ten fingers, and the blessing of God to attend their efforts.'

'Oh, father, do not think of me! I will work my fingers to the bone for mother and Maggie.'

'I know you will, dear boy. Fred, there is not a stick here that can honestly be called your own; part with everything, and clear our name so far as possible.' Then he told him of Yarrow's treachery, expressing his firm conviction that a great deal of the money which had been lost to the house had got into his possession, and that, after a brief show of straitened. circumstances for the sake of appearances, he would show himself in his true colours.

'For your mother's sake, however, keep what I have told you to yourself, at least for some time to come; for it was owing to her wishes that I took him into the business. Don't be afraid, my boy; love God with all your heart, and He who tempers the wind to the shorn lamb will be your shield and hiding place. Talk with dear old Mr. Cartwright about your

future; he will give you sound advice. Stand by your mother, my dear. You will never have but one; never but one!' His voice faltered, but after a pause he whispered, 'Send your mother to me.'

The parting, when at last the final hour came, was indescribably touching between husband and wife, father and children. Unmindful of the bereavement which was so soon to make a dark void in her life, the wife did all that the truest affection could suggest to conceal her own grief, and to brighten the dark hour by the consolations to be derived from a world beyond this. Unmindful, too, of his own sufferings, the husband spoke confidently of a happy reunion in a blessed home, in which sorrow and separation would be unknown. A little while,' he murmured several times to himself, as if there was a fund of unspeakable consolation in the words, and shortly afterwards fell asleep. The mother and her two children gazed long and sorrowfully on the face of the dead, which, in its

perfect repose, seemed to tell of the eternal calm upon which the spirit had entered. A final farewell had been taken of the troubles of life. There would be no more going to the city; there would be no longer the distractions and cares of business; anxiety and disappointment were for ever at an end. 'So He giveth His beloved sleep,' said the widow, whose tears came at last, and Fred and Maggie wept with her.

AR stranger things transpire every week in the world of real life than

ever find their way into works of

fiction. The story-teller, by a few strokes of his pen, can suddenly despoil the wealthiest of their riches, and raise the beggar from the dust. He can dispense fortunes to any amount to those whom he deems worthy of them, and make people miserable to the end of their days if they appear to him to have deserved such a doom. We read such incidents, now with delight, and now with grief, and they occasion us a momentary feeling of pleasure or pain, according as the story has appealed to our sympathies,

and interested us in its leading characters. Then we take up a new book, and speedily becoming absorbed in a new set of people, and transported into new scenes, we as speedily forget all that had pained or pleased us in the one we had laid down.

In real life sorrows are not so soon dismissed, and this fact Mrs. Graham and her children had keenly to realize. She was a lady of the utmost refinement of feeling-that true refinement of heart and mind which finds its source in Christian faith and love. In the prime of life, and possessed of every elegance, grace, and virtue which can give light and peace to a good man's home, she had been all that a husband needed to make him happy in the domestic circle, and all that the dearest children could hope to find in a mother. From her they had learned their first prayer, and their first notions of the religious life. She had told them stories, and sung little songs to them in their infancy, which had become part of their being, and as they grew