garments of the elder lady and the boy. The two latter, however, were far more warmly clad than the girl, although- God knows ! -none of them were sufficiently protected from the keen, biting blasts, that whirling around the rickety tenement, found an entrance through every cranny, and eddied the fading fire to and fro.
"Have you not done yet, Alice ?" said the elder lady, in a sad tone, " you surely cannot work longer by this light without injuring your eyes, and if they are spoiled our last resource is gone."
"Fear not, mother," said the daughter in a cheerful voice, but without looking up from her needle, " I will take care not to hurt my sight. A few stitches and it will be done."
The mother heaved a gentle sigh, and a tear stole quietly down her cheek. She did not wipe it away lest her daughter might see the gesture ; but the crystal drop fell on the cheek of the boy who knelt at his parent's feet. " Oh ! mother," he said, " what would I not give if I was a man ; for then you and Alice would not have to work this way ; but I would support you. How many years, mother, will it be before I shall be a man ?" The mother's heart was full, and the agitation of the sister, as the boy thus spoke, might be seen from the nervous velocity with which she plied the needle . But neither could trust themselves to speak. The boy saw all this, and did not press the question , although for a minute he looked curiously from one to the other. At length, however, he spoke again. "I hope I shall be a man soon, for then I will get rich, and you and Alice, mother, shall live with me in a nice house in the country like the one we used to live in- you remember it, don't you, dear mother ? oh ! it was so beautiful. How I used to chase the butterflies over the green fields, and fish in the creek, or hunt wild flowers in the wood for sister's hair-were we not all happy, then ?, Don't cry, mother," for, by this time, the tears of the parent were falling thick and fast, "for some of these days I will get rich, and we will go back to the old place again." That little family, as the words of the prattler indicated, had once seen better days. The father of it had been a prosperous merchant, and the world rightly reputed him to be rich. Mr. Beckett lived in a style commensurate with his wealth. He had a town and country-house, kept his carriage, and indulged himself and family in all the elegances, nay, luxuries of life ; and a more happy family did not exist for each other in all this wide country. But at length there came one of those convulsions in the commercial world which periodically appear, producing a devastation which is looked upon afterward, as we would look on the path of a hurricane, when ruin has followed it on every hand. Mr. Beckett was one of the first victims to the storm .
Several extensive houses, which were debtors to him for a large amount, failed, and in their ruin dragged him down with them. The blow killed him. Unable to behold the utter loss of his fortune, to contemplate the poverty to which his darling wife and children were reduced, he pined away, suffering his misfortunes to brood on his spirit, until finally he took sick and died. His poor wife nearly sank under the loss of her husband, although she had borne the loss of fortune with christian resignation. In these trying circumstances utter ruin would indeed have overtaken the little family had it not been for the exertions of the daughter, who displayed an energy which was above her years. She attended to the closing of her father's affairs and nursed her mother through a long illness, as if she had been accustomed to these things from childhood, instead of being the offspring of luxury. When her father's estate was settled, a bare pittance of five hundred dollars was paid to her. On this paltry sum, with the aid of her needle, she managed to support the family for two years, during which her mother was ill for most of the time. But their means had at length failed, and although Alice had foreseen this with a heavy heart, yet she had endeavored to keep up and still maintained a cheerful aspect. On this evening they had consumed their last loaf of bread. Their fuel too was nearly gone. They had no means of replenishing either, until Alice had finished and been paid for the fine piece of fancy needle work on which she had been working. At length she rose up. "There it is done," she said, " and now I will run home with it. In an hour I will be back." "What through the storm, my child ?" said the mother. "" Yes ! but it snows very little now, and besides I promised to have the work done by to-night." The mother looked on her child and sighed, but made no farther answer ; and Alice, putting on her bonnet and wrapping a thin shawl around her-for alas ! she had no cloak- started forth into the storm. Her brother would have accompanied her, but she would not suffer him to leave her invalid mother. CHAPTER III .. THE wind roared wildly around the rich mansion of Mrs. Templeton, as she and her nephew Edward Moreton sat talking by the drawing room fire. The sofa had been wheeled in front of the grate, and the whole apartment had that air of comfort which is so peculiarly appreciable on a tempestuous winter night. As the aunt and her nephew sat listening to the shrill whistle of the gale as it swept down the street, and then heard the low roar of the massy grate glowing with its load of coal, their situation and feelings were in striking contrast with those of the little group we have just left shivering over their scanty fire. 66 Why, Edmund," said the aunt, continuing their
