LITMIR.BIZ

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he, as his mind dwelt on the subject. "It is too bad—too bad!—Oh, to think that my folly should have had this reaction!"

      Anna looked sober as Brainard parted with her after breakfast, and he thought he saw tears in her eyes. As soon as he was gone she dressed herself, and taking from a handsome jewel-box the present of her husband, a gold watch and chain, a bracelet, diamond pin, and some other articles of the same kind, left the house.

      Two hours afterward, as Brainard sat at his desk trying to fix his mind upon the accounts before him, a note was handed in bearing his address. He broke the seal, and found that it enclosed one hundred and seventy dollars, with these few words from Anna:

      "This is the best I can do for you, dear husband. Will it be enough?"

      "God bless her!" came half audibly from the lips of Brainard, as he drew forth his pocket-book, in which were thirty dollars. "Yes, it will be enough."

      "There is no comfort in owing, or in paying after this fashion," said the young man to himself, as he walked homeward at dinner-time, with his last note in his pocket. "There will have to be a change."

      And there was a change. When next I visited my young friend, I found him in a smaller house, looking as comfortable and happy as I could have wished to see him. We talked pleasantly about the errors of the past, and the trouble which had followed as a natural result.

      "There is one thing," said Brainard, during the conversation, glancing at his wife as he spoke, "that I have not been able to make out."

      "What is that?" asked Mrs. Brainard, smiling.

      "Where the last one hundred and seventy dollars you gave me came from."

      "Have you missed nothing?" said she, archly.

      "Nothing," was his reply.

      "Been deprived of no comfort?"

      "So far from it, I have found a great many new ones."

      "And been saved the trouble of winding up and regulating that pretty eight-day clock for which you gave forty dollars."

      Brainard fairly started to his feet as he turned to the mantel, and, strange to say, missed, for the first time, the handsome timepiece referred to by his wife.

      "Why, Anna, is it possible? Surely that hasn't been gone for two months!"

      "Oh, yes, it has."

      "Well, that beats all."

      And Brainard resumed his chair.

      "You've been just as comfortable," said the excellent young woman.

      "But you didn't get a hundred and seventy dollars for the timepiece?"

      "No. Have you lost no other comfort? Think."

      Brainard thought, but in vain. Anna glided from the room, and returned in a few moments with her jewel-box.

      "Do you miss any thing?" said she, as she raised the lid and placed the box in his hands.

      "Your watch and chain!"

      Anna smiled.

      "You did not sell them?"

      "Yes."

      "Why, Anna! Did you set no value on your husband's gifts?"

      There was a slight rebuke in the tone of Brainard. Tears sprang to Anna's eyes, as she answered—"I valued them less than his happiness."

      Brainard looked at her for a few moments with an expression of deep tenderness. Then turning to me, he said, in a voice that was unsteady from emotion—"You shall be my judge. Has she done wrong or right?"

      "Right!" I responded, warmly. "Right! thank Heaven, my friend, for giving you a true woman for a wife. There is some hope now of your finding the comfort you sought so vainly in the beginning."

      And he has found it—found it in a wise appropriation, of the good gifts of Providence according to his means.

      CHILDREN—A FAMILY SCENE

      "MOTHER!"

      "As I was saying"—

      "Mother!"

      "Miss Jones wore a white figured satin"—

      "Oh! mother!"

      "With short sleeves"—

      "Mother! mother!"

      "Looped up with a small rosebud"—

      "I say! mother! mother!"

      The child now caught hold of her mother's arm, and shook it violently, in her effort to gain the attention she desired, while her voice, which at first was low, had become loud and impatient. Mrs. Elder, no longer able to continue her account of the manner in which Miss Jones appeared at a recent ball, turned angrily toward little Mary, whose importunities had sadly annoyed her, and, seizing her by the arm, took her to the door and thrust her roughly from the room, without any inquiry as to what she wanted. The child screamed for a while at the door, and then went crying up-stairs.

      "Do what you will," said Mrs. Elder, fretfully, "you cannot teach children manners. I've talked to Mary a hundred times about interrupting me when I'm engaged in conversation with any one."

      "It's line upon line and precept upon precept," remarked the visitor. "Children are children, and we mustn't expect too much from them."

      "But I see other people's children sit down quietly and behave themselves when there is company."

      "All children are not alike," said the visitor. "Some are more restless and impetuous than others. We have to consult their dispositions and pay regard thereto, or it will be impossible to manage them rightly. I find a great difference among my own children. Some are orderly, and others disorderly. Some have a strong sense of propriety, and others no sense of propriety at all."

      "It's a great responsibility; is it not, Mrs. Peters?"

      "Very great."

      "It makes me really unhappy. I am sometimes tempted to wish them all in heaven; and then I would be sure they were well off and well taken care of. Some people appear to get along with their children so easy. I don't know how it is. I can't."

      Mrs. Peters could have given her friend a useful hint or two on the subject of managing children, if she had felt that she dared to do so. But she knew Mrs. Elder to be exceedingly sensitive, and therefore she thought it best not to say any thing that might offend her.

      There was a quiet-looking old gentleman in the room where the two ladies sat conversing. He had a book in his hand, and seemed to be reading; though, in fact, he was observing all that was said and done. He had not designed to do this, but the interruption of little Mary threw his mind off his book, and his thoughts entered a new element. This person was a brother of Mrs. Elder, and had recently become domesticated in her family. He was a bachelor.

      After the visitor had retired, Mrs. Elder sat down to her work-table in the same room where she had received her company, and resumed her sewing operations, which the call had suspended. She had not been thus engaged long, before Mary came back into the room, looking sad enough. Instead of going to her mother; she went up to the old gentleman, and looking into his face with her yet tearful eyes, said—

      "Uncle William?"

      "What, dear?" was returned in a kind voice.

      "Something sticks my neck. Won't you see what it is?"

      Uncle William laid down his book, and, turning down the neck of Mary's frock, found that the point of a pin was fretting her body. There was at least a dozen little scratches, and an inflamed spot the size of a dollar.

      "Poor child!" he said, tenderly, as he removed the pin. "There now! It feels better, doesn't it?"

      "Yes, it feels better; thank you, dear uncle!" and Mary put up her sweet lips and kissed him. The old gentleman was doubly repaid for his trouble. Mary ran lightly away, and he resumed his book.

      In about ten minutes, the child opened the door and came in pulling the dredging-box, to which she had tied a string, along the floor, and marking the progress she made by a track of white meal.

      "You little

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