The sunny South. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1875-1907, June 29, 1878, Image 2

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Mad all Her Days. By MRS. AMELIA V. PURDY. CHAPTER IV. Pearl observes to him one day as they drive home from the cemetery so beautiful and peace ful, that one might be glad—the broken hearted and the desolate,—to lie down there and sleep forever. . , , ‘Mr. Camber ! a long time from now, perhaps twenty years, and there may be a grave between you, but sometime never-the-less, you are going to marry Vale. You will remember this pro phesy years and years from now, when the memory of me, will be like a dream. He looks down at the daintily delicate face, in its frame of rich golden curls and the solemn beauty of the eyes like midnight-stars, and an- sweis sorrowfully and sadly. ‘I cannot bear you to talk of death ! How can I get along with out my child friend? I don’t think I would go to your house at all, only for the welcome you give me, and the deep delicious sense of parity, I experience, when my little sister pillows her innocent head on my breast. I have been so wicked, so evil before 1 knew you that death might well, terrify me.’ ‘But you are a good man now,’ she says sob erly ‘sister Vale says the change of heart takes place, the instant one sickens of sin and re solves to do right. There is nothing terrible about death only to those who stop at the grave and the dissolution of the body, without which the higher life could not evolve. There would be no butterfly if the caterpillar were always a caterpillar, there would be no angel life if this body did not decay. I think of it daily and it grows more and more pleasant. There I shall be able to walk, and in heaven there will be no more pain. Why death is just as natural as birth and as great a blessing as life.’ •But to lie in the grave,’ he says seriously ‘alone in the silence and darkness with the cold pitiless rains beating upon your grave. In all other journeys, we can have companionship, in this—none. It is this going out alone, into the darkness and vastness of Eternity, and meet ing God, that makes us shiver with fear.’ She does not understand him, she has been pious from her cradle and patient alwaj s un der intolerable anguish. She is ignorant of the crimes that make man wish to veil his face before the eyes of an offended God, that make the bravest man a veritable craven and coward, abject as the worm we tread upon but she re members her Christian training. ‘ What does the silenee and the darkness amount to,’ she says gently. ‘When the body has ceased to feel, it is like the empty cup of the acorn, and decay is the one thing desirable. If the earth were filled with preserved bodies, I think it would be terrible. The sooner the dead return to dust the better. As regards God— trust Him and He will never cast you off.’ She repeats, ‘ -Just as I am without one plea,’ and he listens as of old Abraham listened to the angels and his soul reaches out hungrily towards the life, which is indeed High, in which no thought of mammon enters and no earth soil stains. When he leaves her, he presses a kiss on the white forehead and whispers: ‘I’ll remember your prophecy and thank you for the compliment. She too, is worthy a Sir Galahad or King Arthur, but I believe you would oonsider it, knowing me, an insult.’ The bridal tour is over and the bride has ta ken possession of the palatial mansion, and so ciety is on the qui vive. but as time elapses, and there are no splendid Jralls, and it is dis covered mat Mrs. Horton is no mere wotiddag, and prefers the role of philanthropist, society sneers, discusses her sharply and drops her. Out of the splendor of her surroundings, she went into clouded households and filled her oarriage with delicate women and ailing babies, who needed air and sunlight, and, whose car riage rides in years could be counted upon the fingers, and drove around the parks and upon the life-giving hills, while the world wondered. Men and women distinguished for heart-grace and intellect and moral wortn filled her parlors. The hotels and boarding houses were watched, and refined men in quest of situations and their heart-broken wives were invited to her house, and situations found for them. For the reduced her sympathies were the strongest, as their sufferings are always the greatest and these she assisted by scores. The .poor who have been poor for generations feel not a tithe of the ago ny that the gentleman and gentlewoman feel who have been accustomed to refinement of at tire and surroundings from birth. It W9re bet ter to assist these than to endow libraries or furnish equestrian statues and fountains, or to endow colleges, in which the poor and aspiring may not enter. It gave her the keenest enjoy ment to carry out the charitable projects cher ished for years. The superb dresses lay in their dainty boxes, while there was so much suffering about her. She refused to adorn her self in the garments, the cost of which, would support half a dozen poor families for a month. She tried to break down the barrier of ca3te and the opposition she met with made her the more determined. ‘ I wonder how long Horton will be able to stand his wife's extravagance,’ commented the world. ‘It must cost a great deal to help all those people.' The world was mistaken. It cost much less than trips to Europe, cottages at Long Branch, or Paris dresses, or making feasts for people who eat your ices and drink your champagne and laugh at you. Fools make feasts and the cynics eat and pay you for your trouble in car icatures and ridicule, a la Nast. When the in toxication of the honeymoon was over, Salome saw with the keenest pain, that Mr. Horton was not strictly truthful. He made promises with out thought of fulfillment and others he care lessly foagot. No man should ever forget things of importance, and anything is import ant the non-fulfillment of which, will cause pain, disappointment or loss. He kept his employees spurred to greater effort by promises of prefer ment he did not mean and it was a common thing for him to say with a beaming counte nance, in itself a compliment, ‘Some of these days I’ll do something handsome for you Ma son 1’ or ‘Jones ! yoa must not let that cough run into consumption, I’ll want a junior part ner some of these days ?' which observation would keep Jones in a fever of vigilance and de light for days. Lhar ng this Salome’s heart would sink slowly in he • breast, and the honest eyes drooped in very shame of his deceit. ‘ Don’t raise expectations that can never be realized, Edgar !’ she said one day in strong dis pleasure. ‘It is vile to dupe and deceive. You told me that Smith was such a poor book-keep er that daily corrections were necessary and that you kept him half through charity. ’ ‘It is the truth,’ he replies, ‘he could fill no other position in the house, and he does not fill creditably the position he is in.’ ‘Then, is it kind or honorable to give him hopes of preferment ? Isn't it better to make him understand his capacity and be satisfied with his salary, low, as it must be ? It hurts me.’ ‘Hurts you ?’ he speaks coldly. ‘I don’t see how it could possibly effect you one way or an other. ’ He looks at her with surprised eyes, she catch es her breath nervously and swallows a sob. es, it hurts me to be compelled to acknowl- that you are just an average man. I thought you were too strong and too proud to practice the acts of the common herd. I thought you the incarnation of truth and honor, I don't want you to be like other men, the ordinary man is abominable to me, if you are going to turn out no better than your neighbors, it will kill me.’ His face clouds. ‘If you love me as you ought to do, you would not magnify every piccadillo—you wou’d not see so much to censure. Look at Wilson's wife —she has clung to him through disgrace, trou ble and want, and ho is not even good to her. She is as bad as he is who counternances any man in his villainy; I would cling to you while you were innocent, or while I believed you in nocent, if the whole world turned against you; i I would not stay with you, after your guilt be- ! came clear to my mind. Don’t mention Wil son to me Elgar! He is a drunkard and an as- I sassin, and the woman who clings to him, and j takes his blows as caresses and his kicks and ; oaths as compliments, is not good enough to be j a mat for good people to clean their feet on.’ As she concludes her cheeks are scarlet and ! the great unfathomable, splendid eves are red- j olent of disgust aud indignation. This sort of i woman is unfit to be the companion of any man | who is not constitutionally honorable. A man ; with any degree of moral turpitude, will be i afraid o( her, and in endeavoring to keep her ! in the dark, will sink deeper and deeper in the I sewer of guilt. He will shrink from the un spoken reproach of her eyes, her pallor, her sad ness, as he would not shrink frqm the shrew with a temper as fierce as fire, a tongue as dead- lv as corrosive sublimate. It occurs to Mr. Horton right here, that in case she is ever ini tiated into the mysteries of his business, that she would be altogether an undesirable com panion. He sees the necessity of still greater craft and vigilence in regard to the frauds and swindling that are strictly ligitimate—so long as they are not discovered—and which is the corner-stone of business.’ ‘Child, your head is turned,’ he says quietly, and looking hurt. ‘Bayard, Sidney, King Ar thur and the rest of them, were men deified by hero-worshippers. Each historian has added another page of adulation to that already writ ten, enlarged upon and magnified their virtues. If I died to-morrow,and the estate was solvent,’ his lips curled, ‘all men would magnify me, and my obituaries would make me laugh in the shad ow land, if I could read them, and the faults that my wife considers so great, would not be observed at all. Salome, you are only fit for the millenium; I wish you had more practical sense. Gods cannot be men, nor men gods, and history is only badly authenticated ro mance. ’ Her conscience reproaohes her; she is too severe; he has more virtues than faults, as has almost every created being. She thinks of her neighbor's husbands, with any one of whom, had she married them, she would'nt have staid a week, and who show their Darwinian descent, spite of all that can be written to the contrary, in the coarse protruding mouths, the narrow small heads, elongated and arched, the crooked legs, the coarse natures, profane, uncultured, uses of tobacco and diinkers of liquor, compared to whom Horton is of another and higher race and blood, as were in the old days, before the Flood the ‘sons of God’ the race of which David was to be born, higher and loftier and nobler, in personal and mental gifts than were the ‘children of men’ the lower types, the non intellectual races then peopling the earth. ‘ Excuse me dear,’ he says hastily as a sad looking man walks by, and in a moment Horton is beside him with sympathetic face. She leans from the window and hears the man reply; ‘It died at day sir, and my wife is quite ill with grief,’ he draws his cuff across his eyes as he sneaks and looks ntterlv broken ‘It was a girl,’ Horton savs gently. ' ‘My friend God is good when he takes the little girl babies away from this miserable worid—the life of a woman at the best is a moan; think how they suffer from the cradle to the grave, of their narrow and dreary life, she might have been like her mother, never known a well day. She is so much better off, think. We would grieve less, if we reflect that grief is the one intensly selfish emotion of the heart, we love so much, we miss them, we are lonesome, we want their love their companionship, their assistance and we do not consider for a moment their happiness or benefit in the matter.’ This is a revelation to the man. He has not looked upon grief from this stand point, and the truth refreshes him. ‘You are right Mr. Horton,’ he remarks sober ly, ‘but it never occurred to me before that we think only of ourselves in our grief, I will tell the mother that; it will comfort her, as it has comforted me, God knows I leant to study my child’s happiness first aud she does too. Good day sir, and thanks.’ He mingles in the crowd and Horton comes back. • He is the messenger in the 1st. National,’ he explains. ‘A man true as sunlight. I call him a real hero, he has a sickly wife and five small children, an aged mother to support, the little girl who died to-day was five years old and sick ly. I am no admirer of the world’s heroes, nor spasmodic heroines. I glory in every day hero ism only. I would not go around the corner to see NelsoD, Turcnue or Napoleon. That man is greater in my estimation for he is never remiss in duty. Half of the time he does all the house work too, for his wife is in bed most of the time, and his mother too feeble, even to dress herself. My dear, suppose you arrange it, so that onoe a week the poor can come to the kitchen and get soup and bread and coffee. It promises to be an awful winter, already the destitution is fearful. By the way, as you go home, stop at Mrs. Brown’s, and tell her that I have found a situation for her husbaud, at $00 per month with promise of advancement in the spring.’ He kisses her, hands her into the dainty basket pLueton, drawn by beautiful Shetland ponies, and hands her the reins. When she reaches home the lavender veil is wet through with tears. She has cried because she reproach ed him and because the stain as yet but the size of a mnstard seed in comparison, has been dis covered on the soul escutcheon, she thought whiter than any lily, that ever nodded time to the waters murmur, any pearl that ever decked the throat of royalty. Ah the tears that youngfwives shed, they are to the torrenrs that sear and blister as they fall, ahbd afterwards, when the real troubles set in, the sun-kissed summer showers spanned with rainbows that reflect the hues of every jewel that is worn by morn. She is a strong woman indeed, who sheds not many a tear in her early bridal days over tne lighthearted, care-free girlhood she has for ever relinquished, that will never return to her, that is as utterly dead, as the rocks the wild waves sweep over, as the hyacinths the beauty has worn and cast out withered and shrunken into the street. A month later Mrs. Horton is at a party plain ly dressed and wears no ornaments. A superbly dressed woman drops down beside her. ‘How good of you Mrs. Horton,’ she says smilingly, ‘not to eclipse us; your jewels aud laces are the envy of the city.’ ‘Three hundred men and women slept at the station house last night,’ Salome answers. ‘I would not wear splendid things when so many lellow-beings were without a bed to sleep in.' The lady laughs, ‘Do they ever have beds— that class, or three meals a day ? Laziness and crime make them homeless. I must confess I have no sympathy for them. My husband closed his mill last week beoause the workmen refused to work for lower wages, and it did not justify him to keep the mill open unless he economized some way. I am sorry, but really, the poor and the beggars never interest one. They are band ed together against capital; the town is swarm ing with men who voluntarily quit work and prefer starvation to work at low wages. Now I do not profess to understand men’s business, but it seems to me that half a leaf is better than no bread and two dollars a week is better than not a cent.’ t ‘I-do not think that Bach men are safe,’ Sa lome answers, ‘ any wages are preferable to idleness and the station house. Still, I don.t see why large manufacturers in hard times al ways want to lower wages already alarmingly low; why don’t they economise at home, in dres3, expensive parties, presents, etc. There is Mr. Mason, he discharged half his men —about ten— last week, and a few days later paid fifteen hun- hred dollars for a set of diamonds for his dangh- sort to little tricks, duplicity, and often down right falsehood. Whatever sins he clung to himself, he was unmerciful to the sins of others, especially sin in his wife. Onoe he got a glimpse of this dual nature he condemned her entirely. But he could not banter and tor ture as he had done the clinging vine Kitty. No indeed; this imperious queen had a way of turning upon his delinquencies, a sharp worldly way that was ever lady like, yet the effect was potent. The Col. found but one sure retreat from her quick, ready tongue, and that was down at his office, where like a caged bear he passed most of bis time. The years sped od. The heads of this couple were silvered with grey. As time subdued the fiery pride and ambition of Col. Calmer he found himself yearning for a true heart to love and rest upon. He remembered in the far off time most vividly a love that had been once given smile. At this late date he saw things with ter rible distinctness—saw Kitty’s love, grand, no ble, pure, saw Kitty’s death—and trembled at last to feel it w.as his own work. But all this time Mrs. Calmer, true to her in stincts, lived in gay scenes. She was growing old, but paints and hair dyes came into play. Time did not improve her temper or her morals, but people from habit accorded her the palm as a fashionable worn an. A TALK TO THE YOUNG FOLKS. BY BEV. DAVID WINTERS. ter Hortense, for a birth-day gift That amount him—a heart that could not live without his would have kept those ten men at work till the severe winter is over; and I could point you out a dozen such instances.’ ‘You are talking Greek now, Mrs. Horton,’ the lady laughs good humoredly. She has a black velvet herself, lately purchased at twenty- five dollars a yard. ‘And I don’t understand you. We poor mortals whose thoughts are confined to a lower strata are really afraid of you. Jast look at Mary Harris, she has on a new set of em eralds, there’s taste for you! and her complexion like ham rinde, Have you noticed Pauline Clay? She has on the loveliest Paris dress, cost eleven hundred dollars. ijfce’s over in tho alcove flirt ing with Ferdinan^olardwicke and they say he’s worth a cool million. Well, I hope she wont catch him, she walks over everybody now, and if she married a million there’d be no standing her at all. By the way, your old admirer. Camber, has reformed and abandoned society. Rumor says he is paying his devoirs to Yale Dsane. She is a milliner in a back street and a relative of Mrs. General Deane. I have joked Hardwioke about it but he says Camber keeps his own coun sel, and he knows nothing about it, They say Yale is educated and accomplished and was wealthy onoe, so he could do worse of course.’ She had not found Mrs. Ho r tonatall interesting and floats away in search of more congenial so ciety, while Salome ponders. Dresses at eleven hundred, emeralds, velvets on the one hand and starvation on the other. To her kitchen come orowds eyerv day for food, and every day she is out in the fearful alleys, relieving distress and warming up rooms long strangers to fires; and yet these heartless women are church mem bers and she is not. Every Sunday in royal raiment they sit in luxurious pews and sing, while the great solitaires, like petrified dew- drops, rain down tfcj'jr splendor: ‘Strip me offrhis robe of pride, Clothe meVth humility.’ When we part with our friends they generally say to us, as they shake our hand: ‘Take care of yourself.’ This is good advice, and I will now make it the subject of my talk to my young friends. I like to talk to young people because I was once as yonng myself as any of them, and I think I am young yet, and I intend always to be young. Of course my body shall grow old, if I live long enough, but I hope my spirit shall always remain young. It is only when I am pressed by the most stern realities of life that I can bring mjself to believe that I am not still a boy, and seldom feel happier than when I find myself in the midst of a group of laughing, frolicking boys and girls. But now for my advice to you, my young friends,—‘Take cart of yourselves.’ Take care of your time. Time i3 the warp of life, and we may weave into it, just as we please, threads of shoddy or of gold. Time is like a block of precious marble. We are sculptors, who, out of it, must out a statue. Every day we must do some part of the work. By and by it will be finished. If we fashion it properly it will make us glad with its smiles everlastingly; andlfor * moment Jfre feels that the Deonle are I if We 8 P oil il ‘ ik wil1 ca8k iks dark and a PP allm 8 andjtor a moment *,T»e leeis tnat tne people are shado n HS f orover . fiends and humanity accursed, since tney know 8ometi £ ea 8ee written ovor the doorfl of that the naked and hungry are aoout them and - J they harden their hearts. * Starving children and the maddened and despairing whooould be rescued and relieved. ‘Verily it will be easier for a oamel tp'pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heav en,’ she said in a low tone, and sick at heart with the frivolous women, beckoned to Mr. Horton and went home. (TO BE CONTINUED.) The Lawyer's Second Wife. A Sequel to the True Story of Kitty McGlane. Grief did not soften the lawyer politician. Closing his doors to the gaze of the world, he was wrapped in impenetrable gloom, maybe, or plodding over his ambitious schemes. None could solve the mental state of the man who stood beneath the fearful shadow of a suicide’s death. After a time he came forth, and threw him self into the contest with a giant's strength. He gave himself no rest, but here, there, wherever his strong, guiding hand was needed he flew. He won the day. In his hour of success people forgot the dead wife's tragic end, and cried hurrah for the brave invincible Col. Calmer. Alas ! that since the days of our Saviour the same voices that ring hosanna to-day, can to-morrow cry ‘crucify him ! cracify him !’ But the hoarsest guttural voioe crying out the name of the nev, leader, was sweeter to his ears than the divinsst music. It was not for him to pause and philosophize over human fickleness. i I appears the siurplest, easiest performance for men to marry. We are constantly amazed when some hideous Mr. 8aooks, or dilapidated Mr. Brown, enters he noose matrimonial. It was of course very tasv for Col. Calmer, now that all eyes were bint upon him in admiration, to choose whom he veuld of the fairest of the fair. He was not tc be hood winked this time by bewitching fairis, coy home-lovers like Kitty McClaue. When a year had passed a stately queen, a world-wise fashioiable woman, entered the handsome dwellings Mrs. Calmer. She brought into the wealthy litle town a new life by her gay balls, splendid dimers, theatricals, and more than all of these, Dr undisputed reign as mar ried belle. None ould dress so well, glide so gracefully throughthe dance, or display such generalship in a sysem of manouvering that won scores of the dissected over to the Colonols’ side. She would live been the queen of lob byists at Washingtc, as it was she was purely a splendidly successful woman of the world. Verily the Col. haffound the pearl for which he sighed. Was he siisfied ? Surely he had sac rificed the tenderer love of the fondest heart for this gem. H Q !had no cause to complain since she was alld^ had craved for so long. Time passed or Kitty McClane could not always be a bride, neither could her successor remain forever in ill dress, and company man ners. The queenl form must needs be some times attired in eery day garb and every-day ways and actions As it had been impossible for Kitty to play le role of a grand, queenly woman, so it wa3 eyond the present Mrs. Cal- mer’s power to bonne the endearing, busy thoughtful home tdy Kitty had been. There was no disorder l the now almost gorgeous dwelling, mere pile kept things presentable, but there was sure? a lack of heartiness in the home ways and fedags. Col. Calmer was wait ed upon like a pitee by the best of servants, but beyond this m»r) administration to his bod ily wants, he wasBhrved like a pauper. No love word escapm; fom an overflowing heart, no tender caress to him now. He did not know he valued tleo little trifles once, but now they were maguifiidnto very important bless ings. Mrs. Calmir lad lived so long in the hollow atmosphere othe world that her heart had wasted away ini painfully small dimen sions. Yet she wis juice itself to her husband. She bargained only f< her fine, attractive pow ers as a leader oAhe In, and more he had no right to expect or denfcid. Mrs. Calmer’s life since girlhood hai bet given to the fashiona ble existence of a coned belle. If her mind had dwarfed in a trutdeep sense for want of oulture, could her hu».nd complain that after a few years had passed j became weary of the little sparkle of wit thalt first so pleased him ? He saw too after a very ng time that his wife, the better to win for hitor herself, could re- < workshops, in large letters, these words intend ed to keep idlers and loungers from intruding: —‘No admittance, except on business. Time is money.’ Now I think it is a good thing when we have work to do to keep lazy people out of our way that they may not waste our time. But I also say that, time is not money. It is far more than money. You cannot buy it with money. Queen Elizabeth of England is said to nave cried in terrible anguish, when lying upon her death-bed, ‘Millions of money for a moment of time.' But she could not purchase it. Voltaire, a French infidel, told his physician, a short time before his death, that he would give him half of what he was worth if he would give him six months longer to live. ‘Sir,’ said the doc tor, ‘you cannot lire six weeks.’ ‘Then,’ said the dying infidel, ‘I shall go to hell and you shall go with me.’ Cotton Mather, an eminent clergyman, said one day, when a man had taken —a great r>e .H\. tiron '( had ratliar hava given that man a handful of money than have him waste my time thus.’ A very learned man in the United States, a few years ago said to a number of gentlemen who waited upon him and offered to pay him five hundred dollars an evening to deliver a number of lectures in the city of New York: —‘Gentlemen, I can’t waste my time in making money.’ Young friends, God has plaoed us in this world to prepare for another world, and according to the manner in which we spend the few years allotted to ns here will it fare with ns to all eternity. Every day, every hour, every moment of our time upon the earth will exert an influ ence upon our eternity “ ‘Tis not for man to trifle. Eife is brief And sin is here. An age is but the falling of a leaf, a dropping tear. We have no time to sport a way the hours; All must be earnest in a world like ours. “Not many lives, but only one, have we— Frail, fleeting man: How sacred should that one life ever be; That narrow span ! Pay after day filled up with blessed toil, Hour after hour still bringing in new spoil.’ down she found that it had blackened not only her hand but also her white dress. ‘You see,’ Raid he, ‘one oannot be too careful about handling coals, even when they are dead; for though they won’t burn they may blacken.’ ‘Just so, my child,’ said the father; ‘and we can never be too careful about the company we keep.’ Perhaps you begin to think my talk has last ed long enough, so I will stop with one more word cf advice. Take care of your aims in life. God did not make us merely to eat, and driuk, and sleep, and dress ourselves, and have what people call a pood time in this woild. He made us to work. Everybodyshonld have something to do, and that something should be worthy of the dignity of a creature made in the image of God. People may be divided into four classes, according to the way they spend thc*ir time. The first class is made up of lazy people, who spend their time in doing nothing. The second class is composed of busy people, whose life is occupied with trifles. They never do anything that is useful. They are the triflers of society, or the busy idle people. Into the third class we may put the people who are busy all the time, but who busy themselves in doing mischief—in trying to do harm and to make the world worse than it is. In the fourth class are to bo found all the people who are serving God, and who are trying to leave the world better when they go out of it. than they found it when they came into it. These people have gotten the only proper aim in life. But some of my young friends may, perhaps, say: —Suppose one is a farmer, or a tradesman, or a servant, or a merchant, or a magistrate— suppose one has some very busy occupation — how is he going to get time to make the world any better? I will give the Bible’s answer to that question. Here it is:—Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of Lord Je sus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. We are to do everything for God, and of course, it is everything for God, as it is to do it for ourselves, or for the world, or for Sa tan. But our chief aim in life should be to make sure that we have given our hearts to Christ; that we believe on him in this life, so that we shall be sure of living with God and serving him in heaven forever. This is the mark at which we must aim, and if we miss it it would have been better for us not to have lived at all. Batter far would it have been for us to have died the moment we were born, than to go through this world, and into the next, without faith in the Lord Jesus. I told you, at the beginning of my talk, about Queen Elizabeth who cried on her death bed, “Millions of money for a moment of time.” Most people would think she had not wasted her time. She could write in five different lan guages. It was said that she knew as much as any man of her time in all Europe. She tul6d a loyal aud strong people who loved her. She had ten thousand beautiful dresses in her war drobe, but she was very unhappy when she came to die, because she had not lived to glori fy God. Youug friends, we must go hence, by and by. We shan't Btav here very long, and we canno go out of the world with comfort and hope, i we miss the one true aim of life, the one fo which we were created—to serve God. Again, I say to you, Take care of the habits you form. By our habits we mean our accus tomed way of doing things. Some one has said that a man is just a bundle of habits; and this may be said of boys and girls as truly as of men and women. We make this bundle up when we are young. Every day we put some thing into it. By and by it will be a very big bundle, and we shall have to carry it with us as long as we live, so you see we should take care what we put into it. Some young people have idle habits. They sleep late in the morn ing. Their mothers can hardly get them out of bed, and when they get np they won’t do any thing. They remind us of what the farmer said of his horse. He said his horse had only two faults. One was that he was hard to catch, and the other, that he was not good for anything when he was caught. Some have dilatory hab its. They never do anything at the proper time. They seem to have been born a little too late, and they have been behind time ever since. Other people have prompt habits. When they have anything to do they do it at once. Next to economy in the expenditure of our time, nothing is so important as care iu the forma tion of our habits. I must next advise my young friends to take care about the company they keep. You know it is often said that we are known by our com pany. This is quite true. There is a little crea ture called the chameleon which always takes on the color of the ground, or pieces of wood, or leaves, or whatever happens to be close to it. We are very much like the chameleon, in some respeots. One is that we are sure to become like the people in whose company we take pleas ure. Or we are like a lake whose water is very clear.. If you stand where you can look down upon it you will see refleeted in it every change which takes place iu the clouds above it. So do our lives reflect the lives of our companions. If yoa associate with people who are peevish, and cross, and contrary, aud untruthful, and dishonest, aud who use bad language, you will soon become j ust like them. It you keep the company of persons who are gentle, and kind, and truthful, you will soon begin to be like them. A gentleman onoe told his little daughter that he did not wish her to keep the compauy of some other cfiildjjpii, because they were naughty, and he did not think it was best for her to go with snoh persons. ‘Do you think, papa,’ said she, ‘that I caunot go with them without being in jured by them ? Her papa then took a piece of a dead coal from the grate and offered it to her. She did not wish to take it into her hand; but he urged her, saying, ‘It cannot burn you, my child.’ She took it, but when she laid it i The Brave Little Flower Girl. At the entrance of one of the large hotels in Boston, you will frequently see, at noon, and earlv in the evening, a littie flaxen-haired girl, with button-hole bouquets to sell. She is rath er tall of her age, has a sweet, gentle face, and looks as if she might have a story, and so she has. Well, here it is. jast as little bluje-eyed M«;- told it to me herself; and tnougu It does read “like a book” I find it all true. “I was nine years old, ma’am when I first be gan to sell flowers; but that was four years ago. You see we were very poor. Father was dead, and mother was sick in bed. I was the oldest, and there were lots of little ones younger than me. One day mother was sicker than usual, and we hadn’t a bit of coal in the house, or anything to eat. Mother had just twenty-five cents left in her pocket nook—tnat was all—but I happen ed to remember how an aunt of mine used to make a good deal of money by selling flowers. So I asked mother to let me take the quarter an 1 see what I could do with it. Well, she let me have it, and I went right to a florist and got some flowers—it don’t take many, you know, for a button hole, just a little bit of green and a few buds are enough—and then I went around to the St. James’ and some other hotels to sell them. Folks were real kind, ma’am, and I made fifty cents on that first quarter! “Ever since then, I’ve kept on selling flowers I never go near the saloons, ma’am, but I hav’ found good sales for my bouquets at the larcre hotels. Now, I always come here, for the ladies and gentlemen all know me, and do a great deal to help me. Sometimes they give great, beautiful bouquets, that I can make up into lots of little ones. Here are some of them,” and the little girl showed me two or three dainty littie bunches—a pansy and white pink with a bit of smilax between—rosebud aud heliotrope bou quets—that she sold at fifteen cents a piece. “They used to give me nice things, too, to carry home to mother—pieces of chicken, vou know, and such like—why ! there’s one particu lar place in the dining-room now, where they put my brown paper bag; and I’m always sure to find it full when I go home at night! Moth er died last winter about Christmas time, so I live with grandmother now. Usually, I earn about six dollars a week, that I carry” home to her, but sometimes I can make ten.” Brave little Mary ! She tells her story iu the simplest, most unaffected way; but I know that for nearly four years she was the soie support and comfort of that poor sick mother, and those little helpless children. Going to House Keeping. Aunt Susan’s Advice to Young Wives. My dears, you. who havejnst launched your matrim'ouial barque and wish to trim your sails aright, let me whisper a few words in your pretty ears, If I could write poetry I might weave a beautiful web for yon, but I caunot. I want to say a word in prose. There are some men who are utter fools, (not your man,) and who would go inextricably in debt if urg ed on by a sweet wife. There are some young wives who are utter fools,(not you,) aud who would spend the last copper her newly acquir ed husband has, in order to make an appear ance in starting in life, supposeing that all will be right at the end of the year. If you who read this article know of any such, please go and tell them that Aunt Susan, says that it is better to make a start according to ability and accumulate enough to get a home, than to spend all the young husband’s earnings for a year to come, thus discouraging him, and per. haps bringing a world of trouble upou your self. There are men now who are well-to-do in the world, who, if they had not had the indus trious, frugal housewife they have, would have been as poor as any inmate of your county poor house; and there are men now utterly bro ken down in purse, who, if they had had in dustrious, frugal wives, would to-day have en joyed a noble independence. I do not say that every vicissitude of fortune is to be credited or charged to the wife, but I say that what Isaid above is true.