from him by the most torturing pain, than was devoted to the hoe, his father concluded he might as well go to school-provided, of course, he paid the expenses himself. "So on the first of September, about two months after he was sixteen, behold our hero leaving home again, with a bundle under his arm containing his earthly possessions; viz., one shirt, two pairs of socks, and a pair of suspenders. This last he prizes as the only gift he ever received from his father. He is going to The Rapids, where is a flourishing and popular academy. 66 But no traveller passed to see the forlorn boy sitting in utter abandonment, his head between his hands, and the tears without check coursing over his face. 'I don't know what answer Sandford made, but the good man talked with him some time about the blessed Saviour and His tender love to the sons of men; and giving him a little book, he rode away. From that time Sandford prayed that he might love the Saviour. But it was not until he was thirteen or fourteen that he became fully conscious of accepting the offer of love which the Father makes to all His children. And now the angels saw that Sandford was not poor, was not friendless; but weak and miserable with physical suffering, he forgot that he had a rich and loving Father; a Father who not only owned everything, bnt was more ready to bestow, than he, in the poverty of his experience, could begin to imagine. But that did not prevent this Father from remembering him. " 'On the road from Little Hope to The Rapids, one must pass, at that time in Sandford's history through a piece of wood two miles long, the road running over a hill fifty rods from the river. If any one had travelled that road on this particu-Man's extremity is God's opportunity.' lar September day, and had cast his eye through "Sandford sat weeping in the wood for a long a certain clump of laurels on the side of the time. Wiping his tears at last, and looking road towards the river, he would have seen, sit-around, he was startled to perceive that it was ting on an old log, a youth very coarsely dressed, almost night. He rose wearily from the log, his pants being of striped homemade kersey, his picked up his bundle, and began to proceed on coat of home manufacture entirely, his vest an his way. Just here, a gentleman coming up in article costing twenty-five cents, his shirt, made a carriage stopped, and asked him to ride. How of the coarsest cotton, without bosom, collar, or grateful Sandford felt! It seemed to him utterly cuffs; without neck-tie; his attire being com- impossible ever to reach The Rapids on foot. He pleted by a palm-leaf hat. thanked the gentleman, and stepped into the carriage. He was still more thankful when he learned the gentleman was going all the way to the village, and would take him with pleasure. 'Sitting comfortably in the carriage, SandOh, why was I born? What shall I do? ford revolved his position more dispassionately What will become of me? I am sick. I am al-in his mind, and it occurred to him that he ready so exhausted I can scarcely walk. I have might present himself at the door of Mr. F—, not a cent of money. Nobody cares for me. Ia man for whom he had worked on the previous have not a friend in the wide world. How can summer. He did so, and Mr. F appeared I go to school? How can I even live? Who glad to see him. He remained at his house unwill trust me? Somebody must, or I shall til noon the next day, and then went to the vilstarve! Why do not people believe that I lage to see what arrangements he could make am sick? Oh, I am sick; and what shall I do? with reference to school. He was more hopeful, I am too tired to proceed. Where shall I stay now. A good night's rest had refreshed him, to-night? If I had only one friend, how glad I and he had time to consider his position from a should be!' new stand-point. Something had whispered to him that though he had no friends, perhaps he could make some. He resolved to be entirely trustworthy; to suffer rather than to do wrong: to be respectful and obliging to those with whom he came in contact, and to fulfil, as far as possi ble, his destiny in a manly, worthy way, trusting in God. 466 All attempts after manly fortitude here broke down utterly, and he sobbed bitterly. Abandoned by his kindred, unfriended, alone! had the boy then forgotten the pitiful Father, who had six years before manifested Himself to the heart of the child whose life was so barren of earthly good? It was in this way. He was only ten years old, and walking along the road near his father's, was overtaken by a man on horseback, who stopped and spoke to him. "My little fellow, do you love the Saviour?' "He was told that Mrs. Mauran, a widow, would let him have the use of a room for five dollars per term. He went to see her and frankly told her that he had not now the five livelihood. dollars required. She said she would trust himself and parents a handsome and even luxurious for the payment until he was able to earn it, and he took immediate possession of the room, with the proviso that Mrs. Mauran should bake bread | for him, and sell him all the milk he might require. Still there were difficulties. He had no money with which to purchase the meal for the bread. Fuel and lights must be had. It was a rule of the Institution that tuition must be paid in advance. Too ill to work, without money, without friends, he began again to doubt. At the Academy at The Rapids I advanced slowly, being unable, from illness, to study but little; but my capacity for retaining was great; what I learned once was mine forever. So that I made steady progress, which, even at a snail's pace, was something worth while. I was beginning to take better heart. "What can I do? How am I ever going to learn anything? I cannot go to school without money; I cannot work to get any!' He sat dreamy and silent in the room he had hired, only less forlorn than he had been on the log in the woods. But there suddenly sprung up within new resolution and courage. Snatching his hat, he went out. I will try. I can but be refused,' he said. "Going again to Mr. F he said-Sir, I have returned to ask a favor of you. As I told you last evening, I have concluded to enter the Academy at The Rapids. But I have no money and no friends, and am not now able to work. Will you lend me fifteen dollars, and trust me until I can pay you?' This was asked with a trembling voice; but Mr. F- took no notice of that. "I have not the money now,' he said, 'but come down to-morrow and I will let you have it.' "Sandford returned with a light step and lighter heart. The moment he entered his room, he fell on his knees and thanked God. Then he went out and bought half a bushel of Indian meal and another half bushel of rye meal, promising to pay for it the next day. "The next day he received the money, according to promise, and with a very grateful heart. He paid for the meal and bought a Grammar and a Geography, paid his tuition for the term, and had ten dollars in his pocket." Dropping here the thin veil of the journal, and speaking "in propria persona," it is but justice to myself to say that I was never wanting in energy; that I never yielded weakly to adverse circumstances; and but for a delicacy of physical organization, which was rendered greater by the hardships of my early days, I should before this have hewn myself a way in which to walk freely up to such manhood as God intended me to attain. I knew I was not wanting in various capabilities; that I could, with a moderate degree of health, earn for my The term closed. I owed Mrs. Mauran ten dollars for room-rent, washing, milk and breadbaking. I had kept hunger away with brown bread and milk. My kind hostess would still wait her pay, and I advanced tuition for another term. There was at this point one source of uneasiness. My father had been through the term continually sending to me to purchase various articles for him in the village, without ever sending anything in payment. The articles had been charged to his name; but now the merchants asked for their money, and none was forthcoming. I knew my father could not raise the money, and I felt in honor obliged to take the debts for him. The creditors willingly took my promissory notes. I staid at The Rapids two years, part of the time in school, and part of the time working at whatever offered. There was then three hundred dollars which my father had taken in articles for family use, and for which I had promised to pay. Then my father offered me to take the land which he owned as my own property, maintaining the family from it. This proposition I declined; but promised, if my parents, brothers and sisters would give up the home affairs into my hands, I would pay all the debts, supporting the family meanwhile, and exact nothing for my services. To this they consented, and I commenced the task. Matters were going on swimmingly; but such is the frailty of poor human nature, that soon uneasiness was manifested by my brothers and sisters. "Sandford will certainly get all the property for himself," whispered they among themselves. I was wounded at heart, but I took no notice, for I knew they were differently constituted from me. I would not blame them; they could not understand what disinterestedness meant. But an occasion came on which a cow being exchanged for another in trade, the whole family broke out into recrimination. I heard them through in calmness and silence. Then I went up stairs, packed my trunk, with many tears (and very little clothing), labelled it The friend Charley Smith, asked me to walk with him. Our rhetorical exercises were held on Wednesday afternoons, and after the spouting from the platform was over, we were accustomed to have a holiday. We walked in the grove by Fawn river; and there, under the glory of gold and crimson branches, stood a little group of Rapids, went to my mother in the kitchen, and said good-by; to my father in the barn, where I again said good-by, and added—" I am going to The Rapids." Going up stairs again, I brought down my trunk and deposited it with a neighbor, asking him to put it aboard the stage-coach, which would pass his door; then I started on foot for The Rapids. There I obtained imme-girls, prominent among whom was my enchantdiate employment in a machine shop. I lived very economically, and paid as rapidly as possible the debts contracted by my father. I made friends. I gained the confidence and good word of my employers. ress! How I hoped Charley Smith would join them! How, indeed, could he help it? He, who was acquainted with all the young ladies in the school worth knowing; who had bows and smiles at command, and black eyes almost as handsome as those beneath the Shaker bonnet! My heart beat rapidly. But no, he scarcely noticed them, and turned in quite another direction. My heart sank. I cared nothing for the walk by Fawn river. The next day Charley asked me to his room. He came often to mine, and we worked out our mathematical problems together; but it so happened I had never called on him. "Do you room alone?" I asked. "No," said he, carelessly; "Sis and Cousin Hatty room with me." I was rather shy, but knew not well how to decline, and we went to his room. No one was there, and we sat down to our mathematics. Presently, however, the door opened, and two cullis, ponderous iron door were passed, and I stood face to face with my castle princess! "My sister Henrietta; my cousin, Miss Hatty Robbin," was Charley's introduction. "The autumn of 1839 found me again a pupil in the Academy. I now purposed to qualify myself for a teacher in the public schools. During this term I made many acquaintances and some warm friends among the scholars; but these were confined to my own sex. Not that I was incapable of appreciating female excel. lence, neither was it that there were not most charming specimens of budding womanhood every morning to be seen at prayers in the Franklin Hall of the Academy, and every hour to be met coming from the recitation rooms; but I was shy. I knew that I was awkward and unused to drawing-room gallantries. But I had my secret, which even frank, free, delightful Charley Smith had failed to discover. Passing my window many times a day, going to recita-young ladies entered. In an instant moat, porttions and returning to her room, was a charming figure, who hid her face in a Shaker bonnet, and walked demurely as a nun, and looked upon the ground. I grew curious to see what eyes those were which turned in "maiden meditation" to the stones of the sidewalk. I came to watch for glimpses of the face; I came to look at the innocent Shaker as at a hateful duenna who kept watch and ward over an injured beauty. It was like a vision of loveliness seen at a castle window, drawbridge up, port-"to-the-manor-born" air! And I, Sandford, cullis down. But notwithstanding the envious Shaker sun-bonnet, I saw, at length, (through praiseworthy perseverance,) the face it guarded, to my full content. Black, lustrous eyes, shaded and softened by long lashes, and subdued still more by a most enchanting modesty, were the greatest beauty of that face; but sweetness, gentleness, intelligence, vivacity, refinement, and a winning, nameless charm, all legible in countenance, and form, and attitude, and step, made her to me the most fascinating creature my eyes had ever beheld. I wondered how they called her, but I never dared to ask. Miss Hatty Robbin was a sweet enough girl, but who looks at a cinnamon-rose when the damask is in bloom? So she was Charley Smith's sister, and I had never guessed it! How like a common blessing he took the honor of belonging to her-looking on her with such a born in Little Hope, actually stood making some sort of an awkward bow to my Shakeress, without the interfering duenna! The hour of fate had struck. I went home like one intoxicated. Dark, soft eyes floated between me and my book on the next day, and the next. I met her again and again. I heard her often mentioned as one of the finest scholars in the Academy. I kept up a pretence of studying and reciting, but it was all over with me. "She," I told myself perpetually, "is a perfect pattern of a lady; pious, educated and refined; I am a green lad, brought up in the On a particular Wednesday afternoon my woods." CONSIDER THE LILIES.-SONG OF THE CLOUDS. "What was I, that I should love her, But this self-remonstrating was like binding Samson with green withs that were never dried. One look at her, and he brake the withs as a thread of tow is broken when it toucheth the fire. Having been once introduced, we were continually being thrown in each other's path. But it would be tedious were I to lengthen my narration by recounting all the incidents which were the food I fed my passion on. I must hasten to my story's close. The next winter I taught school, and successfully. But I soon found where my capability 513 lay. Nothing in the wide field of mechanics was beyond my reach. Nothing came amiss to me; statics, dynamics, hydraulics. My Creator meant me for a mechanician. As soon as I was free to act out the hidden impulses of my nature, I learned all this, and made myself a place among men. I soon found myself a necessity to men. My services were greatly and widely sought. My inventions have been of use in the world, and I am this day a prosperous and successful man. But with all my striving I could never have have been what I am, but for the love of bonny Henrietta. For I won her. CONSIDER THE LILIES. BY AUGUST BELL. Only a flower! white-leafed indeed, and fair, True, I can think adown the years, recalling Then on their snowy depths I, girl-like, pondered, How anything could keep so fresh and white It seemed so beautiful to think He might His pure love down for us to stop and read, But life moved onward, now my care seems small For flowers at all. And the sweet prayers of childhood, to wild scheming, The passionate desires, the bitterness I now confess? Did love, that should be holy in its might, Did a friend falter? did truth disappear Dear flower, that comest like an angel-teaching, Can it be possible for me once more Backward to sail to that safe, sunny shore, From whence I wandered, wearied out to cast Anchor at last? Come back, come back, oh, hours of trust! even yet These strifes that soil the soul, this gnawing care, When came sad knowledge? where did change begin? And let my spirit lily-raiment wear; HOW A WOMAN HAD HER WAY CHAPTER XXI. BY ELIZABETH PRESCOTT, (Continued from page 461.) HER LADYSHIP'S DIPLOMACY. "No," said her ladyship, "I cannot consent to Fra's appearance in any tableau. It will distract her attention from her studies, and interfere with the present perfect regularity of her habits." Philip bent over the bright-colored satin tunic which he had been admiring, and which formed a part of Kate Croydon's Turkish dress, and looked very much disappointed. In his heart he thought that her ladyship was trying to spoil his tableau because it was his. to her ladyship's all-powerful will? The emergency was great, and required a corresponding effort. At present she must devote all her strength to breaking the bands which she feared were about to knit together the young hearts which were beating around her, and trust to time and her own resources for the rest. Decidedly, her ladyship's genius was Napoleonic. With her skin like satin, her soft, liquid eyes, and silky chestnut hair, her delicate, graceful frame, and hands which looked as if moulded from pinky wax, her will was as inflexible as that of the gray old Iron Duke who had so admired her in her fair spring-tide. 'There is no other Lucy Ashton," said Gertrude. "No one but Fra has that peculiar hair. Cannot your ladyship make an exception in our favor?" "Cannot you substitute another tableau?" was appeared perfectly serene. the Countess' counter-question. "But I have already ordered Philip's dress as the Master of Ravenswood. I intended it to be a surprise, Philip; but Lady Ilshey has obliged me to forestall my intention," said Gertrude, her color heightening as she saw the meaning glances which were levelled at her. "I knew that the others had ordered their dresses of a costumer, and Philip had not; and I was determined his appearance should not discredit our tableaux. So, my lady, I think you will have to let us have Fra for this once." "You have persuaded me," said her ladyship, raising her eyes with a smile, after this period of intense thought, during which her face had "Fra may represent Lucy Ashton rather than to interfere with your arrangements." "Thank you a thousand times," said Gertrude, who was agreeably surprised by her ladyship's compliance with her request. "I have a dress at home which was my great-grandmother's, and will exactly suit her." "And I will furnish the lace and jewels," said the Countess, leaving the room, for the purpose of ordering from London a ball-dress for her granddaughter, for she had determined that the dance succeeding the tableaux should witness her debut. Her ladyship's resolution was taken. In imagination, she saw Philip in the possession of the splendid fortune which she had destined to swell the rent roll of the Ilshey estates, anding at herself in the mirror. Edith triumphing in the overthrow of her aunt's most cherished plans. "I'm afraid her ladyship is going to die," said Chip, trying on her monk's frock, and grimac "I never knew her to break a resolve before, and I fear it argues immediate dissolution." "Why?" asked Lalla Pryne, who had not two ideas in her head, and was always in a Philip had admired Fra when she first came state of astonishment when with persons of ordito Ilshey, and if the little school-girl had at-nary intellect, as she could not comprehend half tracted his fancy, what might not the sudden that they said. change from chrysalis to butterfly accomplish? Would not Fra, in womanly dress, with all the first freshness of her young beauty, and the becoming accessories of lace and jewels, carry off the palm from all the beautiful girls whom chance and her ladyship's policy had assembled ? rescue Roland from his infatuation for Stephana, attract Philip from Gertrude, and having performed these offices, marry Roger in obedience "You shouldn't talk so, Chip," gasped Kate, who had overpowered herself in giving directions to her maid about the gold embroidered border of or Turkish headd-gear. "I wont talk so, my sultana, if you'll lend me your pearls to twist with mine for a necklace." |