Alas! that is the secret of all the troubles that came upon us. It was another matter to do the work of the family in this house, with a regular study, and parlour, and sitting-room, and broad hall and staircase to be kept in order, and liable to visits, that were not meant to be intrusions, at any hour of the day.

When we lived at Factoryville, if good old sister Miller dropped in with a few fresh eggs or a basket of sweet apples, she always came where I was, and I could go on with mixing my bread or patching a jacket, and talk at the same time; but how could I ask ladies who never see the interior of their own kitchen more than once-aday, to sit down in mine? or how could I take Mrs. Strong where I had not asked Mrs. Steele, when she was so jealous of "the rich members of the church," although her constant cry was "Christian simplicity"?

Everything had to be different here: no more going out to tea at four o'clock in the afternoon, and taking my work and children with me, coming home in time to put them to bed, and have a good long evening with my needle, and maybe John running out of his study to read to me for half-an-hour, if there was no evening meeting; and then, having mother and Maria so near us, I could save from the little household stores the kind farmers brought in, a few apples, a peck of potatoes, meal, and milk for them-a great help to such a small household.

We had been here nine months, and in all that time not so much as a peck of potatoes had been sent in. Hothouse flowers, and grapes from Mrs. Steele and Mrs. Lovett, more than once ; but they did not replenish wasting "meal and oil," or help me in saving towards that shawl which my mother's stiffened limbs required. So far from saving, we were for the first time in all our lives in debt! I hate the words. O how the miserable fact hung over me! but it would not do for the minister's wife to go to church all winter in a straw bonnet with dyed ribbons, and sit in the very front pew, to be criticized by all the congregation. How I grudged the money a corded silk one cost me, and the set of muslins that this constant going out to tea-which means a party of from ten to eighteen people arrayed in their best-demanded to keep my five years old black silk in counten

ance.

Then I could not be as much in the kitchen, and groceries did not go more than half as far, or meat either, and I missed the spare ribs and cuts of fresh beef or veal that were brought us when any of our people were killing stock. I used to weary of their lack of cultivation, at the dulness of their lives and minds, and long for educated, congenial society; that was one of the great charms this change seemed to promise us that John would be more appreciated, and I should have friends I could really enjoy; but in all this community there is not one who enters into a single joy or care of my life.

When Maria's school was certain, I had to fly round to Mrs. Miller, and tell her all about

it; and she knew how heavily the doctor's bill weighed on my mind, for fear we should not be able to meet it, and the expenses of John's illness last year. It was even better in Middlefield, though we were poor enough there; but I knew that was the beginning, and we had everything to look forward to, and I was young and strong; and Sarah was here to work for mother and help Maria.

Poor Maria, with her feeble health! and now, this last quarter, there has been another school set up, and she has lost some of her best scholars, and they are in a great deal of trouble!

I have known it all along! I felt it from October, when she only mentioned that the new school had commenced; her letters have been less and less cheerful, though she never complained, or asked for anything, or hinted that mother had a right to expect some help from me, till December came. I know how I must seem to them utterly selfish; for feeling so powerless, I have avoided the subject, as if I was indeed guilty; and poor Maria did not upbraid me then; she only said

"I have not made as much by twenty pounds as I did last year, and it has cost us rather more to live, missing your kind help, though you know that nobody can manage better than mother, and indeed we have often not bought any meat for weeks together, and managed to do without butter since it began to be so dear, and mother has not been to church since the cold weather came, for you know I wrote you how unfortunate it was about the moths getting into her cloak. Sometimes I hardly know how we shall get through the winter. I dread to go to the shopkeeper's for anything, for fear they should refuse to trust me any longer, for you know it is sometimes two and three months before people pay up school bills."

Yes, I know from sad experience that school bills and a minister's salary are the last debts people ever pay, and even then both are grudged, while the value of physical service is recognized and discharged at once.

Hothouse grapes-and my mother and delicate sister starving themselves! I gave my portion to the children, and John wondered that I did not enjoy them. I could not trouble him with the letter, but I brooded over it all the more; it was a shadow that never left me. How could I help them? what could I give up? what spare? what sell? Alas, nothing! My ingenuity was already exhausted in economies, and every shilling that could be saved must go towards our own debts; how much they were we did not ask each other; it was a subject avoided by mutual consent. I envied the seamstress stitching away in Mrs. Steele's sitting-room; she toiled hard, but she earned something, and had the comfort of ministering to her lame sister. I worked harder, for my long vigils began when her day's work was ended, and for all that my sewing was never finished.

A minister must always be well dressed, you know; it is expected of him that he should ever be seen in the broadcloth which many a

man in his church of twice his means does not feel able to afford for daily wear. Then his linen must be spotless, and in the midst of other things John's shirts wore out all at once, and I had to leave the children's clothes and go to work on them. I never set about any task with a heavier heart; we had not the money by us to pay for the calico, and that must be added to our account at the draper's: it was only putting off the evil day, for the bills were sure to come in at Christmas. The shop-keeper was very polite, and anxious to please me; but I felt like a thief when I saw him cut off his goods and do up the parcel, and I told John so when I came home.

It was hard for him, too; but he tried to cheer and encourage me. Many a man, at finding himself involved where he had every reason to expect that his cares had been lightened, would have thrown the blame on his wife's bad management, and indeed it does seem like it; but God knows I have tried to do my best. When I said so to John last night, and that I wished I was back again at Factoryville, he answered—“ We did not send ourselves here; it was God's own appointment, and not our seeking; we have no responsibility but to do the best we can, and I believe we shall be carried through somehow." So he took up his Bible, and read aloud-" Trust in the Lord, and be doing good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed."

But I didn't see how; and besides my own case there was that letter, which I had not the heart to trouble him with. I know it seems as if people ought to live comfortably on two hundred a year and no house-rent to pay, and I have seen the time when I should have blamed anybody that did not do it. But try it, with the expenses that grow out of keeping up a respectable appearance in a rich congregation, where you are not only expected to go to teaparties, but to give them, and are liable to have a presiding elder, or a city minister, or some one else who looks not only for Christian hospitality-which is such things as we have, and a willing mind, as I apprehend it—but such things as we never should have thought of having, but to entertain them and the brethren who drop in to see them.

Then, as I said before, one cannot march a family up the main aisle into the front pew with the consciousness that they are shabbier than the children of the man who makes their shoes and sits very near the door. I kept Wesley at home for three Sundays, until I could finish his new jacket; and Mrs. Strong and Mrs. Wise came to see me about it, and said it was setting a bad example, when the minister's children were not in their places!

I felt really bitter towards John, that he could go so quietly to bed after our talk, feeling so peaceful, when I stayed up and ironed out the cloth which Bridget had shrunk, so as to have it cut out as soon as the work was done in the morning. I could have done it earlier in the evening but for going to Thursday night prayer

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meeting; but that was expected" of me too, and the mothers' meeting, on Friday afternoon, and the Female Sanitary Circle, and the Wednesday evening lecture. It would have been a "bad example" if I had stayed at home and made my husband's shirts!

I tried to get at them the first thing in the morning, and was doing pretty well when Mrs. Steele called. I heard the carriage stop at the door in dismay, for I knew I must leave everything, baby and all, and go into the parlour. I hurried up-stairs as softly as I could, for the baby had pulled my hair out of order and rumpled my collar, and forgot to take a shawl into the parlour, though there was no fire there. Mrs. Steele's velvet cloak and rich furs kept her warm! I think, sometimes, that if we stood more on an equality I should really love Mrs. Steele; she has such lovely eyes, and a low, sweet voice, and such a gentle way. Her manner was so friendly that an insane idea of telling her all my troubles rushed into my mind. She always reminds me of Maria—of what Maria would be if she was in her position —and I felt as if she could understand my wretchedness. To think that Maria, with so much refinement and natural elegance, shrank before a petty grocer, because he had trusted her with ten shillings!

But I recollected myself in time. This favourite of fortune, whose furs alone had cost as much as Maria's whole year's earnings, could have no comprehension of any such distress; besides, might she not think it was a covert appeal for assistance? So my pride sealed my lips.

She had come to ask us to tea that evening. "Only a few friends, and she would send the carriage early."

A minister's wife has not the common refuge of an apology; it is expected of her always to accept an invitation thankfully, and be only too glad to get it. I thought of the baby screaming himself to sleep, because I was not there to undress him; that Lucy would most likely have a visitor drop in, or drop out herself, leaving the house and children to their fate; of the shirts huddled together and left for another day; of the afternoon prayer-meeting, which I was expected to open; and that by six o'clock I should be tired, and fagged, and more out of heart than ever-yet I said that I would come.

The door-bell rang as Mrs. Steele rose to go, and we met Mrs. Strong in the hall. It would not do to ask her into the sitting-room when her rich neighbour had evidently been entertained in the parlour. Mrs. Strong was "as good as anybody," to use her own frequent declaration; she would sit there and shiver first! Between them I lost the morning, and by the time I could help Lucy with the dinner things, and settle the children for the afternoon, and get dressed, it was time for the prayermeeting.

I was thankful it was only my part to read I could not have prayed without mockery; I

scarcely refrain from saying so, and John must have seen how coldly I looked at him when he entered into it heartily.

mas tree!

That was not the last I heard of the ChristO no! The committee fixed on the parsonage, at John's suggestion, as their point of meeting. They deliberated in the cold at least, for I would not have had a fire made if I could have afforded it. I felt so indignant at the waste of time, and thought, and means! "How much good such a sum contributed to the missionary society would have done!" I said to John, forgetting how nearly I had uttered the words of Judas, and that it had once been said "Inasmuch as ye did it to one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me." I grudged these little ones of His their innocent pleasure on the day that we have most reason to desire our thank-offerings to reach Him, through them.

I checked my own children sharply when they began to discover and wonder about the wonderful tree. "There will be nothing for us," I said, and I knew I wrested His words when I added, hardly, "To him that hath shall be given.' The children they are working for will be loaded down with gifts already, and your father and mother cannot give you so much as a doll.

The bills came in that week. Mr. Johns, who had sold me the shirting, apologized for sending his so early, but he knew the salary was drawn on the first of the month, and he needed the money, and thought it would make no difference to us. The grocer and the shoemaker did not soften the sum total of their demands by any kindly words. They were both members of the church, and paid their pew-rent regularly, and expected to be paid in

turn.

I seemed to feel each bill in turn as it came near the door. I stood with the yellow envelopes in my hand, suspiciously free from post-marks, more than a minute before I could summon the

courage to open them. It was little enough to you whose accounts reach hundreds, and you have only to hold out your hand for a cheque to meet them with, but to me ninety-seven shillings was appalling.

I laid them on John's plate with a most unloving feeling.

"He takes it all so coolly," I said to myself; "let me see what he will do now!"

"It is more than I thought for, Eunice." And he glanced up with a troubled expression in his wontedly calm face.

"I dare say; bills always are! What have we got to pay it with?"

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Five-pounds is every farthing we can call ours," he said, gloomily; for my words were almost taunts, and he feft them. "But I will not distrust my Master. He said the labourer is worthy of his hire, and He will see that mine is paid."

I had never entered into John's entire faith or reliance, though at times I had been made to feel that God provided for us, but now our

position seemed too desperate. I started up from the table, careless of the presence of the wondering children, and walked the floor wringing my hands. "And Maria and mother are starving," I burst out; "and I have not so much as a morsel to give them, and you sit there so calmly, saying, the Lord will provide I cannot bear it!"

It was not his fault that I had not been comforted by his sympathy, which was always ready, nor mine either. I had withheld my cares, feeling that he had much to bear, but now I was unjust enough to feel that he was indifferent to them.

"There, you can see for yourself." And I drew the still unanswered letter from my workbasket, and threw it down before him. I had not written them one word: what had I to say?

His

He sighed heavily when he had finished it; yet he did not resent my unkindness. dinner was untasted, but he set back the plate, and rose and went into his study. He had neither silver nor gold, but he went to give them his prayers, and it was a keener reproo than words would have been. I?—I had not even prayed for myself since the trouble came upon me. He prayed for me, too, I do not doubt it, though he never told me so. The fierceness of my pain left me; I only felt a sullen rebellious aching, like the low returning ground-swell washing up on the beach after a storm. It lasted all the night, and even the boisterous Christmas greetings of the children did not drive it away.

"I will get the children ready, and you can take them," I said at breakfast, when they all talked and wondered over the magic wealth of the Christmas tree. "I shall not go," I added, as John looked up at me inquiringly.

"Yes you will, Eunice; I wish it," he said, with more firmness than he had ever used towards me.

To anyone less fully bent on bitterness of spirit it was a lovely sight to see that cheerful crowd of happy faces, so eager, so radiant as they looked towards the great fir tree, loaded with its golden fruit, and faintly burning tapers struggling with the sunshine, though the room had been darkened, and the teachers scarcely less happy, and the fathers and mothers looking on. I knew I had spoken falsely then. To many of them this was the only gleam of Christmas plenty that shone in on their toiling, burdened lives.

It was acknowledging this to myself, and listening to the sweet unbroken childish voices singing a Christmas hymn to the dear old tune "Coronation"-which my mother loved so well-that began to soften my frozen heart; and when the distribution commenced, and the little ones passed by me so elated with their treasures, and my own had been remembered so bounti fully, I began to take shame to myself for seeking to deny it to them.

"See, this is for you, mother. Mr. Steele said I was to give it to you," Wesley said,