to stay at home this evening. I'm going to keep your company."

"Are you, indeed! right glad am I of it! though I am sorry you have deprived yourself of the pleasure of this ball, which, I believe, is to be a very brilliant one. I was just going out, because it is so dull at home when you are all away."

"I am not particularly desirous of going to the ball. So little so, that the thoughts of you being left here all alone had sufficient influence over me to keep me away."

"Indeed! Well, I must say you are kind." Edward returned, with feeling. The self-sacrificing act of his sister had touched him sensibly.

Both Helen and her brother played well. She upon the harp and piano, and he upon the flute and violin. Both were fond of music, and practised and played frequently together. Part of the evening was spent in this way, much to the satisfaction of each. Then an hour passed in reading and conversation, after which, music was again resorted to. Thus passed the time pleasantly until the hour for retiring came, when they separated, both with an internal feeling of pleasure more delightful than they had experienced for a long time. It was nearly three o'clock before Mr. and Mrs. Lindley, and the daughter who had accompanied them to the ball, came home. Hours before, the senses of both Edward and Helen had been locked in forgetfulness.

Time passed on. Edward Lindley grew up and became a man of sound principles-a blessing to his family and society. He saw his sisters well married; and himself, finally, led to the altar a lovely maiden. She made him a

truly happy husband. On the night of his wedding, as he sat beside Helen, he paused for some time, in the midst of a pleasant conversation, thoughtfully. At last, he said,

"Do you remember, sister, the night you staid home from the ball to keep me company?"

"That was many years ago. Yes, I remember it very well, now you have recalled it to my mind."

"I have often since thought, Helen," he said, with a serious air," that by the simple act of thus remaining at home for my sake, you were the means of saving me from destruction."

"How so?" asked the sister.

I was just then beginning to form an intimate association with young men of my own age, nearly all of whom have since turned out badly. I did not care a great deal about their company; still, I liked society and used to be with them frequently—especially when you and Mary went out in the evening. On the night of the ball to which you were going, these young men had a supper, and I was to have been with them. I did not wish particularly to join them, but preferred doing so to remaining at home alone. To find you, as I did, so unexpectedly, in the parlor, was an agreeable surprise indeed. I staid at home with a new pleasure, which was heightened by the thought, that it was your love for me that had made you deny yourself for my gratification. We read together on that evening, we played together, we talked of many things. In your mind I had never before seen as much to inspire my own with high and pure thoughts. I remembered the conversation of the young men with whom I had been associating, and in which I had taken pleasure,

with something like disgust. It was low, sensual and too much of it vile and demoralizing. Never, from that hour, did I join them. Their way, even in the early stage of life's journey, I saw to be downward, and downward it has ever since been tending. How often since have I thought of that point in time, so full-fraught with good and evil influences. Those few hours spent with you seemed to take scales from my eyes. I saw with a new vision. I thought and felt differently. Had you gone to the ball, and I to meet those young men, no one can tell what might not have been the consequence. Sensual indulgences, carried to excess, amid songs and sentiments calculated to awaken evil instead of good feelings, might have stamped upon my young and delicate mind a bias to low affections that never would have been eradicated. That was the great starting point in life—the period when I was coming into a state of rationality and freedom. The good prevailed over the evil, and by the agency of my sister, as an angel sent by the Author of all benefits to save me."

Like Helen Lindley, let every elder sister be thoughtful of her brothers at that critical period in life, when the boy is about passing up to the stage of manhood, and she may save them from many a snare set for their unwary feet by the evil one. In closing this little sketch, we can say nothing better than has already been said by an accomplished American authoress, Mrs. Farrar.

"So many temptations," she says, "beset young men, of which young women know nothing, that it is of the utmost importance that young brothers' evenings should be happily passed at home, that their friends should be your friends,

that their engagements should be the same as yours, and that various innocent amusements should be provided for them in the family circle. Music is an accomplishment, chiefly valuable as a home enjoyment, as rallying round the piano the various members of a family, and harmonizing their hearts as well as voices, particularly in devotional strains. I know no more agreeable and interesting spectacle, than that of brothers and sisters playing and singing together those elevated compositions in music and poetry which gratify the taste and purify the heart, while their fond parents sit delighted by. I have seen and heard an elder sister thus leading the family choir, who was the soul of harmony to the whole household, and whose life was a perfect example of those virtues which I am here endeavoring to inculcate. Let no one say, in reading this chapter, that too much is here required of sisters, that no one can be expected to lead such a self-sacrificing life; for the sainted one to whom I refer, was all I would ask any sister to be, and a happier person never lived. To do good and to make others happy was her rule of life, and in this she found the art of making herself so.

"Sisters should always be willing to walk, ride, visit with their brothers; and esteem it a privilege to be their companions. It is worth while to learn innocent games for the sake of furnishing brothers with amusements, and making home the most agreeable place to them. . . . .

"I have been told by some, who have passed unharmed through the temptations of youth, that they owed their escape from many dangers to the intimate companionship of affectionate and pure-minded sisters. They have been saved from a hazardous meeting with idle company by some home

engagement, of which their sisters were the charm; they have refrained from mixing with the impure, because they would not bring home thoughts and feelings which they could not share with those trusting, loving friends; they have put aside the wine-cup and abstained from stronger potations, because they would not profane with their fumes the holy kiss, with which they were accustomed to bid their sisters good-night.

THE WIDOW'S MITE.

It is the fruit of waking hours

When others are asleep,

When moaning round the low thatched roof

The winds of winter creep.

It is the fruit of summer days
Passed in a gloomy room,
When others are abroad to taste
The pleasant morning bloom.

'Tis given from a scanty store

And missed while it is given :
'Tis given-for the claims of earth

Are less than those of heaven.