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¥•• v.*> ®, -- , ; ](̂ «r;PhnMw. ;1?" ' J.VAH 8L1KE, E4lle» * PeWHwr. iMcHENRY. •if ILLINOIS zosr i kind power, when our youth is ended, * _ And life's fimt freehne* kwt m languid noon, f^houldrtay awhile the (bom by Rite intended, » • And giant u generously one precious boon-- &0Kfing, " With thwartinp, bitteraew %d trial, *%Xova toilsome days thua fiur have been op- pressed: ^IphaoK now some blessing. fearing no denial. To light and charm ana beautify the rest"-- *What should we ask? the price of young ambi• v' lion? X Rune- power, wealth, and gifts of prieeka "v'r, cowt ? "* JU», no--oursonb wmiW utter the petition: ' . v " Oive u»--oh, only give us back our lost!" "$ifMo visioned bliss, no pleasure new and splendid. No lofty joy by longing never crossed. fo new llght unSreamecf of, Heaven-descended, Only our own--the treasures we have lost! MlFor, wearied out with strife, and glare, and clamor, • Grows wicer with our years, and clearer-eyed, r̂ i#io more beguiled by dreams, nor charmed by - « ifiamour. We dread the new, and P*i*e the known, the tried. .fa, what a crowd of joys would gather round us, ; iCould we but have oar vanished back again! • > *The heart unspoiled, the strength and hope which '••'1* 1 crowned us. The bounteous life, the ignorance of pain--* " •"SSdEhe innocence, the ready faith in others, fJ 'Hie sweet, spontaneous earnestness and tnft, r The trust of friends, the tender eyes of And all the rich inheritance of youth- ves, tl Might be more pure; the touch of love's warm lip .And saving hand; the sound of childish laughter, The peace of home, the joy of comradeship-- 'We had them all; and now that they have left us, We count them carefully, and see their worth, -And feel that time and fortune have bereft us Of all the best and dearest things on earth. Ah, yes! when on our hearts the years are pleas­ ing, And all our Sower-plats are touched with frost, "We aajc no more some new, untested blessinir-- ButTonly sigh, " Oh, give us back our Imtr --Elizabeth Akers, in Baldwin's Monthly. * A NIGHT ADVENTURE. I WILL tell you about an affair--im- iportant, as it proved to me; but you must not hurry me. I have never been in a hurry since then, and never will. TJp to that time inclusive I was always in a hurry; my actions always preced­ ed my thoughts; experience was of no <nse, ana everybody would have sup­ posed me destined to carry a young • head upoh old shoulders to the grave. However, I was brought up at last "with a round turn.1' I was allowed a certain space for reflection and plenty of ma­ terials, an<i if it did not do me good it's ^ pity. My father and mother both died when I was still a great awkward boy; and I, being the only thing they had to be­ queath, became the property of a dis­ tant relation. I do not know how it happened; but I had no near relations. t I was a kind of waif upon the world from the beginning, ana I suppose it was owing to my having no family an­ chorage that I acquired the habit of swaying to and fro and drifting hither and thither at the pleasure of the wind •and tide. Not that my guardian was inattentive or unkind--quite the re* verse; but he was indolent and care­ less, contenting himself with providing abundantly for my schooling and my pocket, and leaving everything else to •chance. He would have done the same thing to his own son, if he had had one, and he did the same thing to his own daughter. But girls somehow cling wherever they are cast--anything is an anchorage for them; and as Laura grew up she gave the care she had never found, and was the little mother . to the whole house. As for the titular v mother, she had not an atom of charac­ ter of any kind. She might have been a picture, or a vase, or anything else that is useless, except to the taste or the affections. But mamma was indis­ pensable. It is a vulgar error to sup­ pose that people who have nothing in them are nobody in a house. It is no wonder that I was always in a hurry, for I must have had an in­ stinctive idea that I had my fortune to look for. The governor had nothing . more than a genteel independence, ana this would be a good deal lessened after his death by the lapse of an annuity. But Sister Laura was thus provided for * well enough, while I had not a shilling in actual money, although plenty of 1 hypothetical thousands and sundry cas­ tles in the air. It was the conscious- ness of the latter kind of property, no doubt, that gave me so free and easy -an air, and made me so completely the master of my own actions. How I did worry that blessed old woman! how Laura lectured and scolded! how the .governor stormed! and how I was for­ given the next minute, and we were all as happy again as the day was long! But at length the time of separation -came. I had grown a great hulking fellow, strong enough to make my bread < -as a porter, if that had been needed; and so a situation was found for me in a -counting-house at Barcelona:, and after a lecture and a hearty cry from Sister Laura, a blessing and a kiss from mam­ ma, and a great sob kept down by a hurricane laugh from the governor, I went adrift. * Four years passed rapidly away. I had attained my full height, and more than my just share of inches. I already * -enjoyed, a fair modicum of whiskers, and had even made some progress in the cultivation of a pair of mustaches, when suddenly the house which I was connected with failed. What to do? The governor insisted upon my return to England, where his interest among the mercantile class was considerable. Laura hinted mysteriously that my presence in the house would soon be a matter of great importance to her father, and mamma let out the secret by writing to me that Laura was going* to " change her condition." I was glad to hear this, for I knew he would be a model of a fellow who was Laura's hus­ band; and, gulping down my pride, which would fain have persuaded me that it was unmanly to go back again like the ill-sixpence, I set out on my re­ turn home. The family, I knew, had moved to another house; but, being well ac­ quainted with the town, Ihad no diffi­ culty in finding the place. It was a range of handsome buildings which had sprung up in the fashionable outskirts during my absence; and, although it was far on in the evening, mj accus­ tomed eyes soon descried ttrarii the gloom the governors old-faliioned door-plate. I was just about teVtnook when a temptation came into mj way. One of the area windows was open, gaping as if for my receptic%. A quantity of plate lay upon a tabUclose by. Why should I not enter aid ap­ pear unannounced in the drawing- room, a sunburnt phantom of fiv< feet eleven? Why should I not presei i the precise and careful Laura with a 1 md- ml of her own spoons and forks, left so conveniently at the service of any area-sneak who might chance to bass by? Why? That is only a figuifs of speech. I asked no questions about the matter; the idea was hardly well across mv braia when my legs were across the rails. In another moment I had crept in by the window; and, chuckl ing a t my own cleverness, and the great moral lesson I was about to teach, I was staff­ ing my pockets with the plate. While thus engaged, the opening of a door in the hall above alarmed me, and, afraid of the failure of ray plan, I stepped lightly uu the stall, wi iiich was partially lighted by the hall lamp. As I was about to emerge at the top, a serving girl was coming out of a room on the opposite side. She instantly re­ treated, shut the door with a bang, and I could hear a half-suppressed, hysteri­ cal cry. I bounded on, sprang up the drawing-room stairs, and entered the first door at a venture. All was dark, and I stopped for a moment to listen. Lights were hurrying across the hall, and I heard the rough voice of a man, as if scolding and taunting some person. The girl had doubtless given the alarm, although her information must have been very indistinct, for when she saw me I was in the shadow of the stair, and she could have had little more than a vague impression that she beheld a hu­ man figure. However this may be, the man's voice appeared to descend the stair to the area room, and presently I heard a crashing noise, not as if he was counting the plate, but rather thrusting it aside en masse. Then I heard the window closed, the shutters bolted, and an alarm-bell hung upon them, and the man reascended the stair, half scolding, half laughing at the girl's superstition. He took care, notwithstanding, to ex­ amine the fastenings of the street door, and even to lock it and put the key In his pocket. He then retired into a room and all was silent. I began to feel decidedly queer. The fovernor kept no male servant that I new of, ana had never done so. It was impossible he could have intro­ duced this change into his household without my being informed of it by my Sister Laura, whose letters were an ex­ act chronicle of everything down to the health of the cat. This was puzzling. And now that I had time to think, the house was much too large for a family requiring only three sleeping-rooms even when I am at home. It was what is called a double house, with rooms on both sides of the hall, and the apart­ ment, on the threshold of which I was still lingering, appeared, from the dim light of the windows, to be of very con­ siderable size. I now recollected that the quantity of plate 1 had seen--a por­ tion OI Wlilch thie munvuat felt pre- ternaturally heavy in my pockets-- must have been three times greater than any the governor ever possessed, and that various pieces were of a size and massiveness I had never before seen in the establishment. In vain I bethought myself that I had seen and recognized the well-known door-plate, ana that the area from which I entered was im­ mediately under; in vain I argued that since Laura was about to be married the extra quantity of plate might be in­ tended to form a part of her trousseau. I could not convince myself. But the course of my thoughts suggested an idea, and, pulling hastily from my pocket a tablespoon, I felt, for I could not see, the legend which contained my fate. But my fingers were tremu­ lous; they seemed to have lost sensa­ tion--only I fancied I did feel some­ thing more than the governor's plain initials. There was a still a light in the hall. If I could but bring that spoon within its illumination! All was silent, and 1 ventured to descend step after step--not as I had bounded up, but with the stealthy pace of a thief, and the plate growing heavier and heavier in my pocket. At length I was near enough to see, in spite of a dimness that had gathered over my eyes, and, with a sensation of absolute faintness, I beheld upon the spoon an engraved crest--the red right hand of a Baronet! I crept back again, holding the ban­ isters, fancying every now and then that I heard a door open behind me, and yet my feet no more consented to quicken their motion than if I had been pursued by a murderer in the night­ mare. I at length got into a room, groped for a chair and sat down. No more hurry now. Oh, no! There was plenty of time, and plenty to do in it, for I had to wipe away the perspiration that ran down my face in streams. What was to be done? What had I done? Oh, a trifle, a mere trifle. Ihad only sneaked into a gentleman's bouse by the area window and pocketed his tablespoons; and here I was, locked and barred and belled in, sitting very comfortably, in the dark and alone, in his drawing-room. Very particularly comfortable. What a capital fellow, to be sure! What an amusing personage! Wouldn't the Baronet laugh in the morning? Wouldn't he ask flie to stay to breakfast? And wouldn't I eat heartily out of the spoons I had stolen? But what is that? Who calls me a house-breaker? Who gives me charge? Who lugs me off by the neck? I will not stand it. I am innocent, ex­ cept of breaking into a Baronet's house. I am a gentleman, with anoth­ er gentleman's spoons in my pockets I claim the protection of the law! Po­ lice! police! My brain was wandering. I pressed my hand upon my wet forehead to keep down the thick-coming fancies, and de­ termined, for the first time in my life, to hold a deliberate consultation with myself. I was in an awkward predica­ ment--it was impossible to deny the fact; but was there anything really serious in the case? I had unquestion­ ably descended into the wrong area, the right-hand one instead of tne left- hand one; but was I not unquestionably the relation--the distant relation--of the next-door neighbor? I had been four years absent from his house, and was mem anything more natural than that I should desire to pay my next visit through a subterranean window? I had appropriated, it is true, a quanti­ ty of silver-plate I had found; but with what other intention could I have done this than to present it to my distant re­ lation's daughter, to reproach her with her carelessness in leaving it next door? Finally, I was snared, caged, trapped--door and window had been bolted upon me, without any remon­ strance on my part--and I was now some considerable time in the house, unsuspected, yet a prisoner. The posi­ tion was serious; but come, suppose the worst, that I was actually laid hold of as a malefactor; and oonrmanded to give an account of myself; well, I was, as aforesaid, a distant relation of the individual next door. I belonged to nobody in the world iff not to mm; I bore but an indifferent reputation in re­ gard to steadiness, and after four years' absence in a foreign country, I had re­ turned--idle, penniless and objectless-- just in time to find an area window open in the dusk of the evening, and a heap of plate lying behind it, within view of the street. This self-examination was not en­ couraging; the case was decidedly queer, and as I sat thus pondering in the dark, with the spoon in my hand, I am quite sure that no malefactor in a dungeon could have envied my reflec­ tions. In fact, the evidence was so dead against me that I began, to doubt my own innocence. What was I here for if my intentions were really honest? and how came it that all this silver plate had found its way into my pock­ ets? I was angry as well as terrified, I was Judge andcriminal in one, but the instincts of Nature got the better of my sense of justice, and I rose sudden­ ly up to ascertain whether it was not possible to get from the window into the street. As I moved, however, the horriblo booty I had in my pocket moved like­ wise, appearing to me to shriek, like a score of fiends, "Police! ploice!" and the next instant I heard a quick foot­ step ascending the stair. Now was the fateful moment come! I was on my feet; my eyes glared upon the door; my hands were clenched; the perspira­ tion had dried suddenly upon my skin, and my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. But the footstep, accompanied by a gleam of light, passed--passed, and from very weakness I sat down again, with a dreadful indifference to the screams of the plate in my pockets. Presently there were more footsteps along the hall; then voices; then draw­ ing of bolts and creaking of locks; then utter darkness; then silence--lasting, terrible, profound. The house had gone to bed; the house would quickly be asleep; it was time to be up and do­ ing. But first and foremost I must get rid of the plate. Without the hideous corpus delicti I should have some chance. I must at all hazards creep down into the hall, find my way to the lower regions and replace the accursed thing where I found it. It required nerve to attempt this; but I was thor­ oughly wound up, and after allowing a reasonable time to elapse, to give my a fair opportunity <# fsnmg asleep, I set out upon the adventure. The door creaked as I went out; the Slate grated against my very soul as I escended the steps; but slowly, stealthily I crept along the wall, and at length found myself upon the level floor. There was but one door on that side of the hall--the door which led to the area-room, and it was with inex­ pressible relief I reached it in safety and grasped the knob in my hand. The knob turned--but the door did not open; it was locked; it was my fate to be a thief, and, after a moment of new dismay, I turned again doggedly, reached the stair ana re-entered the apartment I had left. It was like getting home. It was snug and private. I had a chair there Waiting for me. I thought to myself that many a man would take a deal of trouble to break into such a house. I had only sneaked. I wondered how Jack Sheppard felt on such occasions. He would make nothing of getting down into the street from the window, spoons and all. I tried this; the shut­ ters were not even closed, and the sash moving noiselessly, I had no difficulty in raising it. I stepped out into the balcony and looked oyer. Nothing was to be seen but a black and yawning gulf beneath, guarded by the imaginary spikes cf an invisible railing Jack would have laughed at this difficulty; but then he had more experience in the craft than I, and was provided with all necessary appliances. As for me, I had stupidly forgotten even my coil of rope. The governor's house, I found, had either no balcony at all or it was too far apart to be reached. Presently I heard a footstep on the sidewalk a little way off. It was approaching with a slow measured pace; tne person was walking as calnly and gravely in the night as if it lind been broad day. Sup­ pose I hailed this philosophical stranger and confided to him in a friendly way the fact that the B aronet, without the slightest provocation, had locked me up in his house, with his silver spoons in my pocket? Perhaps he would take the trouble of knocking at the door or crying fire, and when the servants opened I might lush out and so make my escape. But while I was looking wistfully down to see if I could not dis­ cern the walkingjflgure, which was now under the windows, a sudden glare from the spot dtxzled my sight. It was the bull's-eye of a policeman, and with the instinct of a predatory char­ acter, I shrunk back trembling, crept into the room ana shut the window. By this time I was sensible that there was a little confusion in my thoughts, and by way of employing them on practical and useful objects I deter­ mined to make a tour of the room. But first it was necessary fco get rid, some­ how or other, of mv plunder--to plant the property, as we call it; and with that view I laid it carefully, piece by piece, in the corner of a sofa, and con­ cealed it with the cover. This was a great relief. I alm^t began to feel like the injured party«~more like a cap­ tive than a robber; and I groped my way through the room with a sort of vague idea that I might perhaps stum­ ble upon some tran-door or sliding panel which would lead into the open air, or, at worst, into a secret chamber, where I should be safe for any given number of years from my persecutors. But there was nothing of the kind in this stern, prosaic place; nothing but a few cabinets and tables and couches and arm-chairs, devotional chairs, foot­ stools, lamps and statuettes, and the elaborate girandole hung around with crystal prisms, which played such an interminable tun® against each other when I chanced to move them that I stumbled away as fast as I could and subsided into a fauteuil so rich and so deep that I felt myself swallowed up, as it were, in its billows of swan's down. How long I had been in the house by this time I cannot tell. It seemed to mp- when f looked back* to form a con­ siderable portion of a lifetime. Indeed, I did not remember the more distant events of the night, although every now and then the fact occurred to me with startling distinctness that all I had gone through was only preliminary to something yet to happen; that the morning was to come, the family to be astir and the housebreaker to be appre­ hended. My reflections were not con­ tinuous. It mav be that I dozed be­ tween whiles, flow else can I account for my feeling myself grasped by the throat, to the very brink of suffocation, by a hand without a body ? How else can I account for Sister Laura standing over me where I reclined, pointing to the stolen plate on the sofa, and lectur­ ing me on raj* horrible propensities till her voice rose to a wild, unearthly scream which pierced through my brain? When this fancy occurred I started from my recumbent posture. A voice was actually in my ears, and a living form before my eyes; a lady stood con­ templating me with a half-scream on her lips and the color fading from her cheek, and as I moved she would have fallen to the ground had I not sprung up and caught her in my arms. I laid her softly down in the chair. It was the morning twilight. The silenoe was profound. The boundaries of the room were still dim and indistinct. Is it any wonder that I was in some con­ siderable degree of perplexity as to whether I was not still in the land of dreams? " Madam,'1 I said, " if you are a vis­ ion, it is of no consequenoe; but if not, I wish particularly to get out." " Offer no injury," she replied, in a tremulous voice, " and no one Mill mo­ lest you. Take what you have come for, and be gone." " That is sooner said than done. The doors and windows below are locked and bolted, and beneath thosq of this room the area is deep and the spikes sharp. I assure you I have been in very considerable perplexity the whole of fast night;" ana drawing a chair 1 sat down in front of her. Whether it was owing to this action, or to my com- Elaining voice, or to the mere fact of er finding herself in a quiet tete-a-tete with a housebreaker, I can't tell; but the lady broke out in a low hysterical faugli. " How did you break in?" said she. 441 did not break in; it is far from being my character, 1 assure you. But the area-window was open, and so I just thought 1 would com&JjjjL" , . .v .. you were attracted by the plate! Take it for heaven's sake, desperate man, and go away." " I did take some of it, but with no evil intentions--only by way of amuse­ ment. Here it is;" and going to the sofa, I drew off the cover and showed her the plate. " You have been generous," said she, her voice again trembling; "for the whole must have been in your power. I will let you out so softly that no one will know. Put up in your pockets what you have risked so much to pos­ sess and follow me." "I will follow you with pleasure," said 1^ " were it the world over;" for the increasing light shewed me as love­ ly a creature as the morning sun ever shone upon; " but as for the silver, you must excuse me there; I never stole anything before, and, please Heaven, I never will againl" " Surely you are the most extraordi­ nary person," said the young lady, suddenly, for the light seemed to bring a revelation to her likewise; "you neither look nor talk like a robber." " Nor am I. I am not even a robber --I am nothing, and have not property in the world tc the value of the«e arti­ cles of plate." " Then, if you are not a robber, why are you here? Why creep in at the area window, appropriate other peo­ ple's spoons, ana get looked up all night in their house?" 44 For no other reason than that I was in a hurry. I had come home from Barcelona, and was going to my guard­ ian's, next door, when your unfortunate area-window caught my eye, with the plate on the table inside. In an in­ stant I was over the rails and in through the window like a harlequin, with tne intention of giving the family a pleasing surprise and my old monitress, Sister Laura, a great moral lesson on the im­ propriety of her leaving her plate about in so careless a manner." "Then you are Gerald, my dear Laura's cousin, so longingly expected, so beloved by them all." Here the young lady blushed and cast down her eyes. What these two girls could have been saying to each other about me I never found out; but there was a secret, I will go to death upon it. She let me out so quietly that neither her father nor the servants ever knew a syllable about the matter. 1 need not say how I was received next door. The governor swept down another sob with another blessing and another kiss; and Laura was so rejoiced that she gave me another hearty cry and Forgot to give me another lecture. My next four years were spent to more purpose than the last.- Being less in a hurry I took time to build up a flourishing business in partnership with Laura'8 husband. As for the Bay­ onet's daughter--for we must get everybody into the concluding tableau --why, there she is, that lady cutting bread and butter for the children with as matronly an air as Werter's Char­ lotte; she is my wife; and we laugh to this day at the oddity of that first inter­ view which led to so happy a denoue­ ment--Front an Old Magazine. I -jLA Baltimore paper wants to oblige every quack doctor to wefr a bell. Youths' Department. BITTING FOB HIS PICTURE. (BAR's aouLOQDf.) Will, whut am I perched up bete for. and told to ait ao still? Why miH I^move my hand*? I want to, and I 1 11 move them just to see what the picture-man will my; ,'t «W the tin naughty day M .-IT1 Babies can*atf*t2e time be good: this I* my . Laugh" my baby,"--but I don't want tolaugh; Don't think it's ver^ funny here. Whatfeapho- That nan siqw^Bfeby most be good, and pretty eiy 1 he'U aee ) phc me? His eonnin ̂Jiittle photograph." Bat what is ImBttowriggle up and down; I want to torn my head: «, I'm tired of thin old high-chair; what wan it Muwimw mid? " Oh, dear, he moves about so!"--X don't one if I do! I want to rub my eyes, and cry; I'm awful sleepy too! This thing behind me hurts my head'; I don't like that old mm, I mean to be as troublesome and fretful as I can. 'Twon't d<> a bit of irood for them to shake that noisy rattle; I will not be amused; for my baby-rights I'll battle. That man is really in a pet because I fret him so. What does he fret m for? that's what I'd like to know! Because "Baby" my wishes axe neg- Well, then, twisting, sQuinning, crying, ought to be expected. Mamma comes and gives me kisses, and tries to make me smile But why doesn't she lift me down, and let me rent awhile? She doesn't seem to care if a little chap it tired: bo I'll wriststle all 1 like, won't keep still if I am hired. There, now the picture's taken, and mamma. says, "Oh, dear! It isnt good at all!" Well, /don't think that's For 1 frowned with all my might, juat to let those tyrants see That a baby has opinions, though a little one like me. I didn't want my picture; I didn't want to stay Tied up in a high-chair, and being good all day- I'm glad the picture's spoiled, ana I hope they 11 learn to know That babies can't keep quiet until they older grow. -M. D. Brine, ift Nurtery. BESSIE'S THEFT. MY grandmother loved to work in the garden--not among the flowers, oh, no!--she wanted some practical result from her labor; so she devoted herself to the lettuce, onion and ra lish beds, delighted in caring for the strawberry plants, and was ever happy in watch­ ing the thrifty condition of the vege­ tables and fruits she specially tended. After the death of my father mv mother and I lived with my grand­ mother. At the time I got into the trouble I am going to relate I was about nine years old. In the spring it was my custom, after school hours, to watch grandma at her favorite work; and when she bade me help her pull out the weeds, that would insist upon com­ ing where they were not wanted, I was only too proud to render the service. One afternoon (I shall never forget it) I ran gayiy out into the garden, and there found grandma fondly gazing at a freshly-made bed, that Jack, the gardener, had just finished. "Ah! Bessie, here you are," Grand­ ma said, " I think I will plant onions in this bed; it is the very place for them, and 1 want yon to go to Wilson's store and buy me twelve cents' worth of bulbs." I went in the house, got a bas­ ket, and, taking from grandma a silver ten-cent piece and two pennies, I hur­ ried off to do my errand. On my way I had to pass a candy store, and it seemed to me the window never held so many inducements to stop and buy. Above all thiugs, I was fona of peanut candy, and there it was in large sticks, fresh, and, to my mind, never so thick with nuts. The more I looked the more I longed for some. I walked on a little way, and then turned back to look and long again. " If I onlv had a penny to get just one stick!" and then the two pennies in my hand gave a little chink, as if to say, " Here we are--spend us." I trembled at the thought, but repeat­ ed it over and over in my mind until it lost its horror. "Two cents," I rea­ soned, " can't make much difference in the quantitv of onions I shall get. Grandma will never know it, and the candy does look so good." " Go right away--don't think any more about it--don't look at the candy, but do your errand," said a small voice within me. "I don't, see why I should' hurry away," evil thoughts answered. " It is no harm to look, and I will ask how much it costs." " Fenny a stick," the old man who kept the store replied ffco my faltering question. " Never had nicer peanut- candy; how many sticks do you wantP" " Two," I said, with reckless deter­ mination, and was soon outside, the guilty possessor of the coveted sweet. Never did candy taste so poor. It had a burnt flavor and the nuts were musty After eating one stick I gladly gave the other to a schoolmate I met, and went on to get the onion-bulbs. With the ten cents' worth in my basket I hastened on my way home, but when nearly there, stumbled and fell, strew­ ing the onions in all directions. Such a task as I had to find and get them in the basket; I was a very anxious, flur­ ried, conscience-stricken little girl when I handed the basket to my grandmoth­ er. Beside the scolding for having been so long liXvay, grandmother was dissat­ isfied with the onions. She " wanted red ones, and I could just take the ones I had brought and get them exchanged or bring the money back." Soon I was in Wilson's store again; he did not have red onions so gave me the ten cents. What should I do? How could I account for the missing two pennies? My heart was full of trouble and my feet were heavy as lead, as I slowly returned home. Oh! if I had not stopped to look at that horrid candy. If I had only shut my eyes and gone right on. If I could die, and no one ever know how wicked I had been. Everything was changed to me, the brightness of4ht sunshine was painful, the singing of the birds sounded like hateful mockery at my misery. .When I reached grandma's gate I sat down and gave vent to my wretched feelings in tears. " What is the matter with my little Bessie?" said a calm, kind voice at my side; and there stood my mother. " Oh, mother! mothejr!" I cried, and with piteous sobs I told all my sin--all my dread. I could not go to£raad»*. . What should I do? Very grave, very gentle was the dear face gazing into mine. " Ton have done agrteat wrong, and it is tor me to shield you from the suffering wrongdoing ever occasions," my moth­ er said, " but, believing you an pad* tent, I will help you all I can. I should be very sorry to have my daughter lose the confidence her grandmother has in her, and trusting yon will ever remember that by doing right is the only way to retain self-respect and happiness, I will lend you two cents that you may return the twelve grand­ mother ^ave you; but, mind, it is only a loan. You must save rags until yon have enough to sell to enable you to pay me." How grand my mother appeared to me then- More painful all nun- ishments she could inflict was * the grieved look she wore, and throughout my life will be treasured the tender readiness to untangle the knot my sin had tied around me. Quietly I gave the money to grandma, meekly listened to her sharp reproof for my delay, and then went to my room to think over my wretchedness. "I was as bad as & thief, I had stolen from my grandmoth­ er, who was ever good to me; I had made my mother very, very sad, ft|"^ how must God feel toward me." I did not dare look up in the sky that night; all the stars appeared like keen eyes glancing angrily at me. I felt afraid to go to bed, the darkness seemed so full of reproaches, and not until mother came to me and said " that in my need more than ever would God listen to iw prayers and help me," did I take com­ fort and fall asleep. How I did save rags for the next month. Every bit I saw I gathered and put in a bag, and every time I did so I thought of my sin. If my mother had planned she could not more forci­ bly have Impressed on me a realizing sense of my guilty act. The necessity of paying back the two cents kept ever before me the wrong I had been tempt* ed to do, and served as a daily lesson. When the bag was full of rags I carried it myself to the book store; and when it was weighed, and I got eight cents in retuf-n for it, I could not get home quick enough to pay my mother. She rejoiced with me, saying, " How she hoped I would never forget the trouUa one wrong act had brought upon me." And I never have. -- Grandmother has been dead m&irfr years, and my mother is now grand­ mother to my little girl, yet I never see onions but I "think of those I was sent to buy; I never see peanut candy but I fancy I am again before that little conn- try store, hesitating between good and evil; and I never see my mother's faoe but I thank God for giving me so wise, so good a guide in the years of my youth.--*/". T. L., in The Capital. • ,:v5 The Heathen Chinee Ontdrae. A little game has been played in Los Angeles (3 late which is an immense advance upon the primitive card tactics depicted by Bret Harte in his short card Celestial sharpers. For some­ thing over a month past a heavy poker game has been going on in the card- room attached to one of our popular saloons. An unprecedented run of luok settled upon the banners of the experts who were tunning the game in the in­ terest of the saloon management, or at least in the interest of those who con­ trolled the card-room of the saloon. A. number of the most experienced card sharps in Los Angeles set themselves to unraveling the mystery and to turn­ ing the tide of fickle fortune the other way. Still the luck stayed with the house, and the confraternity were worsted to the tune of about 91,500. Now, a professional gambler is pre­ pared to encounter a pretty severe run of bad luck, but here was something that put the sagacity of the oldest of them at odds. "'Twas strange, 'twas passing strange," that no outsider could, under any circumstances, win a game in that room, try they ever so ard, but so it was. At last two pro­ ficients took possession of the apart­ ment, ostensibly for play, and locked the doors. They at once began a dili­ gent search of the premises and un­ earthed a regular system of wire teleg­ raphy, by aid of which a stool pigeon, who saw the card of the outsiders, tele­ graphed their hands te the manipula­ tors of the skin game. A flood of light was poured in upon the mysterious rut of luck, and curses, bow loud deep, filled the modest apartment*-- Los Angeles (Cal.J Herald. A Cnrlens Custom te Two'OLD people were sold the other day at the church door of a parish in Quebec, incumbered with a farm, to the highest bidder. They handed over their property to their ohildren, on condition that so long as the old people lived those children should lodge and board them, wash and mend their clothing, furnish them with outer gar­ ments and linen, shoes and head­ dresses, all suitable to their condition; take them to divine service on Sundays and feast days, and bring them home; place a horse and vehicle at their di»> posal on demand; fetch and fee the priest and doctor when desired; keep in good order the best bed reserved for them until the death of the survivor; allow them access to all buildings and lands they may wish to enter; satisfy all their necessary wants, spiritual or corporal, and in times of sickness furnish them with due luxuries; and, finally, at their death bury them in tke parish cemetery, provide an ordinaijv funeral service ana a memorial service at the end of the year, beside having ten low masses chanted for the repose of their souls. The n#ew possessors of the property failed, and now the prop­ erty is ottered for sale, subject to tne charges in the deed of donation. This is a very common practice in Lower Canada, and many of the contracts made would be worth reproduction, If only to show how carefully old habit­ ants, disposing of their property, pro­ vide for such (not) unconsidered trifles as clay pipes and nutmegs.--Tbronift Globe. ^ --Fanny Davenport fell and bumped her nose at the Detroit Opera-House re£ cently, and a sorrowing country stands ready to offer its consolation and cam­ phor hotUe.-rrltoffrni w •