"Stapplander, then, thought," said the president, thoughtfully, "that every human being had his fixed and inborn disposition."

fashion, the observed of all observers" any afternoon in Baltimore street-she set the table, and performed her little household duties without once calling for a "help."

The evening glided away strangely. John felt himself compelled sometimes to listen to the unobstrusive information with which Sarah sustained the conversation. The subjects pleased his character of mind-he seemed to recover something for which his mind had been seeking. He dreamed that night he was lecturing in a broad brim on the natural causes of Quakerism. David had gone to the city, some eighteen miles distant, the day John arrived; so he did not see him. If my two eyes had been at the two points of a pair of compasses the next (Sabbath) morning, eighteen miles in diameter, I should probably have been a little amused, for surely somebody in a neat black suit was iningling his clear, manly notes with Fanny Marlow's hymn, in Church; and seriously sat John Marlow in a little Quaker meeting house at the other point of the compass, with whole rows of broad-brims in senatorial gravity elevated before him, and with sly glances, the visual consciousness of a neat straw bonnet, with clean white strings tied beneath a not beautiful, but clear, bright-looking face on the other side of a partition. This was not the only face there by any means; but John only looked occasionally, you know, and it happened that way. How benevolent did all those grandfathers and grandmothers look over the quiet "rising generation." John thought of some of his intimates at the clubcould they see him in a Quaker meeting!

John found it necessary that summer to seek the shades of the country pretty often. After a return from one of these visits, I saw him leave an unfinished letter on his writing-desk, and being myself quite an inhabitant of Fata Morgana district, I scarcely consider myself amenable to the laws which should govern all human young ladies in this respect. Here runs an ex

tract:

I stopped, in Aunt Quimby's fashion, when people are right comfortable," at Farmer True's one afternoon. Sarah held a mineral, of which she was reading a description from Silliman's Journal, while John Marlow took notes. Soon after, I saw John's chestnut hair flying back from the handsome face-once our streetloving young ladies' delight-as he drove the cows in the barn-yard preparatory to assisting Sarah at the milking.

The same evening, two young hearts thrilled to the inspiration of Norway's most melodious voice. Fairy worlds of spiritual beauty lay before these two. The poetry of God's world, the exquisite life in the Ideal developed itself within them. Like the first David had the young Quaker seized the harp of Fanny's soul, and it yielded the melody born in no human instrument. How grateful was she that this inner instrument could now, not ignorantly, join in the song without an end that angels throng to hear!"

The sun was setting on seven-hilled Rome. All the glory, the magnificence of the world of colours ranged over the clear depths of the Italian sky.

"Beautiful world-beautiful life!" exclaimed a young artist, as he stretched forth his arms as if to embrace the image of Nature, "the blest gift of an immortal Giver, how shall I strive to reveal the teachings of beauty? Not vain shall be my struggles; all within my influence shall feel the mission of Art to make happy-they shall recognize it as the interpreter of Beauty, as the dove on the altar of devotion. No olive branch will I crave, no wreath of fame"

"But surely," cried a girlishly-glad voice, "thou wilt not, my pure philosophy, refuse a crown for good behaviour from thy wife of a year!" and she placed a wreath of orange blos soms on the artist's head, from which hung oranges, dates, and fresh figs, soon to fall by their own weight-into David's mouth.

"Nay, sweet wife, I had not forgotten the anniversary of my receiving this trembling burden, that has proved a wing of love to my spirit:" and he clasped Fanny True's little hand.

*

*

'How well I remember, Harry, the flute with which it was my good mother's will I should accompany sister Fan for the benefit of company. It positively made us dislike each other sometimes, for I had no ear, and Fanny an exquisite one; my blunders irritated her and made me no Perfect silence reigned in the little meetingwiser. Why are not children granted a patent house at G- -Side by side sat a seriously for characters? Let them develop. My Apollo happy-looking young pair, with friends and figure (mamma's opinion) nailed a lyre to me, curious strangers around them. Soon they non rite vocanti, in spite of the phrenologist's arose, and, in clear, gentle tones, "with Divine useless search for tune in my cranium. I must assistance," promised to exercise a peculiar care be a lady's man, cultivate as the acme of refine-over each other, as John and Sarah Marlow. ment the art of picking up a lady's handkerchief, and bend to a peculiarly scientific curve over her bonnet in an afternoon promenade! Consequence would have been that a few years would have developed my taste for my ledger, cigars and wine, to the extinction of the true bent of my mind. I have found a good spirit who has tuned my heart aright-not by tuning her guitar, but by helping me find my place in the harmony without disturbing the melody-one who has opened a spiritual eye to beauty, out of my own face."

The bees hummed industriously without in the sunshine, the birds sang a song of gladness, the yellow corn and the buckwheat waved in meek anticipation of John's sickle.

People are different," said Friend True, as he rode home from the ceremony-" butterflies and bees." He was thinking of a vagrant son of his, I suspect.

"Well," said Mr. Marlow, "I don't think we should complain about matters, Josiah—we have VOLTIA. made some fair exchanges,"

THE TWO PATHS.

(A Hearth-side History.)

BY MRS. KEMPSON.

"A strong hand came and took the lily from the brook,
And placed it in a painted vase of clay;

But ah! it could not be, and sad it was to see

The suffering lily fade and pine away.

The fountain-drops of wealth ne'er nursed it into health-
It never danced beneath the lighted dome;

But woefully it sighed for the streamlet's gushing tide,
And drooped in pain to miss its far-off home.

Oh! many a one will look far back on some sweet brook,
That fed their soul-bloom, fresh and pure and shining;
And many a one can say, some painted vase of clay
Has held their spirit, like the lily, pining."

up,

Beneath a roof where such shadow lingered we will look; tracing the history of those gathered there.

Round the hearth-stone of the widow Warren were grouped three silent dreamers, whom the distant sounds without, of mirth and rejoicing, seemed but to sadden the more deeply, judging from the gradual sinking of the fair face of a young and weeping girl between her clasped hands, and the suppressed sobs that from time to time broke the silence; as also from the pallid and averted features of a youth, leaning by the fire-place, with gaze strained vacantly through the uncurtained window, while he listened silently to the low-murmured detail of a letter, which rested on the knee of a widowed woman on the opposite side.

There were signs of Christmas-time beneath | trace for tears. Bright and blessed Christmasevery roof in the little village of Fairoaks. The time!-by the shadowed and the lighted hearth long windows of the Hall were uncurtained, thou art blessed! and a hundred lights burst out, and flung a long glittering illumination upon the frozen ground without. The humble casements of the peasantry-decked with large boughs of holly, and rattling again with the loud bursts of social merriment within, as the peat-fires blazed lighting a group of the honest-hearted children of toil to their rude country games by the hearth-the low lattices of the cottages lent their aid in holding up the type of Christmas; glad, bright, and blessed Christmas-time! All peal forth, or have pealed forth, this chime; though many a one, who has been "acquainted with grief," and " sown in tears," hears it now, on other lips, with a chilled heart. A "Link has dropped from love's bright chain away;" they have laid their soul's best joy in the cold grave-perchance an early and untimely one; and can you ask why the dimmed eye turns painfully from the bright group, amid its youthful happiness by the hearth, where stands "the empty chair"? Leave the mourner's heart, unquestioned, with its memories, for they are sacred; murmur not that your laughter be there unechoed. And yet-yet if the time of Christmas be not to all bright, it may be to all blessed. The child of gladness can kneel in the "household band;" and the words of thankfulness, for health and that happy meeting of loving hearts, struggle forth, faltering in very intensity. The child of sorrow can enter the silent closet, where her daily prayers are uttered, and there, remembering One whose sorrows outweighed hers on earth, frame the lips to thanksgiving for hidden mercies, which her weak gaze could not

to no small amount, you will, I dare say, wonder "Your husband's death, madam, making me loser that I step forward, at the crisis of your trouble, with a helping hand. I am but a plain man, and so can only offer plain, straightforward advice. I pass over Mr. Warren's whim of letting your boy have the choice of a pursuit (and that, forsooth! a golden one, in that fairy-land of all youth, India); I pass that in pity for your poor husband's weakness; and what I now say is this: I have the means of placing and find an excellent master in a respectable, though your son where he will at least gain honest bread, small, manufacturer in the next town. You, I believe, have some means of subsistence in a little annuity which dies with you. I am glad of it, and can only, in conclusion, say, Master Henry must work hard to be a future support to his sister. But

to settle all.

to-morrow (a good day in my belief) I will see you, | mirth and gladness; and there were light and rejoicing round every hearth-save one-in the little village.

"Yours, madam,

"JOHN BLUNT."

As the words fell from her lips Mrs. Warren looked up, to meet the gaze of her son; but it was still averted.

are

"Speak to me, Henry! My child! Say you not angry that our kind friend and creditor" (And tears choked the mother's utterance.)

"Offers me the most menial office in his gift," interrupted the youth, bitterly; "in order to cure you of all participation in my poor father's whim,' as it pleases him to call it."

"Oh! it was kindly meant, though harshly said," pleaded the poor widow.

There was no answer, and her son folded his arms tightly on his breast, to hide their tremulousness, which told of inward strife.

"The seeming degradation may but be for a time, Henry," whispered Mrs. Warren, in a broken voice. "My boy's talents would not let him linger in obscurity long," she added, with a burst of sad pride; "he would not be long hidden; a day would come for him to enter on a busier world."

"Never!" burst passionately from the boy's lips; "if not now, never!” And the words were remembered after by all there, bitterly.

The night had passed, and the cold grey dawn of day streamed through the half curtained window of a little chamber in the widow's cottage, upon a flushed and restless face, half buried in the disordered pillows; and where there were traces of the spirit's night-time of anguish. To Henry Warren the passing of those hours had been the infliction of a life-time of trial; and the holy day had broken upon a heart tossed and trembling beneath the consciousness of meditated wrong. The youth had risen at that signal light of morning, and, putting back the curtain, looked out eagerly upon the frozen landscape; while a chill, deeper than even that of so early an hour, crept to his heart.

"I could not; I should go mad," he mut
tered, as he leant there, in self-communion.
"Mother, you have forced me to a lie!" he
added, passionately, as if appealing to some con-
fused vision of his stricken parent.
"And yet

I can bear that better than O, mother!
mother!" And the boy fell on his knees, in the
cold grey light, and his voice was choked in his
wild prayer:
"Mother-forgive, forgive! I
must go; but here I swear only to work-to
toil for you! Forgive, forgive!-your boy's
heart is breaking; but cannot yield in this-to
this degradation!”

"I do not plead for myself," murmured the widow, in tones faint with inward emotion; "the little annuity left me for life would save us from starvation, under the blessing of Provi- For a few moments after this bitter pleading dence; but there is a time when it must go, had ceased the youth knelt there, his face buried Henry, and my heart tells me it will be ere very in his clenched hands; haply all he was leaving long. I shall not be with you many months, passed, at that minute of retrospection, before and then who will save my Kate from poverty? him in farewell; and then he rose, and all was Nay, weep not, my child," she added, as the over. He had, like many another mortal, foryoung tearful face was buried, in a burst of gotten that prayer for good must be uttered to grief, in the mother's bosom. "I say it but as One ear alone to be answered; and so had he proofrisen up unto the darkness of deceit, and the "That I am cold and evil-hearted, my mother-after-pangs of remorse. * But brief time my own mother," interrupted the youth, passionately. "Say no more; Kate shall not want! I will go-work-anywhere-in any misery of degradation-so she shall not want!"

وو

The mother stretched forth a trembling hand, and strove to draw down the boy's face, to rest beside his sister's, on her loving heart; but it was averted, with so fearful a shade of suppressed anguish gathering over every feature, that the gentle grasp relaxed, as if she deemed it best to let the excitement of the proud young spirit pass in silence. That momentary solution of his burning thoughts rushed to the youth's mind in the checking of that burst of parentlove. Starting from his abstraction he knelt suddenly beside the weeping form of his young sister, his arm binding them together; and his tearless gaze of resolve, fixed on the pallid features of the widowed mother, was all that told of his boyhood's dreams relinquished, and his duty regnant. And so the eve of Christmas closed in above the roof of the dead merchant, Warren; while all around it were sounds of

now was needed for the working of the spell. Almost fearfully the boy turned his hurried glance upon the lengthening gleam of light, heralding day onwards. He must be far ere it rouse those slumbering unconsciously round him. A few more moments, and, a light wallet of articles of clothing slung to his shoulder, Henry Warren stood, prepared to rush upon fate; with a shaking hand the lattice of the low window was flung back: one bound out upon the green turf of the little garden, and he stood there an alien to his childhood's home.

his

Once beyond control, the necessity of flight rushed on the boy's mind, and, without one backward look, he sprang over the gate, and ran, with blinded gaze, along the deserted street, through the thick wood skirting the village, and, crossing several broad meadows, found himself suddenly at the junction of two roads. To glance up at the half obscured sign-post was the work of a moment, as the fugitive dashed on. One side bore the name of his deserted home. It was the last appeal of his angel of salvation.