she had been seized in a most alarming manner, and was for te time insensible. When she recovered she saw me standing over her.

It was the old tale of destitution, hard work, and a final breaking down of a naturally strong constitution. Yes, the familiar story, so much so that the novel-reader who has persevered thus far, in the belief that some extraordinary incident would yet turn up, will exclaim: 'Pshaw! how very stale and common-place this meeting a girl in the street and being conducted up a pair of stairs to a sick-room, and so-forth and so forth.' To be sure, all this is very common would it were otherwise, but God permits one class of his creatures to fare sumptuously every day, while another class starves, and the mystery of this we may not undertake to fathom.

The poor lady seemed so nearly recovered that there was nothing to be done for her. I asked if I could render her any assistance, and if she was suffering from any pressing want. She said she was not, and regretted that I should be taken out of my way.

There was no reason why I should stay longer, yet I felt irresistibly impelled to speak to the young girl, who maintained her seat by the window, looking fixedly out of it. I rose to depart. Then I said, turning to her:

'You see I was right, your mother will be quite well by morning.' She assented by a nod.

'Where were you going when I met you?' I asked.

'I thought mother was dying, and I started to find somebody to come to her. I did not dare stay to see her die.' And she looked again with that expression which had touched me, and which called up a strange feeling, like the memory of a half-forgotten dream.

'I think I must call and see you to-morrow,' I said to the lady, 'for we are in the midst of a heavy storm. I reside not far from here, and I shall see if I can't be of some use to you. Pray, may I inquire your name?'

'Mrs. Hitchcock.'

'And your husband?

'Has been dead for a long time.'

'He was

'A physician; Dr. Ralph Hitchcock.'

'Who graduated at Yale College, thirty years ago?

'Yes.'

'Who resided in Cincinnati, and died there? 'The same.'

" And you are Ralph Hitchcock's widow?' 'I am.'

'And this young person?'

'His daughter. The only surviving of five children.'

The room swam round. Frank Hitchcock, my class-mate, my room-mate in college, my beloved friend, my cherished correspondent, so long as he lived, cut off in the flower of his life; while already acquiring fame, and laying the foundation for a grand suc cess, death had snatched him away.

I stood oppressed with these thoughts, not speaking, not moving. Mrs. Hitchcock lay waiting calmly for some explanation. She had been too long schooled by trouble to become easily excited. Not so the daughter; she rose from her chair, came into the middle of the room, and burst into a hysterical sobbing, which was so violent that it alarmed me. I had made no explanation, but my questions showed I was well acquainted with the one whose decease had caused such a revolution in their fortunes.

After a short pause, I said: 'My dear lady, I knew your husband well: more than that, we were the best of friends. It is now late; you are just recovering from this sudden attack. I shall be sure to see you to-morrow. God bless you both!' And I came away.

Desperate as my own affairs had been, here were circumstances much more discouraging. Reader, if you yourself are unfortunately borne down by the weight of what seems a calamitous destiny, cast about for some more afflicted, and take on you the office of aid and adviser. Assume a part of their burdens, it will help to lighten your You will be surprised what strength you will gain beside. It is so. For thus marvelously has God established the paradox: 'There is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.' Richard B. Kimball.

own.

The Romance and the Reality of the Law.

Among the learned or liberal professions, the one that oftenest tempts and dazzles the youthful mind is that of the law.

This fact has its reason, and is susceptible of explanation.

The profession of the law is venerable for its antiquity, rich in the illustrious names which adorn its history, and unequaled for the aggregate of talent and eloquence which have in all ages characterized its leading members.

Far back in the dim vista of the past, the fancy of the legal enthusiast may behold the commanding form of the inspired Cicero, his toga falling gracefully about him, his eye glowing with pathetic emotion, as he stands there on the Roman forum pleading the cause of his early friend and tutor, the poet Archius.

It must be with no small degree of pride that the advocate thus traces his professional lineage back to the greatest orator of ancient times.

There is a kind of ancestral congratulation that he, too, like Cicero, is empowered to use his country's laws, when occasion requires, to defend the innocent and relieve the oppressed.

Then again there is romance connected with the practice of the law. Should every lawyer of long experience keep a journal, wherein he might detail the stories of all his clients, their strange grievances, their complicated affairs, and confidential disclosures, it would form a book only surpassed for variety and novelty by the famous 'Arabian Nights.'

The amount of heart-history with which he becomes acquainted seems strangely in contrast with the lack of sentiment for which his character is so generally noted. He becomes familiar with domestic difficulties, disappointed affections, atrocious crimes, and daring schemes; and finds out more of the inner life of humanity than can be discovered from any other stand-point in society. His council-room is a kind of secular confessional, where clients reveal reluctant secrets, and tell of private wrongs. To him, what the world is accustomed to regard as fiction, constitutes the commonplace facts of his legal practice.

But in our country the more seductive phrase of the law is this: it has ever been the natural avenue to political preferment and judisial honors. Hence it is that young men of fine abilities and am

bitious of distinction, so frequently choose this profession as the proper field whereon to meet the high endeavor and the glad success. And perhaps it is sometimes a misfortune that such a reason decides them rather than a sense of any peculiar fitness for the calling which they so hastily espouse. But of that hereafter.

Lawyers, as a class, are, or were, much respected and revered, exerting as they do a very controlling influence over society and affairs. I know full well that novels and plays abound in a certain stereotyped character called an attorney, who is made to do all the dirty work of the plot or story. He is represented usually as a cadaverous-looking individual, with a swinish propensity to thrust his nose into every one's business, who is willing to damn his soul for a fee, and whose heart is devoid of all sympathy for suffering or distress. The worst of all these human fiends is Uriah Heep, whose freckled, hairy hand, with its cold clammy touch, so often makes the reader shudder as he turns the pages of 'David Copperfield.' Then there is Oily Gammon, who figures in 'Ten Thousand a Year,' and whose qualities are very plainly suggested by his name. And among the more recent types of this character, we have the Marks' of Harriet Beecher Stowe, who, when asked to do a small favor, or to perform a common act of politeness without the tender of a fee, rolls out his eyes in wonderment, and to explain his refusal drawls out: 'Oh! I'm a lawyer!' The muses too have conspired against these poor, persecuted fellows; and there is extant a little poem, called 'Law versus Saw,' in which a very invidious comparison is sought to be made between a lawyer and that small operator in the lumber business commonly known as a sawyer. In usefulness and dignity the poet confers the palm on the vocation of the latter. The last verse sums up the whole matter thus:

This conclusion then I draw,
That no exercise of jaw,
Twisting India-rubber law,
Is as good

As the exercise of paw
On the handle of a saw,
Sawing wood.'

But these pictures of law-attorneys, found so frequently in light literature, furnish the unknowing with a very erroneous estimate of the average character of the legal profession. These seeming caricatures have had, and still have, originals in fact, but they are as

much hated and despised by the more respectable members of the bar as by the world at large. Indeed, to a person of experience in life, there need be no argument to prove that lawyers as a body are quite as honorable, intelligent, liberal and public-spirited as the same number of men selected from any class which has a distinctive existence. L. J. Bigelow.

Grannie's Trust.

Dear Grannie is with us no longer;
Her hair, that was white as the snow
Was parted one morning forever,
On her head lying soft and low;
Her hands left the Bible wide open,
To tell us the road she had trod,
With waymarks like footsteps to tell us
The path she had gone up to God.

No wonderful learning had Grannie;
She knew not the path of the stars,
Nor aught of the comet's wide cycle,
Nor of Nebula's dim cloudy bars;
But she knew how the wise men adoring,
Saw a star in the East long ago;

She knew how the first Christmas anthems
Came down to the shepherds below.

She had her own test, I remember,
For the people whoe'er they might be.
When we spoke of the strangers about us
But lately come over the sea;

Of "Laura," and "Lizzie," and "Jamie,"
And stately old "Essellby Oakes,"
She listened and whispered it softly,

"My dear, are these friends meetin'-folks?"

When our John went away to the city
With patrons, whom all the world knew

To be sober and honest great merchants,
For Grannie this all would not do;