sanction such a sin! How long will those who sit in the high places of the earth wilfully shut their eyes and ears to the wrongs of the poor? O! merciful Father, how long, how long?

The boy was taken to the school; and the woman put Ally and Dick through a long passage, until they came to a door in the wall where they must part. Dick whispered to Ally about God being in the workhouse as well as outside, took her two hands in his, and they kissed each other solemnly as if they were about to die. Thus they were cruelly parted! Think, dear reader, of the keen poignant grief these two poor old hearts endured, not only for the moment, but for days and months afterwards, and cry shame! shame on such an unchristian system as this. Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." Yes, vengeance is His, and it will come with arrows of fire on His foes-yes, yes! with arrows of fire on those who thus separate affection and age.

66

Blindness, in part, possesses the rulers of the land. It is barbarous enough to separate younger couples; but the aged should surely be left to succour and befriend one another. No face would beam so kindly upon Dick as Ally's, not even the parson's, or the lady visitor's with the Bible and religious tracts in her hand; and no voice would soothe him in his sorrow like the voice which murmured music in his home for more than

forty years. And now, though within the same grim building, with the same roof over their head, and the great iron gate shutting them in, they could not see each other, or seldom send a loving message to cheer their hearts. Shall we say that the pressure of this loneliness, though surrounded with many as old as themselves, lying still and stupid with the life crushed out of them, caused them often to wet their pillows with their tears? Could not some distinction be made in the quiet, honest, struggling poor, who, through sickness or disaster, come to the workhouse, and the spendthrift and the idle, the despiser and the drunkard, who carve their own way to the poorhouse wards? Should not this question be seriously considered?

But Ally and Dick did not end their days in the workhouse. A year or two passed, and then came a change. A

gentleman, who had just returned from Australia, visited the Union wards. He had read of reclaiming the waste lands of the United Kingdom, and he felt determined to try. He wanted a strong boy to assist in the work of his house and farm-yard, and the guardians had recommended him to look through the poorhouse. He was much struck by the boy brought there by Ally and Dick. He inquired his name, how long he had been in the house, and what they knew about him. The Union master referred him to the old people, saying he was brought in by them. Ally and Dick were called into the office, where also sat the stranger. They were closely questioned, standing all the while-for perhaps it is not fashionable to offer a pauper a chair! Ally was the principal speaker, and she faithfully told the stranger how she had found the child sitting on a bank by the wayside-how she had brought him home, much to the satisfaction of her old man, placed him on their dead child's cricket, and fed him with their humble fare-how he lived with them until the barm business failed, and she had injured her ancle in the cart-rut— how they pledged and sold their household items one by one, until there was no hope left, and they had to come into the workhouse.

"But," inquired the stranger, seeming a little excited, 66 had you no clue to the boy's name?"

Then Ally told him of the name they had found inside on the lining of his little coat, which she still preserved in a small box in her pocket, the only memento of what they once possessed. She drew it forth, and presented it to the stranger. He took it from her; and on reading it a great trembling seized him, so that he nearly let it fall from his hand. He glanced at the boy, at Ally and Dick, and sinking into the chair next him, he exclaimed:

"O merciful Father, how wonderful are Thy works and ways! yea, they are past finding out. This boy, my good people, is my own son. When we were on our way to the sea-port for embarkation, we stopped at a little village for refreshment; and on leaving it, our Willie was missing. We searched here and there, and paid others for doing so, but the boy could not be found. As the ship would sail at a certain date, and our passage-money being paid, we had to

hurry on with heavy hearts, hoping some one would find him and send him after us. But the ship weighed anchor, our tears fell for Willie Affmott; and by and bye we landed on a foreign shore without him. But he was seldom out of our thoughts; night and day, and day and night, we thought of our lost boy. And when prosperity came, and our corn and wine increased, the remembrance of him was like bitters in our cup. And now he is ours again, thus strangely restored to us! How will his mother rejoice when I lead him back to her arms, who has shed more tears for her Willie than it is possible to number! Come, Willie, come, my boy, and leave the workhouse for a home where comfort and love sit hand in hand. And you who so lovingly nurtured our child in his misery shall not be forgotten."

So Willie went away with his father, Eustace Affmott; and that it was a happy meeting for him and his mother, the reader can well imagine. In a day or two afterwards a carriage drove up to the workhouse gate, and Ally and Dick Ardwick stepped into it, and were driven to a pretty little cottage not far from Gull Creek. Here they were comfortably supported until the end of their days, with no further dread of the "house," often looking through their rose-surrounded window on the newly-reclaimed meadows added ever and anon to Eustace Affmott's farm. Their cheerfully-given cup of cold water had not lost its reward.

SAMUEL SOUND'S SUCCESS.

AMUEL Sound was a young man, with no helps upon which to lean for a livelihood, and with no prospect of improving his condition in life save his own two hands, and they were strong ones; so he determined to use them to an honest advantage. We may as well at once inform the reader that Samuel's father was a drunkard. The love of drink was a great fire within him, which burnt all the finer feelings of his soul into cinders. For drink, he bartered his health, his home, his reputation, his friends, his wife, his children, his clothes,

his credit, his land, his love, his tools, his trust, his faith, his friendship, his manhood, his Maker, his body, his soul. Hour after hour at the public-house! hour after hour at the fire-water! His farm was neglected; his cattle strayed, were impounded, and irrecoverably lost; his sheep were diseased, and died; his hedges were broken, his outhouses ruined, his dwelling-room leaky, his window-frames rotten, his door unhinged! Hour after hour at the public-house! hour after hour at the fire-water! His wife wept, and waited, and wept again; grew paler, and thinner, and more ragged still; while her step was feebler than a child's, and her voice like the chirrup of a forsaken bird; but what cared he? Hour after hour at the public-house! hour after hour at the firewater! Hot tears from the sunken eyes of her he had sworn to cherish stayed him not; sighs by the fireless hearth from babes on whose cheeks the roses of beauty were fading, where Famine had fixed his fleshless fangs, and hunger gleams from glassy eyes were too plainly visible, checked not the raging spirit within him, nor stayed his feet one moment from the

of wrong.

way

And when death came on a night of frost, when darkness was made more dark by the drifting snow as fine as powder, and the tempest travelled with greater fury than it was wont, and took her from her bed of poverty, to dwell for ever in a land of love, with beings whose robes were spotless white, and crystal rivers gladdened green valleys, deliciously full of unfading flowers, he still sang at the public-houses and lifted the burning liquid to his lips. The funeral took place without him, for he was wedded to his cups, and his son Samuel was the only real mourner. When the cold clods fell upon his mother's coffin, he lifted his heart to Heaven and prayed to be kept from the great sin of drunkenness; and that earnest prayer was answered.

Still his wretched father drank, leaving the boy to shift for himself to beg, or starve, or steal! Many a day has he gone without his dinner, and many a night has he retired to his poor bed hungry, and cried himself to sleep. The sound of his father's heavy footstep on the stair sent a pang through his young heart, like poison; and he trembled in every limb at the voice that should have cheered him like music. O shame! shame! unworthy the name of father, and fully entitled to

that of brute. Would it be any wonder if a child so shamefully neglected should grow up to be a curse to society and a blot upon his race? But there is a gentle spirit abroad in the universe, whose milder impulses the boy obeyed. When the gnawings of hunger almost tempted him to steal, this gentle monitor seemed to draw his hand away; and when his feet were almost turned into the way of wrong, this loving attendant kept them back. His mother's voice was with him, and her teachings filled his soul.

There was a fair at the great village, a roaring, ramping fair. Merry Andrew was on the platform, Punch and Judy in the square, shows upon the green, stalls of sweetmeats and gingerbread in long rows, flags flying at public-house doors, a quack doctor by the market-house steps, blind fiddlers led by dogs, with little begging cans in their mouths, boys and girls rich in halfpence, who should have been home with their mothers, young men and maidens learning how to woo, and old men and women anxious to see the fun." Samuel's father was there, the merriest of the merry, drinking with greater avidity than aforetime. The sun sank in a sea of glory, and the moon came up from her bower of beauty, full and pale, hallowing the earth with her loveliness. But what cared he for the setting sun or the rising moon? Drink was everything to him, and he drank like a madman. Midnight came, and the din of the fair had a little subsided. Punch and Judy were stretched on their couches; Merry Andrew had retired, fagged and foolish, behind the scenes; the quack doctor had left his stand, and was counting his gains, with an irreverent chuckle, over a glass of brandy-and-water in the little bar parlour, the most consummate sneak in the whole throng. The gay youth on stilts had dropped down to a level with his fellows; and the great fat giantess, whom any booby might see for a penny, was deeply discussing a mutton chop.

And now it is morning. Samuel Sound is stretched upon the straw mattress, half asleep, listening now and then for the entrance of his father; but no father comes. He rises, and eats his only crust, with a drop of cold water, thinks of the Union, and wonders if they are better off there, listens again for his father's footfall-but no father comes. A neighbour employs him to hold his horse, gives him a penny, and says he