thing, Cora, and becoming home
apparel another. We look for both in their places."

Thus I argued with the thoughtless young wife, but my words made no
impression. When abroad, she dressed with exquisite taste, and was
lovely to look upon; but at home, she was careless and slovenly, and
made it almost impossible for those who saw her to realize that she
was the brilliant beauty they had met in company but a short time
before. But even this did not last long. I noticed, after a few
months, that the habits of home were confirming themselves, and
becoming apparent abroad. Her "fortune was made," and why should she
now waste time or employ her thoughts about matters of personal
appearance?

The habits of Mr. Douglass, on the contrary, did not change. He was
as orderly as before, and dressed with the same regard to neatness.
He never appeared at the breakfast-table in the morning without
being shaved; nor did he lounge about in the evening in his
shirt-sleeves. The slovenly habits into which Cora had fallen
annoyed him seriously; and still more so, when her carelessness
about her appearance began to manifest itself abroad as well as at
home. When he hinted any thing on the subject, she did not hesitate
to reply, in a jesting manner, that her fortune was made, and she
need not trouble herself any longer about how she looked.

Douglass did not feel very much complimented; but as he had his
share of good sense, he saw that to assume a cold and offended
manner would do no good.

"If your fortune is made, so is mine," he replied on one occasion,
quite coolly and indifferently. Next morning he made his appearance
at the breakfast table with a beard of twenty-four hours' growth.

"You haven't shaved this morning, dear," said Cora, to whose eyes
the dirty-looking face of her husband was particularly unpleasant.

"No," he replied, carelessly. "It's a serious trouble to shave every
day."

"But you look so much better with a cleanly-shaved face."

"Looks are nothing--ease and comfort every thing," said Douglass.

"But common decency, Edward."

"I see nothing indecent in a long beard," replied the husband.

Still Cora argued, but in vain. Her husband went off to his business
with his unshaven face.

"I don't know whether to shave or not," said Douglass next morning,
running his hand over his rough face, upon which was a beard of
forty-eight hours' growth. His wife had hastily thrown on a wrapper,
and, with slip-shod feet and head like a mop, was lounging in a
large rocking-chair, awaiting the breakfast-bell.

"For mercy's sake, Edward, don't go any longer with that shockingly
dirty face," spoke up Cora. "If you knew how dreadfully you look!"

"Looks are nothing," replied Edward, stroking his beard.

"Why, what's come over you all at once?"

"Nothing; only it's such a trouble to shave every day."

"But you didn't shave yesterday."

"I know; I am just as well off to-day as if I had. So much saved, at
any rate."

But Cora urged the matter, and her husband finally yielded, and
mowed down the luxuriant growth of beard.

"How much better you do look!" said the young wife. "Now don't go
another day without shaving."

"But why should I take so much trouble about mere looks? I'm just as
good with a long beard as with a short one. It's a great deal of
trouble to shave every day. You can love me just as well; and why
need I care about what others say or think?"

On the following morning, Douglass appeared not only with a long
beard, but with a bosom and collar that were both soiled and
rumpled.

"Why, Edward! How you do look!" said Cora. "You've neither shaved
nor put on a clean shirt."

Edward stroked his face and run his fingers along the edge of his
collar, remarking, indifferently, as he did so--

"It's no matter. I look well enough. This being so very particular
in dress is waste of time, and I'm getting tired of it."

And in this trim Douglass went off to his business, much to the
annoyance of his wife, who could not bear to see her husband looking
so slovenly.

Gradually the declension from neatness went on, until Edward was
quite a match for his wife; and yet, strange to say, Cora had not
taken the hint, broad as it was. In her own person she was as untidy
as ever.

About six months after their marriage, we invited a few friends to
spend a social evening with us, Cora and her husband among the
number. Cora came alone, quite early, and said that her husband was
very much engaged, and could not come until after tea. My young
friend had not taken much pains with her attire. Indeed, her
appearance mortified me, as it contrasted so decidedly with that of
the other ladies who were present; and I could not help suggesting
to her that she was wrong in being so indifferent about her dress.
But she laughingly replied to me--

"You know my fortune's made now, Mrs. Smith. I can afford to be
negligent in these matters. It's a great waste of time to dress so
much."

I tried to argue against this, but could make no impression upon
her.

About an hour after tea, and while we were all engaged in pleasant
conversation, the door of the parlour opened, and in walked Mr.
Douglass. At first glance I thought I must be mistaken. But no, it
was Edward himself. But what a figure he did cut! His uncombed hair
was standing up, in stiff spikes, in a hundred different directions;
his face could not have felt the touch of a razor for two or three
days; and he was guiltless of clean linen for at least the same
length of time. His vest was soiled; his boots unblacked; and there
was an unmistakable hole in one of his elbows.

"Why, Edward!" exclaimed his wife, with a look of mortification and
distress, as her husband came across the room, with a face in which
no consciousness of the figure he cut could be detected.

"Why, my dear fellow! What is the matter?" said my husband, frankly;
for he perceived that the ladies were beginning to titter, and that
the gentlemen were looking at each other, and trying to repress
their risible tendencies; and therefore deemed it best to throw off
all reserve on the subject.

"The matter? Nothing's the matter, I believe. Why do you ask?"
Douglass looked grave.

"Well may he ask, what's the matter?" broke in Cora, energetically.
"How could you come here in such a plight?"

"In such a plight?" And Edward looked down at himself, felt his
beard, and ran his fingers through his hair. "What's the matter? Is
any thing wrong?"

"You look as if you'd just waked up from a nap of a week with your
clothes on, and come off without washing your face or combing your
hair," said my husband.

"Oh!" And Edward's countenance brightened a little. Then he said
with much gravity of manner--

"I've been extremely hurried of late; and only left my store a few
minutes ago. I hardly thought it worth while to go home to dress up.
I knew we were all friends here. Besides, _as my fortune is
made_"--and he glanced with a look not to be mistaken toward his
wife--"I don't feel called upon to give as much attention to mere
dress as formerly. Before I was married, it was necessary to be
particular in these matters, but now it's of no consequence."

I turned toward Cora. Her face was like crimson. In a few moments
she arose and went quickly from the room. I followed her, and Edward
came after us pretty soon. He found his wife in tears, and sobbing
almost hysterically.

"I've got a carriage at the door," said he to me, aside, half
laughing, half serious. "So help her on with her things, and we'll
retire in disorder."

"But it's too bad in you, Mr. Douglass," replied I.

"Forgive me for making your house the scene of this lesson to Cora,"
he whispered. "It had to be given, and I thought I could venture to
trespass upon your forbearance."

"I'll think about that," said I, in return.

In a few minutes Cora and her husband retired, and in spite of good
breeding and every thing else, we all had a hearty laugh over the
matter, on my return to the parlour, where I explained the curious
little scene that had just occurred.

How Cora and her husband settled the affair between themselves, I
never inquired. But one thing is certain, I never saw her in a
slovenly dress afterward, at home or abroad. She was cured.




THE GOOD MATCH.


"MY heart is now at rest," remarked Mrs. Presstman to her sister,
Mrs. Markland. "Florence has done so well. The match is such a good
one."

Mrs. Presstman spoke with animation, but her sister's countenance
remained rather grave.

"Mr. Barker is worth at least eighty thousand dollars," resumed Mrs.
Presstman. "And my husband says, that if he prospers in business as
he has done for the last ten years, he will be the richest merchant
in the city. Don't you think we have been fortunate in marrying
Florence so well?"

"So far as the securing of wealth goes, Florence has certainly done
very well," returned Mrs. Markland. "But, surely, sister, you have a
higher idea of marriage than to suppose that wealth in a husband is
the primary thing. The quality of his mind is of much more
importance."

"Oh, certainly, that is not to be lost sight of. Mr. Barker is an
excellent man. Every one speaks well of him. No one stands higher in
the community than he does."

"That may be. But the general estimation in which a man is held does
not, by any means, determine his fitness to become the husband of
one like Florence. I think that when I was here last spring, there
was some talk of her preference for a young physician. Was such
really the case?"

"There was something of that kind," replied Mrs. Presstman, the
colour becoming a very little deeper on her cheek--"a foolish notion
of the girl's. But that was broken off long ago. It would not do. We
could not afford to let her marry a young doctor with a poor
practice. We knew her to be worthy something much higher, as the
result has shown."

"Doctor Estill, I believe, was his name?"

"Yes."

"I remember him very well--and liked him much. Was Mr. Barker
preferred by Florence to Doctor Estill?"

"Why, yes--no--not at first," half-stammered Mrs. Presstman. "That
is, you know, she was foolish, like all young girls, and thought she
loved him. But that passed away. She is now as happy as she can be."

Mrs. Markland felt that it was not exactly right to press this
matter now that the mischief, if any there were, had been done, and
so remarked no further upon the subject. But the admission made in
her sister's reply to her last question pained her. It corroborated
a suspicion that crossed her mind, when she saw her niece, that all
was not right within--that the good match which had been made was
only good in appearance. She had loved Florence for the innocence,
purity, and elevation of soul that so sweetly characterized her. She
knew her to be susceptible of tender impressions, and capable of
loving deeply an object really worthy of her love. This plant had
been, she feared, removed from the warm green-house of home, where
the earth had touched tenderly its delicate roots, while its leaves
put forth in a genial air, and placed in a hard soil and a chilling
atmosphere, still to live on, but with its beauty and fragrance
gone. She might be mistaken. But appearances troubled her.

Mrs. Markland lived in a neighbouring city, and was on a visit to
her sister. During the two weeks that elapsed, while paying this
visit, she heard a great deal about the excellent match that
Florence had made. No one of the acquaintances of the family had any
thing to say that was not congratulatory. More than one mother of an
unmarried daughter, she had good cause for concluding, envied her
sister the happiness of having the rich Mr. Barker for a son-in-law.
When she parted with her niece, on the eve of her return home, there
were tears in her mild blue eyes. It was natural--for Florence loved
her aunt, and to part with her was painful. Still, those tears
troubled Mrs. Markland. She ought of them hours, and days, and
months after, as a token that all was not right in her gentle
breast.

Briefly let us now sketch a scene that passed twenty years from this
period. Twenty years! That is a long time. Yes--but it is a period
that tests the truth or falsity of the leading principles with which
we set out in life. Twenty years! Ah! how many, even long before
that time elapses, prove the fallaciousness of their hopes! discover
the sandy foundation upon which they have built!

Let us introduce Mrs. Barker. Her husband has realized even more
than he had hoped for, in the item of wealth. He is worth a million.

Rather a small sum in his eye, it is true, now that he possesses it.
And from this very fact, its smallness, he is not happy--for is not
Mr. T--worth three millions of dollars? Mr. T--, who is no
better, if as good as he is? But what of Mrs. Barker? Ah, yes. Let
us see how time has passed with her. Let us see if the hours have
danced along with her to measures of glad music, or in cadence with
a pensive strain. Has hers indeed been a _good match_? We shall see.

Is that sedate-looking woman, with such a cold expression upon her
face, who sits in that elaborately furnished saloon, or parlour,
dreamily looking into the glowing grate, Mrs. Barker? Yes, that is
the woman who made a _good match_. Can this indeed be so? I see, in
imagination, a gentle, loving creature, whose eyes and ears are open
to all things beautiful in creation, and whose heart is moved by all
that is good and true. Impelled by the very nature into which she
has been born--woman's nature--her spirit yearns for high, holy,
interior companionship. She enters into that highest, holiest, most
interior relationship--marriage. She must be purely happy. Is this
so? Can the woman we have introduced at the end of twenty years be
the same being with this gentle girl? Alas! that we should have it
to say that it is so. There has been no affliction to produce this
change--no misfortune. The children she has borne are all about her,
and wealth has been poured liberally into her lap. No external wish
has been ungratified. Why, then, should her face wear habitually so
strange an expression as it does?

She had been seated for more than half an hour in an abstract mood,
when some one came in. She knew the step. It was that of her
husband. But she did not turn to him, nor seem conscious of his
presence. He merely glanced toward his wife, and then sat down at
some distance from her, and took up a newspaper. Thus they remained
until a bell announced the evening meal, when both arose and passed
in silence to the tea-room. There they were joined by their four
children, the eldest at that lovely age when the girl has blushed
into young womanhood. All arranged themselves about the table, the
younger children conversing together in an under tone, but the
father, and mother, and Florence, the oldest child, remaining
silent, abstracted, and evidently unhappy from some cause.

The mother and daughter eat but little, and that compulsorily. After
the meal was finished, the latter retired to her own apartment, the
other children remained with their books in the family sitting-room,
and Mr. and Mrs. Barker returned to the parlour.

"I am really out of all patience with you and Florence!" the former
said, angrily, as he seated himself beside his wife, in front of the
grate. "One would think some terrible calamity were about to
happen."

Mrs. Barker made no reply to this. In a moment or two her husband
went on, in a dogmatical tone.

"It's the very best match the city affords. Show me another in any
way comparable. Is not Lorimer worth at least two millions?--and is
not Harman his only son and heir? Surely you and the girl must both
be beside yourselves to think of objecting for a single moment."

"A good match is not always made so by wealth," Mrs. Barker
returned, in a firm voice, compressing her lips tightly, as she
closed the brief sentence.

"You are beside yourself," said the husband, half sneeringly.

"Perhaps I am," somewhat meekly replied Mrs. Barker. Then becoming
suddenly excited from the quick glancing of certain thoughts through
her mind, she retorted angrily. Her husband did not hesitate to
reply in a like spirit. Then ensued a war of words, which ended in a
positive declaration that Florence should marry Harman Lorimer. At
this the mother burst into tears and left the room.

After that declaration was made, Mrs. Barker knew that further
opposition on her part was useless. Florence was gradually brought
over by the force of angry threats, persuasions, and arguments, so
as finally to consent to become the wife of a man from whom her
heart turned with instinctive aversion. But every one called it such
a good match, and congratulated the father and mother upon the
fortunate issue.

What Mrs. Barker suffered before, during, and after the brilliant
festivities that accompanied her tenderly-loved daughter's
sacrifice, cannot all be known. Her own heart's history for twenty
long years came up before her, and every page of that history she
read over, with a weeping spirit, as the history of her sweet child
for the dreary future. How many a leaf in her heart had been touched
by the frost; had withered, shrunk, and dropped from affection's
stem--how many a bud had failed to show its promised petals--how
many a blossom had drooped and died ere the tender germ in its bosom
could come forth into hardy existence. Inanimate golden leaves, and
buds, and blossoms--nay, even fruits were a poor substitute for
these. A woman's heart cannot be satisfied with them.

In her own mind, obduracy and coldness had supervened to the first
states of disappointed affection. But her heart had rebelled through
long, long years against the violence to which it had been
subjected--and the calmness, or rather indifference, that at last
followed was only like ice upon the surface of a stream--the water
still flowing on beneath. Death to the mother would have been a
willing sacrifice, could it have saved her child from the living
death that she had suffered. But it would not. The father was a
resolute tyrant. Money was his god, and to that god he offered up
even his child in sacrifice.

Need the rambling hints contained in this brief sketch--this dim
outline--be followed by any enforcing reflections? An opposite
picture, full of light and warmth, might be drawn, but would it tend
to bring the truth to clearer perception, where mothers--true
mothers--mothers in spirit as well as in name--are those to whom we
hold up the first picture? We think not.

Wealth, reputation, honours, high intelligence in a man--all or
either of these--do not constitute him a good match for your child.
Marriage is of the heart--the blending of affection with affection,
and thought with thought. How, then, can one who loves all that is
innocent, and pure, and holy, become interiorly conjoined with a man
who is a gross, selfish sensualist? a man who finds happiness only
in the external possession of wealth, or honours, or in the
indulgence of luxuries? It is impossible! Take away these, and give
her, in their stead, one with whom her affections can blend in
perfect harmony--one with whom she can become united as one--and
earth will be to her a little heaven.

In the opposite course, alas! the evil does not always stop with
your own child. The curse is too often continued unto the third and
fourth generation--yea, even through long succeeding ages--to
eternity itself! Who can calculate the evil that may flow from a
single perversion of the marriage union--that is, a marriage entered
into from other than the true motives? None but God himself!




THE BROTHER'S TEMPTATION.


"COME, Henry," said Blanche Armour to her brother, who had seemed
unusually silent and thoughtful since tea time,--"I want you to read
while I make this cap for ma."

"Excuse me, Blanche, if you please, I don't feel like reading
to-night," the brother replied, shading his face both from the light
and the penetrating glance of his sister, as he spoke.

Blanche did not repeat the request, for it was a habit with her
never to urge her brother; nor, indeed, any one, to do a thing for
which he seemed disinclined. She, therefore, took her work-basket,
and sat down by the centre-table, without saying any thing farther,
and commenced sewing. But she did not feel quite easy, for it was
too apparent that Henry was disturbed about something. For several
days he had seemed more than usually reserved and thoughtful. Now he
was gloomy as well as thoughtful. Of course, there was a cause for
this. And as this cause was hidden from Blanche, she could not but
feel troubled. Several times during the evening she attempted to
draw him out into conversation, but he would reply to her in
monosyllables, and then fall back into his state of silent
abstraction of mind. Once or twice he got up and walked across the
floor, and then again resumed his seat, as if he had compelled
himself to sit down by a strong effort of the will. Thus the time
passed away, until the usual hour of retiring for the night came,
when Blanche put up her work, and rising from her chair by the
centre-table, went to Henry, and stooping down over him, as he lay
half reclined upon the sofa, kissed him tenderly, and murmured an
affectionate "good night."

"Good night, dear," he returned, without rising or adding another
word.

Blanche lingered a moment, and then, with a repressed sigh, left the
room, and retired to her chamber. She could not understand her
brother's strange mood. For him to be troubled and silent was
altogether new. And the cause? Why should he conceal it from her,
toward whom, till now, he had never withheld any thing that gave him
either pleasure or pain?

The moment Blanche retired, the whole manner of Henry Armour
changed. He arose from the sofa and commenced walking the floor with
rapid steps, while the deep lines upon his forehead and his strongly
compressed lips showed him to be labouring under some powerful
mental excitement. He continued to walk thus hurriedly backward and
forward for the space of half an hour; when, as if some long debated
point had been at last decided, he grasped the parlour door with a
firm hand, threw it open, took from the rack his hat, cloak, and
cane, and in a few moments was in the street.

The jar of the street door, as it closed, was distinctly heard by
Blanche, and this caused the troubled feeling which had oppressed
her all the evening, to change into one of anxiety. Where could
Henry be going at this late hour? He rarely stayed out beyond ten
o'clock; and she had never before known him to leave the house after
the usual bedtime of the family. His going out had, of course,
something to do with his unhappy mood. What could it mean? She could
not suspect him of any wrong. She knew him to be too pure-minded and
honourable. But there was mystery connected with his conduct--and
this troubled her. She had just laid aside a book, that she had
taken up for the purpose of reading a few pages before retiring for
the night, and commenced disrobing herself, when the sound of the
door closing after her brother startled her, and caused her to pause
and think. She could not now retire, for to sleep would be
impossible. She, therefore, drew a shawl about her, and again
resumed her book, determined to sit up until Henry's return. But
little that she read made a very distinct impression on her mind.
Her thoughts were with her brother, whom she tenderly loved, and had
learned to confide in as one of pure sentiments and firm principles.

While Henry Armour still lingered at home in moody indecision of
mind, a small party of young men were assembled in an upper room of
a celebrated refectory, drinking, smoking, and indulging in
conversation, a large portion of which would have shocked a modest
ear. They were all members of wealthy and respectable families. Some
had passed their majority, and others still lingered between
nineteen and twenty-one,--that dangerous age for a young
man--especially if he be so unfortunate as to have little to do, and
a liberal supply of pocket money.

"Confound the fellow! What keeps him so long?" said one of the
company, looking at his watch. "It's nearly ten o'clock, and he has
not made his appearance."

"Whom do you mean? Armour?" asked another.

"Certainly I do. He promised to join us again to-night."

"So he did! But I'll bet a pewter sixpence he won't come."

"Why?"

"His sister won't let him. Don't you know that he is tied to her
apron string almost every night, the silly fellow! Why don't he be a
man, and enjoy life as it goes?"

"Sure enough! What is life worth, if its pleasures are all to be
sacrificed for a sister?" returned the other, sneeringly.

"Here! Pass that champagne," interrupted one of the company. "Let
Harry Armour break his engagement for a sister if he likes. That
needn't mar our enjoyment. There are enough of us here for a regular
good time."

"Here's a toast," cried another, as he lifted a sparkling glass to
his lips--"Pleasant dreams to the old folks!"

"Good! Good! Good!" passed round the table, about which the young
revellers were gathered, and each drained a glass to the well
understood sentiment.

In the mean time, young Armour had left his home, having decided at
last, and after a long struggle with himself, to join this gay
company, as he had agreed to do. It was, in fact, a little club,
formed a short time previous, the members of which met once a week
to eat, drink, smoke, and corrupt each other by ridiculing those
salutary moral restraints which, once laid aside, leave the
thoughtless youth in imminent danger of ruin.

Henry Armour had been blessed with a sister a year or two older than
himself, who loved him tenderly. The more rapid development of her
mind, as well as body, had given her the appearance of maturity that
enabled her to exercise a strong influence over him. Of the dangers
that beset the path of a young man, she knew little or nothing. The
constant effort which she made to render home agreeable to her
brother by consulting his tastes, and entering into every thing that
seemed to give him pleasure, did not, therefore, spring from a wish
to guard him from the world's allurements; it was the spontaneous
result of a pure fraternal affection. But it had the right effect.
To him, there was no place like home; nor any smile so alluring, or
voice so sweet, as his sister's. And abroad, no company possessed a
perfect charm, unless Blanche were one of its members.

This continued until Henry gained his twenty-second year, when, as a
law student, he found himself thrown more and more into the company
of young men of his own age, and the same standing in society. An
occasional ride out with one and another of these, at which times an
hour at least was always spent in a public house, opened to him new
scenes in life, and for a young man of lively, buoyant mind, not
altogether unattractive. That there was danger in these paths he did
not attempt to disguise from himself. More than one, or two, or
three, whom he met on almost every visit he made to a fashionable
resort for young men, about five miles from the city, showed too
strong indications of having passed beyond the bounds of
self-control, as well in their use of wines and stronger drinks as
in their conduct, which was too free from those external decent
restraints that we look for even in men who make no pretensions to
virtue. But he did not fear for himself. The exhibitions which these
made of themselves instinctively disgusted him. Still, he did not
perceive that he was less and less shocked at some things he beheld,
and more than at first inclined to laugh at follies which verged too
nearly upon moral delinquencies.

Gradually his circle of acquaintance with young men of the gay class
extended, and a freer participation with them in many of their
pleasures came as a natural consequence.

"Come," said one of them to him, as the two met in the street, by
accident, one evening,--"I want you to go with me."

"But why should I go with you? Or, rather, where are you going?"
asked Armour.

"To meet some of our friends down at C--'s," replied the young
man.

"What are you going to do there?" farther inquired Armour.

"Nothing more than to drink a glass of wine, and have some pleasant
chit-chat. So come along."

"Will I be welcome?"

"Certainly you will. I'll guarantee that. Some half dozen of us have
formed a little club, and each member has the privilege of inviting
any one he pleases. To-night I invite you, and on the next evening I
expect to see you present, not as a guest, but as a member. So come
along, and see how you like us."

Armour had no definite object in view. He had walked out, because he
felt rather listless at home, Blanche having retired with a sick
headache. It required, therefore, no persuasion to induce him to
yield to the friend's invitation. Arrived at C--'s, a fashionable
house of refreshment, the two young men passed up stairs and entered
one of the private apartments of the house, which they found
handsomely furnished and brilliantly lighted. In this, gathered
around a circular, or rather oblong table, were five or six young
men, nearly all of them well known to Armour. On the table were
bottles of wine and glasses--the latter filled.

"Just in time!" cried the president of the club. "Henry Armour, I
bid you welcome! Here's a place waiting for you," placing his hand
upon a chair by his side as he spoke. "And now," as Armour seated
himself, "let me fill your glass. We were waiting for a sentiment to
find its way out of some brain as you came in, and our brimming
glasses had stood untasted for more than a minute. Can't you help us
to a toast?"

"Here's to good fellowship!" said Armour, promptly lifting his
glass, and touching it to that of the president.

"To be drunk standing," added the president.

All rose on the instant, and drank with mock solemnity to the
sentiment of their guest.

Then followed brilliant flashes of wit, or what was thought to be
wit. To these succeeded the song, the jest, the story,--and to these
again the sparkling wine-cup. Gayly thus passed the hours, until
midnight stole quietly upon the thoughtless revellers. Surprised, on
reference to his watch, to find that it was one o'clock, Armour
arose and begged to be excused.

"I move that our guest be excused on one condition," said the friend
who had brought him to the company. "And that is, on his promise to
meet with us again, on this evening next week."

"What do you think of the condition?" asked the president, who, like
nearly all of the rest, was rather the worse for the wine he had
taken, looking at Armour as he spoke.

"I agree to it with pleasure," was the prompt reply.

"Another drink before you go, then," said the president, "and I will
give the toast. Fill up your glasses."

The bottle again passed round the table.

"Here's to a good fellow!" was the sentiment announced. It was
received standing. Armour then retired with bewildered senses. The
gay scene that had floated before his eyes, and in which himself had
been an actor, and the freedom with which he had taken wine, left
him confused, almost in regard to his own identity. He did not seem
to himself the same person he had been a few hours before. A new
world had opened before him, and he had, almost involuntarily,
entered into, and become a citizen of that world. Long after he had
reached his home, and retired to his bed, did his imagination revel
amid the scenes he had just left. In sleep, too, fancy was busy. But
here came a change. Serpents would too often glide across the table
around which the gay company, himself a member, were assembled; or
some other sudden and more appalling change scatter into fragments
the bright phantasma of his dreams.

The sober morning found him in a soberer mood. Calm, cold,
unimpassioned reflection came. What had he been doing? What path had
he entered; and whither did it lead? These were questions that would
intrude themselves, and clamour for an answer. He shut his eyes and
endeavoured again to sleep. Waking thoughts were worse than the airy
terrors which had visited him in sleep. At length he arose, with
dull pains in his head, and an oppressive sluggishness of the whole
body. But more painful than his own reflections, or the physical
consequences of the last night's irregularity, was the thought of
meeting Blanche, and bearing the glance of her innocent eyes. He
felt that he had been among the impure,--and worse, that he had
enjoyed their impure sentiments, and indulged with them in excess of
wine. The taint was upon him, and the pure mind of his sister must
instinctively perceive it. These thoughts made him wretched. He
really dreaded to meet her. But this could not be avoided.

"You do not look well, brother," said Blanche, almost as soon as she
saw him.

"I am not well," he replied, avoiding her steady look. "My head
aches, and I feel dull and heavy."

"What has caused it, brother?" the affectionate girl asked, with a
look and voice of real concern.

Now this was, of all others, the question that Henry was least
prepared to answer. He could not utter a direct falsehood. From that
his firm principles shrunk. Nor could he equivocate, for he
considered equivocation little better than a direct falsehood. "Why
should I wish to conceal any part of my conduct from her?" he asked
himself, in his dilemma. But the answer was instant and conclusive.
His participation in the revelry of the last night was a thing not
to be whispered in her ear. Not being prepared, then, to tell the
truth, and shrinking from falsehood and equivocation, Armour
preferred silence as the least evil of the three. The question of
Blanche was not, therefore, answered. At the breakfast-table, his
father and mother remarked upon his appearance. To this, he merely
replied that he was not well. As soon as the meal was over, he went
out, glad to escape the eye of Blanche, which, it seemed to him,
rested searchingly upon him all the while.

A walk of half an hour in the fresh morning air dispelled the dull
pain in his head, and restored his whole system to a more healthy
tone. This drove away, to some extent, the oppressive feeling of
self-condemnation he had indulged. The scenes of the previous
evening, though silly enough for sensible young men to engage in,
seemed less objectionable than they had appeared to him on his first
review. To laugh involuntarily at several remembered jests and
stories, the points of which were not exactly the most chaste or
reverential, marked the change that a short period had produced in
his state of mind. During that day, he did not fall in with any of
his wild companions of the last evening, too many of whom had
already fairly entered the road to ruin. The evening was spent at
home, in the society of Blanche. He read while she sewed, or he
turned for her the leaves of her music book, or accompanied her upon
the flute while she played him a favourite air upon the piano.
Conversation upon books, music, society, and other topics of
interest, filled up the time not occupied in these mental
recreations, and added zest, variety, and unflagging interest to the
gently-passing hours. On the next evening they attended a concert,
and on the next a party. On that succeeding, Henry went out to see a
friend of a different character from any of those with whom he had
passed the hours a few nights previous--a friend about his own age,
of fixed habits and principles, who, like himself, was preparing for
the bar. With him he spent a more rational evening than with the
others, and, what was better, no sting was left behind.

Still, young Armour could never think of the "club" without having
his mind thrown into a tumult. It awoke into activity opposing
principles. Good and evil came in contact, and battled for
supremacy. There was in his mind a clear conviction that to indulge
in dissipation of that character, would be injurious both to moral
and physical health. And yet, having tasted of the delusive sweets,
he was tempted to further indulgence. Meeting with some two or three
of the "members" during the week, and listening to their extravagant
praise of the "club," and the pleasure of uniting in unrestrained
social intercourse, made warm by generous wine, tended to make more
active the contest going on within--for the good principles that had
been stored up in his mind were not to be easily silenced. Their
hold upon his character was deep. They had entered into its warp and
woof, and were not to be eradicated or silenced in a moment. As the
time for the next meeting of the club approached, this battle grew
more violent. The condition into which it had brought him by the
arrival of the night on which he had promised again to join his gay
friends, the reader has already seen. He was still unable to decide
his course of action. Inclination prompted him to go; good
principles opposed. "But then I have passed my word that I would go,
and my word must be inviolable." Here reason came in to the aid of
his inclinations, and made in their favour a strong preponderance.

We have seen that, yet undecided, he lingered at home, but in a
state of mind strangely different from any in which his sister had
ever seen him. Still debating the question, he lay, half reclined
upon the sofa, when Blanche touched her innocent lips to his, and
murmured a tender good-night. That kiss passed through his frame
like an electric current. It came just as his imagination had
pictured an impure image, and scattered it instantly. But no
decision of the question had yet been made, and the withdrawal of
Blanche only took off an external restraint from his feelings. He
quietly arose and commenced pacing the floor. This he continued for
some time. At last the decision was made.

"I have passed my word, and that ends it," said he, and instantly
left the house. Without permitting himself to review the matter
again, although a voice within asked loudly to be heard, he walked
hastily in the direction of the club-room. In ten minutes he gained
the door, opened it without pausing, and stood in the midst of the
wild company within. His entrance was greeted with shouts of
welcome, and the toast, "Here's to a good fellow!" with which he had
parted from them, was repeated on his return, all standing as it was
drunk.

To this followed a sentiment that cannot be repeated here. It was
too gross. All drunk to it but Armour. He could not, for it involved
a foul slander upon the other sex, and he had a sister whose pure
kiss was yet warm upon his lips. The individual who proposed the
toast marked this omission, and pointed it out by saying--

"What's the matter, Harry? Is not the wine good?"

The colour mounted to the young man's face as he replied, with a
forced smile--

"Yes, much better than the sentiment."

"What ails the sentiment?" asked the propounder of it, in a tone of
affected surprise.

"I have a sister," was the brief, firm reply of Armour.

"So Charley, here, was just saying," retorted the other, with a
merry laugh; "and, what is more, that he'd bet a sixpence you were
tied to her apron-string, and would not be here to-night! Ha! ha!"

The effect of this upon the mind of Armour was decisive. He loved,
nay, almost revered his sister.

She had been like an angel of innocence about his path from early
years. He knew her to be as pure as the mountain snow-flake. And yet
that sister's influence over him was sneered at by one who had just
uttered a foul-mouthed slander upon her whole sex. The scales fell
instantly from his eyes. He saw the dangerous ground upon, which he
stood; while the character of his associates appeared in a new
light. They were on a road that he did not wish to travel. There
were serpents concealed amid the flowers that sprung along their
path, and he shuddered as he thought of their poisonous fangs. Quick
as a flash of light, these things passed through his mind, and
caused him to act with instant resolution. Rising from the chair he
had already taken, he retired, without a word, from the room. A
sneering laugh followed him, but he either heard it not or gave it
no heed.

The book which Blanche resumed after she had heard her brother go
out, soon ceased to interest her. She was too much troubled about
him to be able to fix her mind on any thing else. His singularly
disturbed state, and the fact of his having left the house at that
late hour, caused her to feel great uneasiness. This was beginning
to excite her imagination, and to cause her to fancy many reasons
for his strange conduct, none of which were calculated in any degree
to allay the anxiety she felt. Anxiety was fast verging upon serious
alarm, when she heard the sound of footsteps approaching the house.
She listened breathlessly. Surely it was the sound of Henry's
footsteps! Yes! Yes! It was indeed her brother. The tears gushed
from her eyes as she heard him enter below and pass up to his
chamber. He was safe from harm, and for this her heart lifted itself
up in fervent thankfulness! How near he had been to falling, that
pure-minded maiden never knew, nor how it had been her image and the
remembrance of her parting kiss that had saved him in the moment of
his greatest danger. Happy he who is blest with such a sister! And
happier still, if her innocence be suffered to overshadow him in the
hours of temptation!




THE HOME OF TASTE.


THERE are three words, in the utterance of which more power over the
feelings is gained than in the utterance of any other words in the
language. These are "Mother," "Home," and "Heaven." Each appeals to
a different emotion--each bears influence over the heart from the
cradle to the grave.--And just in the degree that this influence is
active, are man's best interests secured for time and eternity.

Only of "home" do we here intend to speak; and, in particular, as to
the influence of the home of taste. We hear much, in these days, of
enlarging the sphere of woman's social duties; as if, in the sphere
of home, nothing remained to be done, and she must either fold her
hands in idleness, or step forth to engage with man in life's
sterner conflicts. But it is not true that our homes are as they
might be, if their presiding genius fully comprehended all that was
needed to make home what the word implies. Among those in poorer
circumstances, this is especially so. They are too apt to regard
matters of taste as mere superfluities; to speak lightly of order,
neatness, and ornament; to think time and money spent on such things
as useless. But this is a serious mistake, involving, often, the
most lamentable consequences.

If we expect our children to grow up with a love for things pure and
orderly, we must surround them with the representations thereof in
the homes where first impressions are formed. The mind rests upon
and is moulded by things external to a far greater extent than many
suppose. These are not only a mirror, reflecting all that passes
before the surface, but a highly sensitive mirror, that, like the
Daguerreotype plate, retains the image it receives. If the image be
orderly and beautiful, it will ever have power to excite orderly and
beautiful thoughts in the mind; but if it be impure and disorderly,
its lasting influence will be debasing. If you meet with a coarse,
vulgar-minded man or woman, and are able to trace back the thread of
life until the period of early years, you will be sure to find the
existence of coarse and vulgar influences; and, in most cases, the
opposite will alike be found to hold good.

There is no excuse for disorder in a household, no matter how small
or how low the range of income, but idleness or indifference. The
time required to maintain neatness, order, and cleanliness, is
small, if the will is active and the hands prompt. Every home, even
the poorest, may become a home of taste, and present order and forms
of beauty, if there is only a willing purpose in the mind.

It is often charged upon men--particularly operatives with low
wages--that they do not love their homes, preferring to spend their
evening hours in bar-rooms, or wandering about with other men as
little attracted by the household sphere as themselves, until the
time for rest. If you were to go into the homes of such, in most
cases, you would hardly wonder at the aversion manifested. The
dirty, disordered rooms, which their toiling wives deem it a waste
of time and labour to make tidy and comfortable for their reception,
it would be a perversion to call homes. Home attracts; but these
repel. And so, with a feeling of discomfort, the men wander away,
fall into temptation, and usually spend, in self-indulgence, money
that otherwise would have gone to increase home comforts, if there
had been any to increase. And so it is, in its degree, in the homes
of every class. The more pleasant, orderly, and tasteful home is
made, in all its departments and associations, the stronger is its
attractive power, and the more potent its influence over those who
are required to go forth into the world and meet its thousand
allurements. If every thing is right there, it will surely draw them
back, with a steady retraction, through all their absent moments,
and they will feel, on repassing the threshold, that, in the wide,
wide world, there is no spot to them so full of blessings.

What true woman does not aspire to be the genius of such a home?




THE TWO SYSTEMS.


"IT'S no use to talk; I can't do it. The idea of punishing a child
in cold blood makes me shiver all over. I certainly think that, in
the mind of any one who can do it, there must be a latent vein of
cruelty."

This remark was made by Mrs. Stanley to her friend and visiter Mrs.
Noland.

"I have known parents," she continued, "who would go about executing
some punishment with a coolness and deliberation that to me was
frightful. No promise, no appeal, no tear of alarm or agony, from
the penitent little culprit, would have the least effect. The law
must be fulfilled even to the jot and tittle."

"The disobedient child, doubtless, knew the law," remarked Mrs.
Noland.

"Perhaps so. But even if it did, great allowance ought to be made
for the ardor with which children seek the gratification of their
desires, and the readiness with which they forget."

"No parent should lay down a law not right in itself; nor one
obedience to which was not good for the child."

"But it is very hard to do this. We have not the wisdom of Solomon.
Every day, nay, almost every hour, we err in judgment; and
especially in a matter so little understood as the management of
children."

"Better, then, have very few laws, and them of the clearest kind.
But, having them, implicit obedience should be exacted. At least,
that is my rule."

"And you punish for every infraction?"

"Certainly. But, I am always sure that the child is fully aware of
his fault, and let my punishment be graduated according to the
wilfulness of the act."

"And you do this coolly?"

"Oh, yes. I never punish a child while I am excited with a feeling
of indignation for the offence."

"If I waited for that to pass off, I could never punish one of my
children."

"Do you find, under this system, that your children are growing up
orderly and obedient?"

"No, indeed! Of course I do not. Who ever heard of orderly and
obedient children? In fact, who would wish their children to be mere
automatons? I am sure I would not. They are, by nature, restless,
and impatient of control. It will not do to break down their young
spirits. As for punishments, I don't believe much in them, any how.
I have an idea that the less they are brought into requisition the
better. They harden children. Kindness, long suffering, and
forbearance will accomplish a great deal more, and in the end be
better for the child."

At this moment a little fellow came sliding into the parlour, with a
look that said plainly enough, "I know you don't want me here."

"Run out, Charley, dear," said Mrs. Stanley, in a mild voice.

But Charley did not seem to notice his mother's words, for he
continued advancing toward her, until he was by her side, when he
paused and looked the visiter steadily in the face.

"Charley, you must run out, my dear," said Mrs. Stanley, in a firmer
and more decided voice.

But Charley only leaned heavily against his mother, not heeding in
the smallest degree her words. Knowing how impossible it would be to
get the child out of the room, without a resort to violence, Mrs.
Stanley said no more to him, but continued the conversation with her
friend. She had only spoken a few words, however, before Charley
interrupted her by saying--

"Mother!--Mother!--Give me a piece of cake."

"No, my son. You have had cake enough this afternoon," replied Mrs.
Stanley.

"Oh yes, do, mother, give me a piece of cake."

"It will make you sick, Charley."

"No, it won't. Please give me some."

"I had rather not."

"Yes, mother. Oh do! I want a piece of cake."

"Go 'way, Charles, and don't tease me."

There was a slight expression of impatience in the mother's voice.
The child ceased his importunities for a few moments, but just as
Mrs. Stanley had commenced a sentence, intended to embody some wise
saying in regard to the management of children, the little boy broke
in upon her with--

"I say, mother, give me a piece of cake, won't you?" in quite a loud
voice.

Mrs. Stanley felt irritated by this importunity, but she governed
herself. Satisfied that there would be no peace unless the cake were
forthcoming, she said, looking affectionately at the child:

"Poor little fellow! I suppose he does feel hungry. I don't think
another piece of cake will hurt him. Excuse me a moment, Mrs.
Noland."

The cake was obtained by Charley in the very way he had, hundreds of
times before, accomplished his purpose, that is, by teasing it out
of his mother. For the next ten minutes the friends conversed,
unmolested. At the end of that time Charley again made his
appearance.

"Go up into the nursery, and stay with Ellen," said Mrs. Stanley.

The child took no notice, whatever, of this direction, but walked
steadily up to where his mother was sitting, saying, as he paused by
her side--

"I want another piece of cake."

"Not any more, my son."

"Yes, mother. Give me some more."

"No." This was spoken in a very positive way. Charley began to beg
in a whining tone, which, not producing the desired effect, soon
rose into a well-defined cry.

"I declare! I never saw such a hungry set as my children are. They
will eat constantly from morning until night." Mrs. Stanley did not
say this in the most amiable tone of voice.

"Mother! I want a piece of cake," cried Charley.

"I'll give you one little piece more; but, remember, that it will be
the last; so don't ask me again."

Charley stopped crying at once. Mrs. Stanley went out with him. As
soon as she was far enough from the parlour not to be heard, she
took Charley by the shoulders, and giving him a violent shake,
said--

"You little rebel, you! If you come into the parlour again, I'll
skin you!"

The cake was given. Charley cared about as much for the threat as he
did for the shaking. He had gained his end.

"I pray daily for patience to bear with my children," said Mrs.
Stanley, on returning to the parlour. "They try us severely."

"That they do," replied Mrs. Noland. "But it is in our power, by
firmness, consistency, and kindness, to render our tasks
comparatively light."

"Perhaps so. I try to be firm, and consistent, and kind with my
children; to exercise toward them constant forbearance; but, after
all, it is very hard to know exactly how to govern them."

"Mother, can't I go over into the square?" asked Emma, looking into
the parlour just at this time. She was a little girl about eight
years old.

"I would rather not have you go, my dear," returned Mrs. Stanley.

"Oh yes, mother, do let me go," urged Emma.

"Ellen can't go with you now; and I do not wish you to go alone."

"I can go well enough, mother."

"Well, run along then, you intolerable little tease, you!"

Emma scampered away, and Mrs. Stanley remarked--

"That is the way. They gain their ends by importunity."

"But should you allow that, my friend?"

"There was no particular reason why Emma should not go to the
square. I didn't think, at first, when I said I would rather not
have her go, or I would have said 'yes' at once. It is so difficult
to decide upon children's requests on the spur of the moment."

"But after you had said that you did not want her to go to the
square, would it not have been better to have made her abide by your
wishes?"

"I don't think it would have been right for me to have deprived the
child of the pleasure of playing in the square, from the mere pride
of consistency. I was wrong in objecting at first--to have adhered
to my objection would have been still a greater wrong;--don't you
think so?"

"I do not," returned Mrs. Noland. "I know of no greater evil in a
family, than for the children to discover that their parents
vacillate in any matter regarding them. A denial once made to any
request should be positive, even if, in a moment after, it be seen
to have been made without sufficient reason."

"I cannot agree with you. Justice, I hold, to be paramount in all
things. We should never wrong a child."

The third appearance of Charley again broke in upon the
conversation.

"Give me another piece of cake, mother."

"What! Didn't I tell you that there was no more for you? No! you
cannot have another morsel."

"I want some more cake," whined the child.

"Not a crumb more, sir."

The whine rose into a cry.

"Go up stairs, sir."

Charley did not move.

"Go this instant."

"Give me some cake."

"No."

The cry swelled into a loud bawl.

Mrs. Stanley became excessively annoyed. "I never saw such
persevering children in my life," said she, impatiently. "They don't
regard what I say any more than if I had not spoken. Charles! Go out
of the parlour this moment!"

The tone in which this was uttered the child understood. He left the
parlour slowly, but continued to cry at the top of his voice. The
parlour bell was rung, and Ellen the nurse appeared.

"Do, Ellen, give that boy another piece of cake! There is no other
way to keep him quiet."

In about three minutes after this direction had been given, all was
still again. Mrs. Stanley now changed the topic of conversation. Her
manner was not quite so cheerful as before. The conduct of Charley
had worried and mortified her.

The last piece of cake had not been really wanted. Charley asked for
it because a spirit of opposition had been aroused, but he had no
appetite to eat it. It was crumbled about the floor and wasted. His
mother had peace for the next hour. After that she went into the
kitchen to give directions, and make some preparations for tea.
Charley was by her side.

"Ellen, take this child out," said she.

Ellen took hold of Charley's arm.

"No!--no!--Go 'way, Ellen!" he screamed.

"There!--there!--never mind. Let him stay," said the mother.

A jar of preserved fruit was brought forth.

"Give me some?" asked Charley.

"No, not now. You will get some at the table."

"I want some now. Give me some now."

A spoonful of the preserves was put into a saucer, and given to the
child.

"Give me some more," said he, holding up his saucer in about half a
minute.

"No. Wait until tea is ready."

"Give me some sweetmeats. I want more, mother!"

"I tell you, no."

A loud bawl followed.

"I declare this child will worry me to death!" exclaimed the mother,
her mind all in confusion, lading out a large spoonful of the fruit,
and putting it into his saucer.

When this was eaten, still more was demanded, and peremptorily
refused. Crying was resorted to, but without effect, though it was
loud and deafening. Finding this unsuccessful, the spoiled urchin
determined to help himself. As soon as his mother's back was turned,
he clambered up to the table and seized the jar containing the
preserves. In pulling it over far enough to get his spoon into it,
the balance of the jar was destroyed, and over it went, rolling off
upon the floor, and breaking with a loud crash. At the moment this
occurred, Mrs. Stanley entered the room. Her patience, that had been
severely tried, was now completely overthrown. She was angry enough
to punish her child, and feel a delight in doing so. Seizing him by
one arm, she lifted him from the floor, as if he had been but a
feather, and hurried with him up to her chamber. There she whipped
him unmercifully, and then put him to bed. He continued to cry after
she had done so, when she commanded him to stop in a voice that he
dared not disobey. An hour afterward, when much cooled down, she
passed through the chamber. She looked down upon her little boy with
a feeling of repentance for her anger and the severity of her
punishment. This feeling was in no way mitigated on hearing the
child sob in his sleep. The mother felt very unhappy.

So much for Mrs. Stanley--so much for her tenderness of feeling--so
much for her warm-blooded system. Its effects need not be exposed
further. Its folly need not be set in any plainer light.

Some weeks afterward she was spending an afternoon with Mrs. Noland.
Her favourite topic was the management of children, and she
introduced it as usual, inveighing as was her wont against the
cruelty of punishing children--especially in cold blood, as she
called it. For her part, she never punished except in extreme cases,
and not then, unless provoked to do so. Unless she felt angry, and
punished on the spur of the moment, she could not do it at all.
During the conversation, which was led pretty much by Mrs. Stanley,
a child, about the age of Charley, came into the parlour. He walked
up to his mother and whispered some request in her ear.

"Oh no, Master Harry!" was the smiling, but decided reply.

The child lingered with a look of disappointment. At length he came
up, and kissing his mother, asked again, in a sweet, earnest way,
for what he had been at first denied.

"After I said no!" And Mrs. Noland looked gravely into his face.

Tears came into Henry's eyes. But he said no more. In a moment or
two he silently left the room.

"Mrs. Noland! How could you resist that dear little fellow? I
declare it was right down cruel in you."

The eyes of Mrs. Stanley glistened as she spoke.

"It would have been far more cruel to him if I had yielded, after
once having said 'no'--far more cruel had I given him what I knew
would have injured him."

"But, I don't see how you could refuse so dear a child, when he
asked you in such a sweet, affectionate manner. I should have given
him any thing in the world he had asked for."

"That's not my way. I say 'no' only when I have good reason, and
then I never change."

"Never?"

"Never."

Henry appeared at the parlour door again.

"Come in, dear," said Mrs. Noland.

The child came quickly forward, put up his mouth to kiss her, and
then nestled closely by his mother's side. The conversation
continued, without the slightest interruption from him.

"Dear little fellow," said Mrs. Stanley, once or twice, looking into
the child's face, and smoothing his hair with her hand.

When the tea bell rung, the family assembled in the dining-room. A
visiter made it necessary that one of the children should wait.
Henry was by the table as usual.

"Harry, dear," said his mother, "you will have to wait and come with
Ellen."

The child felt very much disappointed. He looked up into his
mother's face for a moment, and then, without a word, went out of
the room.

"Poor little fellow! It is really a pity to make him wait; and he is
so good," said Mrs. Stanley. "I am sure we can make room for him. Do
call him back, and let him sit by me."

And she moved close to one of the older children as she spoke. "Here
is plenty of room."

Mrs. Noland thought for a moment, and then told the waiter to call
Henry back. The child came in as quietly as he had gone out, and
came up to his mother's side.

"My dear," said Mrs. Noland, "this good lady here has made room for
you by her side. You can go and sit by her."

The child's face brightened. He went quickly and took the offered
seat. By the time tea was over, Henry had fallen asleep in his
chair. Mrs. Noland, when all arose from the table, took Henry in her
arms, and went with him, accompanied by Mrs. Stanley, to her
chamber, where she undressed him, and kissing fondly his bright
young cheek, laid him in his little bed.

Mrs. Stanley stood for some moments over the sleeping child, and
looked down upon his calm face. As she did so, she remembered her
own little Charley, and under what different circumstances and
feelings he had been put to bed on the evening of Mrs. Noland's
visit to her.

Whether the contrast did her any good, we have no means of knowing.
We trust the lesson was not without its good effect upon her.




THE EVENING PRAYER.


"Our Father."

"OUR Father." The mother's voice was low, and tender, and solemn.

"Our Father." On two sweet voices the words were borne upward. It
was the innocence of reverent childhood that gave them utterance.

"Who art in the heavens."

"Who art in the heavens," repeated the children, one with her eyes
bent meekly down, and the other looking upward, as if she would
penetrate the heavens into which her heart aspired.

"Hallowed be Thy name."

Lower fell the voices of the little ones. In a gentle murmur they
said: "Hallowed be Thy name."

"Thy kingdom come."

And the burden of the prayer was still taken up by the
children--"Thy kingdom come."

"Thy will be done on earth, as it is done in heaven."

Like a low, sweet echo from the land of angels--"Thy will be done on
earth, as it is done in heaven," filled the chamber.

And the mother continued--"Give us this day our daily bread."

"Our daily bread" lingered a moment on the air, as the mother's
voice was hushed into silence.

"And forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors."

The eyes of the children had drooped for a moment. But they were
uplifted again as they prayed--"And forgive us our debts, as we also
forgive our debtors."

"And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. For
Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen."

All these holy words were said, piously and fervently, by the little
ones, as they knelt with clasped hands beside their mother. Then, as
their thoughts, uplifted on the wings of prayer to their heavenly
Father, came back again and rested on their earthly parents, a
warmer love came gushing from their hearts.

Pure kisses--tender embraces--the fond "good night." What a sweet
agitation pervaded all their feelings! Then two dear heads were
placed side by side on the snowy pillow, the mother's last kiss
given, and the shadowy curtains drawn.

What a pulseless stillness reigns throughout the chamber! Inwardly
the parents' listening ears are bent. They have given these innocent
ones into the keeping of God's angels, and they can almost hear the
rustle of their garments as they gather around their sleeping babes.
A sigh, deep and tremulous, breaks on the air. Quickly the mother
turns to the father of her children, with a look of earnest inquiry
on her countenance. And he answers thus her silent question.

"Far back, through many years, have my thoughts been wandering. At
my mother's knee thus said I nightly, in childhood, my evening
prayer. It was that best and holiest of all prayers, "Our Father,"
that she taught me. Childhood and my mother passed away. I went
forth as a man into the world, strong, confident, and self-seeking.
Once I came into great temptation. Had I fallen in that temptation,
I would have fallen, I sadly fear, never to have risen again. The
struggle in my mind went on for hours. I was about yielding. All the
barriers I could oppose to the in-rushing flood seemed just ready to
give way, when, as I sat in my room one evening, there came from an
adjoining chamber, now first occupied for many weeks, the murmur of
low voices. I listened. At first, no articulate sound was heard, and
yet something in the tones stirred my heart with new and strange
emotions. At length, there came to my ears, in the earnest, loving
voice of a woman, the words--'Deliver us from evil.' For an instant,
it seemed to me as if the voice were that of my mother. Back, with a
sudden bound through all the intervening years, went my thoughts;
and, a child in heart again, I was kneeling at my mother's knee.
Humbly and reverently I said over the words of the holy prayer she
had taught me, heart and eyes uplifted to heaven. The hour and the
power of darkness had passed. I was no longer standing in slippery
places, with a flood of waters ready to sweep me to destruction; but
my feet were on a rock. My mother's pious care had saved her son. In
the holy words she taught me in childhood, was a living power to
resist evil through all my after life. Ah! that unknown mother, as
she taught her child to repeat his evening prayer, how little
dreamed she that the holy words were to reach a stranger's ears, and
save him through memories of his own childhood and his own mother!
And yet it was so. What a power there is in God's Word, as it flows
into and rests in the minds of innocent children!"

Tears were in the eyes of the wife and mother as she lifted her
face, and gazed with a subdued tenderness upon the countenance of
her husband. Her heart was too full for utterance. A little while
she thus gazed, and then, with a trembling joy, laid her head upon
his bosom. Angels were in the chamber where their dear ones slept,
and they felt their holy presence.




A PEEVISH DAY, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.


"IT is too bad, Rachael, to put me to all this trouble; and you know
I can hardly hold up my head!"

Thus spoke Mrs. Smith, in a peevish voice, to a quiet-looking
domestic, who had been called up from the kitchen to supply some
unimportant omission in the breakfast-table arrangement.

Rachael looked hurt and rebuked, but made no reply.

"How could you speak in that way to Rachael?" said Mr. Smith, as
soon as the domestic had withdrawn.

"If you felt just as I do, Mr. Smith, you would speak cross too!"
Mrs. Smith replied a little warmly. "I feel just like a rag; and my
head aches as if it would burst."

"I know you feel badly, and I am very sorry for you. But still, I
suppose it is as easy to speak kindly as harshly. Rachael is very
obliging and attentive, and should be borne with in occasional
omissions, which you of course know are not wilful."

"It is easy enough to preach," retorted Mrs. Smith, whose temper,
from bodily lassitude and pain, was in quite an irritable state. The
reader will understand at least one of the reasons of this, when he
is told that the scene here presented occurred during the last
oppressive week in August.

Mr. Smith said no more. He saw that to do so would only be to
provoke instead of quieting his wife's ill-humour. The morning meal
went by in silence, but little food passing the lips of either. How
could it, when the thermometer was ninety-four at eight o'clock in
the morning, and the leaves upon the trees were as motionless as if
suspended in a vacuum? Bodies and minds were relaxed--and the one
turned from food, as the other did from thought, with an instinctive
aversion.

After Mr. Smith had left his home for his place of business, Mrs.
Smith went up into her chamber, and threw herself upon the bed, her
head still continuing to ache with great violence. It so happened
that a week before, the chambermaid had gone away, sick, and all the
duties of the household had in consequence devolved upon Rachael,
herself not very well. Cheerfully, however, had she endeavoured to
discharge these accumulated duties, and but for the unhappy, peevish
state of mind in which Mrs. Smith indulged, would have discharged
them without a murmuring thought. But, as she was a faithful,
conscientious woman, and, withal, sensitive in her feelings, to be
found fault with worried her exceedingly. Of this Mrs. Smith was
well aware, and had, until the latter part of the trying month of
August, acted toward Rachael with consideration and forbearance. But
the last week of August was too much for her. The sickness of the
chambermaid threw such heavy duties upon Rachael, whose daily
headaches and nervous relaxation of body were borne without a
complaint, that their perfect performance was almost impossible.
Slight omissions, which were next to unavoidable under the
circumstances, became so annoying to Mrs. Smith, herself, as it has
been seen, labouring under great bodily and mental prostration, that
she could not bear them.

"She knows better, and she could do better, if she chose," was her
rather uncharitable comment often inwardly made on the occurrence of
some new trouble.

After Mr. Smith had taken his departure on the morning just referred
to, Mrs. Smith went up into her chamber, as has been seen, and threw
herself languidly upon a bed, pressing her hands to her throbbing
temples, as she did so, and murmuring,

"I can't live at this rate!"

At the same time, Rachael set down in the kitchen the large waiter
upon which she had arranged the dishes from the breakfast-table, and
then sinking into a chair, pressed one hand upon her forehead, and
sat for more than a minute in troubled silence. It had been three
days since she had received from Mrs. Smith a pleasant word; and the
last remark, made to her a short time before, had been the unkindest
of all. At another time, even all this would not have moved her--she
could have perceived that Mrs. S. was not in a right state--that
lassitude of body had produced a temporary infirmity of mind. But,
being herself affected by the oppressive season almost as much as
her mistr

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