"I trust he is not," said Mr. Banks; perhaps we had better send for the doctor."

Yes, do," she replied; "and tell them to stop and ask Brother James Howard to come over. I wish I knew where to send for Mr. Allen." Mr. Howard came immediately, and Mrs. Allen met him at the door.

"How did it happen, Lizzie ?"

They

"I don't know. Mr. Banks said I had better not talk to him till he is a little rested. are undressing him now.

"Where did Tom find him?”

"Down by the island holding the bushes to keep himself from sinking.'

"Has Mr. Allen come back from town?" "Yes; he came just before dinner, but he had gone away some place before Tom came."

"Missus, Massa Banks says you go up now, if you want to," said Tom. Lester was much revived. He had been undressed and rubbed by Mr. Banks' direction, and that gentleman was now holding a wineglass to his lips as he lay in bed. His mother laid her head on his pillow and silently kissed his cheek; while his uncle, taking his hand, said : "Why, Letty, my little man, how did this happen ?”

"O, uncle! I saw mamma's veil, and I wanted to get it; but the plank struck so hard I fell off, and I'd have been drowned if I hadn't caught hold of the branch of that big tree."

"And our good Tom found you there, did he?"

"Yes," said the boy, his face suddenly darkening. "Mr. Allen passed, and I screamed to him, and called him father, and begged him to help me, and told him he should have all I had, but he wouldn't stop-he. wanted me to die.”

O, Letty, Letty!" said Mrs. Allen, imploringly.

"He could not have heard you," said Mr. Howard, looking very grave.

"Yes, he did; you know what a little ways it is from the river to the road along there; and I called just as he was passing. I never screamed so loud before in my life; I didn't know I could."

The poor wife shivered, and placed her hand over her eyes. "O Letty, it can't be true!" "Indeed it is, mother."

The doctor rode rapidly up, arriving at the gate just as Mr. Allen did.

I rode out immediately after dinner. Almost drowned, did you say?”

"Yes, that is what Jack said.'

"Strange," " said the guilty man, with a sinking heart. The little contrition he had felt was all lost in the horror of the thought that Lester would tell what had occurred. Feeling very much agitated, but not daring to stay away, he accompanied the physician up stairs.

"What does all this mean?" he said, addressing his wife. "The doctor tells me Lester is hurt."

"The doctor tells you!" said Mr. Howard, with bitter scorn. "Do you attempt to say that was the first you knew of it?"

"Most assuredly I do. How else should I know?""

"Lester says he called to you as you passed, and you would not stop."

"I didn't hear him call. Where was he?"

"You could not help hearing me," said the boy, resolutely. "I was by the island, and I called just when you was opposite, and kept on till you was out of sight. When Tom heard me, he was a great deal farther off."

"I certainly did not hear you," said Mr. Allen, determinedly.

"I am so glad to hear you say so," said his wife, with quivering lips. "You don't know how I felt, William !"

"Why, Lizzie, you surely did not believe such a thing of me. Lester's accident must have turned his head." he replied, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.

The physician had been leaning over the bed, professing not to hear this colloquy. Mr. Howard walked back and forth in deep thought; suddenly he paused. "Doctor, Mr. Banks, you are both men of honor. Will you promise me never to mention this wretched transaction abroad?''

"Certainly," said both gentlemen.

"Lester," continued his uncle, "will hereafter live with me; I am his guardian, and will take charge of him."

"You shall not take him away from his mother; I will not permit it," said Mr. Allen, haughtily.

"Just

Mr. Howard turned full upon him. you try to keep him, and I will publish this shameful story; you will not find this part of the country very pleasant to live in after that.”

Poor Lizzie sobbed bitterly. "I am sure Lester is mistaken, brother James."

"Perhaps so, but henceforth he will live

with me."

And so Lester Howard went to live with his

uncle, and his unhappy mother saw him but rarely, for her husband disliked to have her go to Mr. Howard's, growing petulant and moody when she did so; and she did not feel like urging her boy to come to his old home, when he steadily refused to speak to his stepfather. Though her heart often grew sick with vain longings for his presence, the love and fear she felt for her husband were too great to permit her to express her wishes. Her face grew thin and pale; a few months seemed to add many years to her bowed and drooping head, and the little face of her unconscious babe was often bedewed with the bitterest tears poor Lizzie had ever shed, for all past trials were light, compared to this.

(To be continued.)

HEAD GEAR IN THE SOUTH OF EUROPE. AMERICAN and English females have little notion of the artistic effect of wearing, as many of the better sex do in Lombardy, those very becoming black veils, which cover a greater part of the head, neck, and shoulders. They would also be astonished for awhile at meeting in the streets of Genoa with something very different from any coverings for the heads used hereabouts in the muslin. Pezzotto, which is pinned into the hair of the ladies, and floats away from it, and in the gaudy Mazzaro scarf, which is worn by their poorer neighbors. There is something to look at in the showy handkerchiefs of the Livornese, and something to admire in the pretty white shawl which adorns while partially concealing the locks of the fair ones of Bologna. The white folded square which painters commonly place upou the head of their plebeian figures belonging to Rome will probably disappoint the observer so far as the place itself is concerned, for it is not often worn by any but those wrinkled dames who used to play on the banks of the Tiber some time last century, and are now too conservative to submit to any new-fangled notion about showing the world the exact state or quantity of their residue of capillary attraction. Where we can suppose our countrywomen a little envious is in the neighborhood of Florence, itself the great centre of straw-plait manufacture, where the damsels come forth to captivate the hearts of certain open-mouthed swains, in their large, flapping hats, so limp as to take all sorts of shapes with the passing breeze, and yet so well made as to return forthwith to their normal con

dition. We well remember the effect of them when we were lounging in the dull, broad street of Fiesole, a place more noted for its Pelasgic and other historical remains than for any modern attraction. It was a fête day, the Duomo was gaudily furnished for the occasion, and the bells struck up a merry invitation to the service, which all the younger part of the population seemed duly to accept. The youths who came early showed anything but an anxiety to secure good places inside-in fact, loitered about to see the successive batches of damsels well in first, with or without any idea of profiting by that sort of introduction to the solemnities of the evening. We watched them likewise; and, seeing as a novelty to us that they took off the flapping hats at the entrance of the Duomo, we were tempted to look in and see what they did with them. We soon found that, although white veils have the chief place in old ecclesiastical costumes, the rule was for each female to put on a black one. And, since by another rule they all fell on their knees, the process of adjusting their veils had to be gone through in that position. The unfolding, pulling, squaring, etc., of the covering, the constant fidgeting of the wearer, and her evident critical anxiety about the success of others in gracefulness, all on the hard marble floor, seemed likely, in our view, to increase the difficulties of devotion under the circumstances; but then we had no license to judge.

Acts of KindnESS.-Kindness makes sunshine wherever it goes-it finds its way into the hidden treasures of the heart, and brings forth treasures of gold; harshness, on the contrary, seals them forever. What does kindness do at home? It makes the mother's lullaby sweeter than the song of the lark, the care-laden brows of the father and the man of business less severe in their expression, and the children joyous without being riotous. Abroad, it assists the fallen, encourages the virtuous, and looks with true charity on the extremely unfortunate-those in the broad way, who perhaps had never been taught that the narrow path was the best, or had turned from it at the solicitation of temptation. Kindness is the real law of life, the link that connects earth with heaven, the true philosopher's stone, for all it touches it turns to virgin gold-the true gold, wherewith we purchase contentment, peace, and love.