so insatiately craves, and to which it is entitled. The family who took her out of pity, having many children of their own, were well disposed and intended to discharge their duty towards her. Belonging to that large class who consider business the paramount aim of life, from which childhood had no immunity, their sons were taken from school as soon as they were able to work in the field, and their daughters sent to assist them in pitching hay and gathering potatoes. Fortunately they were not endowed with the delicate, sensitive organization of Milly, and the words of command or sharp rebuke issuing from the lordly head, were received as the most familiar household dialect known among them. As they grew up, imbibing the same ideas that governed the parents, the world received a new accession to its business thrift and house-wifely tact. Better so than to fall into pernicious habits or slovenly neglect of domestic duties, which have driven many a man to dissipation, but it is not among such natures the finer emotions of the soul are developed. Milly's imaginative mind was not at home under these influences, and suffered continually in its silent craving for sympathy. Possessing little of the boisterous element of childhood, she had an intense yearning to be loved and cared for, as in sunny dreams she felt again the warm embrace of her mother's arms and listened to her fond words of endearment, from which the shrill voice of the house-maid summoned her to the dreaded, monotonous round of toil; when a cloud sometimes rested on her spirit, but it was only transient, always looking forward to a future which
