think that she would marry a man that used alcohol as a beverage."

The ringing of the dinner bell broke up the unpleasant tête-à-tête of the brother and sister. Alba was seated beside her new sister, apparently as well acquainted as if they had always known each other. Odora fancied her mother did not look quite as happy as she did before they stopped, and thought that her forebodings were in unison with her own. Mr. Willard looked with pride on what he then called his "prizes" that he had brought to Champlain. The dinner passed pleasantly, after which he asked Alpheus to take a walk.

Odora and her mother, with Alba between them, were seated on the sofa in the parlor. Odora looking wishfully into her mother's face and said, "Are you happy, dear mamma?”

"Yes, I am quite happy, are you?"

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"Yes, mamma, only I feel rather strange; but, I wish George was here; when do you expect him?”

"He will be at home about Christmas, and that will be only five weeks." "Mamma, is Mr. Willard a Christian!"

"No, Odora, he has never made a public profession of religion, but believes there is divine reality in the religion of Jesus Christ; his theology is correct with the doctrines of the Bible."

"Mamma, is Mr. Willard a of a temperance society?"

member

"I should think not, Odora, from the looks of those decanters in the other room, but he was recommended to me as strictly temperate, and I think, if he is not, he will be an easy convert to our temperance principles; we must make him the special object of our prayers."

The five weeks referred to were taken up in receiving and returning calls; the new-comers had little time to be home-sick. Though Odora sometimes longed for her quiet home, she did what she could to assist her mother in waiting on and entertaining company. Mrs. Willard plainly saw that the sphere in which she was now to move was entirely different from her former one. George came by the way of Roselle, bringing with him several letters for his mother and sister, and one for Alpheus, from Henry Radford. An unbroken correspondence was kept up between the friends of Champlain and Roselle for several years. During these years Mrs. Willard did not find her husband as easy a convert as she had expected. Mr. Willard was away much of his time, always having an apology for his absence. Mrs. Willard and her daughters did all they

could to make his home attractive. Odora often found her mother looking very sad, and sometimes in tears; this always occasioned her great pain, she did not venture to inquire the cause.

Alpheus, less sensitive than his sister, on one occasion made a direct reference to Mr. Willard's course of conduct. Odora rebuked her brother, and begged him not to do the like again; he was very angry; he had always been jealous of his elder brother, and sought to lower him in the estimation of his sister, and told Odora that George would be as bad as Mr. Willard if he stayed there. At this she turned deadly pale, her brain whirling so much that she was scarcely able to get to the window; hard as was Al pheus's heart, it was a little softened when he saw the distress he had caused his sister, and he said in a kinder voice than usual

"George is going to New York soon, so he will not be under Mr. Willard's influence any longer."

That night Odora was attacked with an epidemic that was prevailing, which threatened to deprive her of life, and her mother of the last tie that bound her to earth. Her disease at length abated, but she had been made an invalid for life. She saw her hopes for future usefulness blighted, and when she was alone, where no eye could see her, she looked upon her blighted prospects, and sometimes in agony she would ask, "Who is sufficient for these things." At first Odora could not see the justice of God; while time was making its changes in her temporal prospects, grace was making a greater in her spiritual. Odora found that God tempered the winds to the shorn of his flock, and while she looked into the far distant future of both worlds,