curb put upon her benevolent desires by bitter necessity. "And after all very few-you 've no idea how few-of these pretended sufferers are really in want.”

This preluded a recital of sundry barefaced impositions and successful swindles practised upon herself and acquaintances, to which Mr. Hunt subjoined certain of his personal experiences, all tending to establish the principle that in a vast majority of cases of seeming destitution the supplicant was an accomplished rogue, and the giver of alms the victim of his own soft heart and a villain's wiles. Jeannie drank in every syllable, until her ideal beggar quite equalled the ogre who would have made a light supper off of Hop-o'-my-Thumb and brothers.

'You gave this match-girl no money, I hope?" said Mrs. Hunt, at length.

"I did not, madam. I had none to give her." Impelled by her straight-forward sense of honesty that would not allow her to receive commendation for prudence she had not shown, she said, bravely: "But I lent her my umbrella upon her promise to return it to-morrow." "WELL!"

Mrs. Hunt dropped her hands in her lap, and stared in speechless dismay at her daughter. Even her husband felt it his duty to express his disapprobation.

"That was very unwise, my daughter. You will never see it again."

“I think differently, father."

"You are too easily imposed upon, Sarah. There is not the least probability that your property will be returned. Was it a good umbrella?"

"It was the one I always use."

"Black silk, the best make, with a carved ivory handle-cost six dollars a month ago!" gasped Mrs. Hunt. "I never heard of such a piece of shameful imprudence in all my born days! and I shouldn't wonder if you never once thought to ask her where she lived, that you might send a police officer after it, if the little thief didn't bring it back to you!"

"I did think of it." Sarah paused, then forced out the confession she foresaw would subject her to the charge of yet more ridiculous folly. "I did think of it, but concluded to throw the girl upon her honor, not to suggest the theft to her by insinuating a doubt of her integrity."

Mr. Hunt was annoyed with and sorry for the enlprit, yet he could not help smiling at this high-flown generosity of confidence. 'You are eertainly the most unsophisticated girl of your VOL. LXVI.-4

age I ever met with, my daughter. I shall not mind the loss of the umbrella if it prove to be the means of giving you a lesson in human nature. In this world, dear, it will not do to wear your heart upon your sleeve. Never believe a pretty story until you have had the opportunity to ascertain for yourself whether it is true or false." And with these titbits of worldly wisdom, the cashier picked up his paper.

"Six dollars! I declare I don't know what to say to you, Sarah!" persisted the ruffled mother. "You cannot expect me to give you another umbrella this season. You must give up your walks in damp weather after this. I can't say that I am very sorry for that, though. I never did fancy your traipsing off two or three miles, rain or shine, like a sewing-girl." "Very well, madam!”

But, steadied by pride as was her voice, her heart sank at the possibility of resigning the exercise upon which she deemed so much of her health, physical and mental, depended. These long, solitary walks were one of the unAmerican habits that earned for Sarah Hunt the reputation of eccentricity. They were usaally taken immediately after breakfast, and few in the neighborhood who were abroad or happened to look out at that hour, were not familiar with the straight, proud figure, habited in its walking-dress of gray and black, stout boots, and gray hat with black plume. It was a uniform selected by herself, and which her mother permitted her to assume, because it "looked genteel," and became the wearer. Especially did she enjoy these tramps when the threatening storm, in its early stages, kept others of her class and sex at home. The untamed spirit found a fierce pleasure in wrestling with the wind; the hail that ushered in the snow-storm, as it beat in her face, called up lustre to the eye and warm color to the cheek. To a soul sickening of the glare and perfume of the artificial life to which she was confined the roughest and wildest aspects of nature were a welcome change.

I remember laughing heartily, as I doubt not you did also, dear reader, if you saw it, at a cut which appeared several years ago in the Punch department of Harper's Magazine. A

wee toddler," perhaps four years old, with a most lack-a-daisical expression upon her chubby visage, accosts her grandmother after this fashion: "I am tired of life, grandmamma! The world is hollow and my doll is stuffed with sawdust, and, if you please, ma'am, I should like to go to a nunnery!"

Yet that there are natures upon which the feeling of emptiness and longing herein burlesqued seizes in mere babyhood is sadly true. And what wonder? From their cradles, hundreds of children, in our so-called better classes, are fed upon husks. A superficial education, in which all that is not showy accomplishment is so dry and uninviting that the student has little disposition to seek further for the rich kernel, the strong meat of knowledge, is the preparatory course to a premature introduction into the world, to many the only phase of life they are permitted to see, a scene where all is flash and froth, empty bubbles of prizes, chased by men and women with empty heads, and oh, how often empty, aching hearts! Outside principles, outside affections, outside smiles, and, most pitiable of all, outside piety! Penury of heart and stomach at home; abroad a parade of reckless extravagance and ostentatious profession of fine feeling and liberal sentiments !

'Woe,” cried the Preacher, "to them that make haste to be rich!" If he had lived in our day, in what biting terms of reprobation and contempt would he have declaimed against the insane ambition of those who forego the solid comforts of judicious expenditure of a moderate income would afford; spurn the holy quiet of domestic joys-neglect soul, with heart culture-in their haste to seem rich, when Providence has seen that wealth is not to be desired for them! Out upon the disgusting, indecent race and scramble! The worship of the golden calf is bad enough, but when this bestial idolatry rises to such a pitch of fanaticism, that in thousands of households, copies in pinchbeck and plated ware are set up and served, the spectacle is too monstrous in its abomination ! This it is, that crowds our counting-rooms with bankrupts and our state prisons with defaulters; that is fast twining our ball-rooms and other places of fashionable rendezvous, into vile caricatures of foreign courts, foreign manners, and foreign vices; while the people we ape—our chosen models and exemplars-hold their sides in inextinguishable laughter at the grave absurdity of our laborious imitation. It is no cause for marvel, that, in just retribution, there should be sent a panic-earthquake, every three years, to shake men to their senses.

Such was the atmosphere in which Sarah Hunt had always lived. In the code subscribed to by her mother, and the many who lived and felt and panted and pushed as she did for social distinction, nothing was of real, absolute value except the hard cash. Gold and silver were

facts. All things else were comparative in use and worth. The garment which, last winter, no lady felt dressed without, was an obsolete horror this season. The pattern of curtains and furniture that nearly drove the fortunate purchaser wild with delight, three years back, was now only fit for the auction-room. In vain might the poor, depleted husband plead for and extol their beauties. The fiat of fashion had gone forth, and his better half seasoned his food with lamentations, and moistened her pillow with tears until she carried her point. We have intimated that Sarah was a peculiar girl. Whence she derived her vigorous intellect ; her strong, original turn of thought; her deep heart, was a puzzle to those who knew her parents. The mother was energetic, the father sensible, but both were commonplace, and followed, like industrious puppets, in the wake of others. They were pleased that Sarah brought home all the prizes offered at school, and both considered that she gained a right, by these victories, to pursue her studies at home, provided she did not obtrude her singular views and tastes upon other people. Mrs. Hunt sighed, frequently and loudly, in her presence, that her genius had not been for shell, or bead, or worsted-work, instead of for reading volumes, that did not even decorate the show book-case in the library.

"If you must have so many books, why don't you pick out them with the tasty bindings?" she had asked her daughter more than once. "And I wish you would paint some bright, lively pictures, that would look handsome on the walls, instead of those queer men and women and cloudy things you have got up stairs. I'd have 'em framed right away, and be real proud to tell who done them.”

Sarah remained proof against such hints and temptations, and, shrinking more and more from the uncongenial whirl around her, she twined her eager, restless spirit into her secret, inner life, where, at times, it was flattered into content by the idealities upon which it was fed; at others, ramped and raved, like any other chained wild thing. The sweetest drop of pleasure she had tasted for many a day was the thrill she experienced when the forlorn object she had rescued from the power of the storm stood before her, decently and comfortably clad. The rash confidence she had reposed in so suspicious a stranger was the outgoing of a heart too noble and true in every impulse to pause, for a moment, to speculate upon the chances of another's good or bad faith. The great world of the confessedly poor was an unknown field

to her-one she longed to explore. Her footsteps loitered more often near the entrance of some narrow, reeking street or alley, down which she had promised her mother not to go, than on the spacious pavé, where over-dressed women and foppish men halted at, and hung around bewitching shop-windows. She wondered how such throngs of breathing beings contrived to exist in those fetid, cramped quarters; how they lived, spoke, acted, felt. The great tie of human brotherhood became daily more tense, as she pondered these things in her heart.

On this particular day, as she sat, silent and thoughtful, at her needle, the chit-chat of her companions less heeded than the continual dropping of the rain without, the wail of the shivering wanderer caused a painful vibration through every nerve. The deed was done! the experiment was tried. She was ashamed that an event so trivial held her eyes waking, far into the night. At least, she said to herself, she would not be without a lesson of some kind; would learn whether deceit and falsehood prevailed in the lowest, as well as the higher ranks of society. If, as she still strove to believe would be the case, the child returned the borrowed property, she would make use of her, as the means of entering upon a new sphere of research and action. After so complete a refutation of her theories respecting the utter corruption of all people, who had not enough to eat and to wear, her mother could not withhold her consent to her petition that she might become a lay-missionary—a present relief committee to a small portion of the suffering, toiling, ill-paid masses. She would then have a work to do something to call out energy and engage feeling in healthy exercise-and soothed by the romantic vision, she fell asleep with a smile upon her lips.

The morning dawned between breaking clouds, that soon left the sky clear and bright. All through the day Sarah watched for her visitor of the preceding day-watched with nervousness she could not wholly conceal, from morn to night, for two, three days-for a week. Then she looked no longer while at home; her question, at entering the house, after a drive or walk, ceased to be, "Has anything been left for me?" So palpable was her disappointment that her father forbore to make any allusion to her loss, and Lucy, albeit she was somewhat obtuse to the finer points of her sister's character, good-naturedly interposed to change the subject, when her mother sought to improve the incident to her daughter's edification and

future profit. Mr. Hunt was right in supposing that the "unsophisticated girl" had learned something. Whether she were happier or better for the lesson thus acquired was another thing.

Once again Sarah had an opportunity for speech with her delinquent protegée. Two months later, she was passing through a bystreet in a mean neighborhood, very far up town, in her morning ramble, when her progress was arrested, for an instant, by two boys, who ran out of an alley across the walk. One overtook the other just in front of the lady, and catching him by his ragged collar, threw him down.

"That's right! beat him well! I'll help!" screeched a girl, rushing out of the court whence they had come.

Grinning with delight, she flung herself upon the prostrate form and commenced a vigorous assault, accompanied by language alike foul and profane.

Sarah recognized her instantly, and while she paused in mingled amazement and anger, the child looked up and saw her. In a twinkling she relinquished her grip of the boy's hair-jumped up and sped back into the dirty alley, with the blind haste of guilty fear.

Yes! Mr. Hunt was a wise man, who knew the world, and trebly sage in her generation, was his spouse. If their daughter had never acknowledged this before, she did now, in her disgust and dismay at this utter overthrow of her dreams of the virtuous simplicity to be found in lowly homes, where riches and fashions were things unknown.

(To be continued.)

EVERY Soul has an immortality and infinity in itself that cannot be searched or expressed; it is an awful secret, that neither language, nor action, nor expression of any kind can disclose; we all of us long for what life cannot supply; our aspirations are infinitely beyond our attainments; so much so, that they who are contented with the world as it is are the mere cattle of society. All improvements originate with discontentment; we labor and bring forth in sorrow; genius is a laborer, an operative, a slave; and every useful man and woman is.

KINDNESS in ourselves is the honey that blunts the sting of unkindness in another.

WOMEN are extreme-they are better or worse than men..

THE ORPHAN'S HOPE.

BY EMMA C. D. COWEE.

My invalid mother and I were alone,

Out on the low porch where the bright sun shone-
In the month of June-'twas a lovely day;
With the vines o'erhead the wind was at play—
The sweet breath of flowers was borne on the breeze-
The katydid's song came forth from the trees-
We heard the noise of the busy old mill
That's over the brook, down under the hill;

And from hill, and dale, and woodland would fleat
Sweet notes from many a musical throat.
My mother sat there in her old arm-chair,
And I was near,

Plying my needle and chanting an air
She loved to hear.

I suddenly paused in my joyous lay,

And gazed on her face;

I thought that her cheek was paler that day,
And I could trace

Deep shadows of pain on her fair high brow-
I know they are gone, yet they haunt me now.
"Oh, mother," I cried,

Pray to Him always, daughter, dear, pray!
He'll comfort and guide you when I've passed away.”

That beautiful night, ere the moon was set,

The soul of my dearest friend had filed; My agony wild I can never forget,

When they tore me away from the form of the dead! My bosom was filled with the deepest woe; Of light I could see not a flickering ray, Till those sweet words came, spoke a short time ago, "Pray to Him, always, daughter, dear, pray!"

Then a strange, sweet peace swept over my soul
As I knelt in prayer ere the rise of the sun,
And a voice within, when I heard the bell toll,
"It 's all for the best-His will be done.”
Said,
My mother's voice I can hear no more;
Nor her footfalls light on her chamber floor;
All within her room looks gloomy and bare,
And empty and lone is her old arm-chair;
But her home is a happier home than this-
A home where the angels dwell in bliss;
And I humbly hope that bliss to share,
As I trust ere long I shall meet her there.

THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN.-There is a vast deal which women have taught men, and men have then taught the world, and which the men alone have had the credit for, because the woman's share is untraceable. But, cry some of our modern ladies, this is exactly what we wish to avoid; we can teach the world directly, and we insist on being allowed to do so. If our sphere has been hitherto more personal, it is because you have forced seclusion and restriction upon us. Educate us like yourselves, and we shall be competent to fill the same place as you do, and discharge the same duties. With extreme deference we do not think this is quite so; we cannot believe what is now-a-days so broadly asserted, that the difference between the male and female intellect is due entirely to difference of education and circumstances, and that women, placed under the same conditions as men, would become men, except in If the the bare physical distinctions of sex. education and lives of women have been so utterly obliterative of such important qualities, it seems strange that they should have retained what they have got. No influences have succeeded in making them stupid, in destroying the spring and vivacity of their minds, their readiness, their facility, their abundant resources. Yet their education has been little, if at all, directed to foster these qualities more than those of reflection and comprehensive thought. Reverse the question. Do not meu in innumerable instances develop the characteristic masculine intellect in all its force, totally irrespective of any training whatever? And is it supposed that any care, however sedulous, would make the mass of men rivals of the mass of women in those qualities which we have indicated as specially belonging to the latter? But it is fighting with shadows to combat such an assertion. The evidence of facts against it is scattered, minute, appealing in varied form to individual minds and experiences; but it is overwhelming to all but the most prejudiced minds.

"Why," said the mother, smiling, “do you think it betokens a poor prospect for certain young ladies? And do those young ladies fear that, notwithstanding they are pleasant and ladylike, they may chance to live and die maidens, too?”

Anna did not attempt to parry her mother's raillery or notice her sister's smiles, but continued: "Aunt Edith is so kind to Clara that we can easily see she would have made the best of mothers. She has what one may term a domestic heart, and it is such a pity that it has been thrown away!"

"It is well your father does not hear your wise discourse, Anna. He says the present generation of young girls read so many watery romances that they all talk like books, and not the highest style of books, either.”

66 It

"Why, mother," cried the three sisters, in a breath, now rallying to the common defence. But she laughingly begged their pardon, and returned to the subject of Aunt Edith. would be a great pity if Miss Gray's life had been wasted, as you seem to think. But there are other uses for women in this world besides marriage. And there are opportunities, if we will improve them, by which maiden ladies may do more disinterested good than the joyful mother of children. You have never heard Aunt Edith's history?"

to reward the generous with generous treatment. Aunt Edith never gossips, and is never gossiped about. But she has been the nine days' wonder more than once in her time. Suppose I tell you her story while the twilight lasts. It is a story with a moral, and will teach you that there may be women who have done a great deal better than to marry.'

In the twilight, to her listening daughters, the mother told Aunt Edith's Story.

"Aunt Edith is some ten years my senior. I knew her, when I was a child like you, as a charming young woman. She was a half-orphan and her father's housekeeper, an only child, and the supposed heiress of a large fortune. Her father's house, the same in which she now lives, was made cheerful by her young friends. I was never better pleased than when I could find an errand or a pretext to go see Miss Edith.

"Of course it was presumed that Edith would one day marry. For, whatever we may say about it, the general expectation of young people is that they shall do so, and the usual conclusion of their elders is that they may. Edith was never what is called demonstrative; she never liked to make a sensation or to become the subject of remark; and though her early life abounded in circumstances which gave her prominence in people's minds, this notoriety was not of her seeking. The quiet manner which she now has was always the manner of Edith Gray.

(6 Though she was silent, even to her dear, dearest, and intimate, most intimate friends, of which most young girls have a half dozen, more or less, it was discovered in due course of events and indications that Edith was affianced. The matter had proceeded without any of the display of a public engagement, which we sometimes see. Nobody knew day and date, if ever there was a day and date on which he first distinctly proposed, and she distinctly accepted. But it was just as well understood, notwithstanding, that they were to be married. Everybody said of him, 'Lucky fellow!' and of her, 'What can her father do without his housekeeper?' That was the difficulty, and I happen to know, from circumstances not of her relating, that while she did accept her suitor,