wages that honest people set you to earn.' And three broad penny-pieces fell at her feet.

Another low curtsey from Helen and a farther progress of a few steps were followed by a louder shout from the farmer: Mind, you may tell old Mrs. Green to send in the evening for a jug of stale milk, and a handful of oatmeal for the ailing boy. So now

be off with you, you idlers'!'

'What a funny old fellow he is,' observed Mary, when far enough to give utterance to the laugh she she had with difficulty suppressed: 'but it's a shame to let him scold at us in that fashion.'

'Old Buckle,' observed Helen, 'is never in right earnest but when he does a good-natured thing. All his hard words go for nothing.'

'Then why do you look frightened, and be so humble to him?'

'He speaks so loud, and looks so angry, it does half frighten me at the time: and as for being humble, Mary, it's the duty of such as we to shew respect to our betters.'

'Oh, we are as good as old Buckle any day; only he's getting up in the world, and we are getting down you know,' observed the little girl skipping backwards before her companion, as gaily as if she had announced the reverse of this proposition. Helen sighed; for she knew there were hearts growing heavy under the consciousness of what gave poor little Mary no concern.

Helen Fleetwood was the orphan child of one who, being tempted by a fine morning sky to launch upon the waves his worldly all-his boat and implements of fishing-was with them engulfed by the surges that a sudden storm lashed into fury. Helen, who was

four years old at the time, retained a distinct recollection of the crowds that pressed to one spot on the shore, near which stood her paternal cottage, and the shrieks and wailings that burst forth when the few survivors of that party who together started before sunrise, returned at the twilight hour of eve with sad tales of their companions' fate. Fleetwood was but one among five or six whose widows were pacing the beach in wild distraction, or sitting stupified beneath the blow. Helen could also remember the day when, some time after this, a corpse, decomposed beyond the possibility of recognition, was cast ashore on a sandbank just above low-water mark, and identified by some fragment of wearing apparel as that of her father. She saw him not: but too well did her memory retain the impression of that moment when the Widow Green, holding her by the hand, directed her gaze into a coffin, where lay the heart-broken mother and her new-born babe peacefully shrouded together. Of these things the girl never spoke, and it was kindly hoped that they had faded from her naturally cheerful mind: but it was far otherwise.

The Widow Green had experienced affliction in another form; of all the children whom she had reared, her son William best repaid the maternal cares bestowed on him; and when he married, the first act of his independence as master of a comfortable cottage, was to place his mother in the choicest of its rooms. His wife, a kind-hearted young woman, heartily concurred in the proceeding, and reaped her reward when the rapid increase of a young family gave full scope to the valuable services of a judicious grandmother. All went well with them; and the readiness with which poor little Helen

was adopted into the domestic party on the old woman's suggestion, more closely cemented their mutual confidence and love. But, alas! William's third child sickened of small-pox; the eldest caught the infection, then the mother, and all three died. Poor Green struggled hard to bear up, for the sake of those who remained; but a violent cold taken through continual transitions from the close heated atmosphere of a sick room to the keen night air of February, in his walks across the common to the doctor's shop, fell on his lungs; and consumption soon laid him beside those whom he had dearly loved and deeply mourned.

The widow was a woman of vigorous mind, doubly armed in the panoply of faith, and enabled to cast herself, with the children committed to her, on Him whom she had found to be a stronghold in the day of trouble. Her charge consisted of three boys and a girl, the survivors of William's family, and Helen Fleetwood. Richard Green was a year older than Helen ; James three years younger; and Mary his junior by nearly two years. The little Willy was but eight at the period when this story commences; and Richard was seventeen. Their father held his cottage, with a field and small garden, on a lease of lives, and bequeathed them to his mother in trust for Richard, should the lease remain good until be came of age. The landlord indeed, who had granted it on exceedingly favourable terms, promised a renewal; but he died soon after his tenant, and his verbal engagement could not bind the heir at law—a gentleman residing at a distance, and leaving every thing in the hands of his trusty agent.

Mrs. Green proved herself a wise and faithful

steward. The cottage was larger than their diminished household required; and she let two rooms to a respectable woman, the widow of the parish beadle, who paid liberally, according to her means, and proved a quiet, friendly lodger. She let the field by the year, for its just value, which nearly settled the rent of the whole premises; and managed the little garden so well that its produce brought in a small sum, after supplying the family table. A few fowls, Helen's peculiar care, yielded their quota of profit in the neighbouring village market; James kept rabbits, which, thriving well on the refuse of the garden, helped to replenish the general purse: the same prolific garden nearly maintained a pair of ducks, presented to little Willy in their infancy, and soon learning to forage for themselves, to the great advantage of lettuces and savoys, which had often borne the marks of sundry nocturnal depredators, against whom the said ducks waged exterminating war. Willy sank a little round tub in the fowl-yard, and predicted that his ducks would soon prove the most valuable of their possessions.

Richard had profited well by the advantages placed within his reach: he was of a serious, thoughtful turn, but exceedingly active. The school where his father had placed him at seven years old was established for the benefit of boys in an humble walk of life, and the gratuitous teaching was excellent. Richard acquired whatever was to be learned, by his diligence and good conduct earning a reputation that ensured him employment during every spare hour among the neighbours; and his gains, from which he never deducted a halfpenny for his own gratification, added to the produce of his grandmother's unwearied industry and that of Helen, assisted in

time by the improving habits of Mary, who was often roused into a great fight,' as she called it, against her natural love of ease, placed the family above want, and indeed in possession of every comfort they could reasonably desire.

But alas for the stability of human happiness, so far as it is dependent on perishable things! The last life in the lease was one on which they might fairly have reckoned for many a long year to come. A severe illness, however, seized on the strong frame of the young man, the only survivor of the three named in that document; and although he rallied in some degree, his state was evidently a precarious one. The lodger, too, was summoned to take possession of some little property left to her in another county, and must leave them shortly. James, the second boy, fell into weak health, imposing an additional care and expense on the household, just as he and they anticipated his becoming an important help, through a good situation that was offered, but for which his increasing debility unfitted him. All these things tended to cloud the atmosphere, and made even the giddy Mary observe that they were 'going down in the world.'

Of this, however, no visible token as yet appeared; and when the two girls, fresh from their early walk, drew near the beloved cottage, all was as smiling as their own faces. James had cleaned out his rabbit-coop, Willy was gazing with admiration at the exploits of his young ducks in their narrow pond, and Richard made the most of a spare half hour in digging up the bed where a crop of peas had yielded their last produce. As Helen and Mary approached, he struck the spade into the ground,