As she spoke those words a sharp pang shot through her heart. It was well that her child had another name.

She was soon sufficiently recovered to leave the asylum. By the kind offices of the matron, she obtained employment in a cap factory, and a plain but comfortable boarding-place in the lower part of the city. She worked at the shop, and left Franky during the day with her landlady, a kind-hearted but poor woman. Her earnings were but three dollars a week, and their board was two and a quarter; but on the balance she contrived to provide herself and her child with clothes. The only luxury she indulged in was an occasional walk on Sunday to Bloomingdale to see her friend, the good

matron.

Thus things went on for two years; and if not happy, she was at least comfortable. Her father never relented; but her aunt wrote her often, and there was comfort in the thought that at least one of her early friends had not cast her off. That good lady, too, sent her now and then small remittances, but they came few and far between; for as the pious woman grew older, her heart gradually returned to its first love--the poor heathen.

Before leaving the asylum, she wrote to Kate Russell. She told her of all that had happened, as far as she knew, and thanked her for all her goodness and kindness to her. She waited some weeks, but no answer came; and then she wrote again. Still no answer came, though that time she waited two or three months. Fearing that something had befallen Kate, she then mustered courage to write Mr Russell. Still she got no reply, and she reluctantly concluded -though she had not asked them for aid-that they had ceased to feel interested in her.

"They had not, madam," I exclaimed. spoken most kindly of you.

"Kate has often She wanted to come here today; but I did not know this, and I was unwilling to bring her." She looked at me with a strange surprise. lighted, and her face beamed, as she said, "And you know her, too?"

"Know her! She will soon be my wife."

Her eyes

"And you will tell her how much I love her-how grateful I am to her?"

I will," I replied. I did not say, as I might have said, that Hallet had access to Mr Russell's mails at the time she wrote, and knowing her handwriting, he had undoubtedly intercepted her letters.

After a long pause, she resumed her story,

years, John-that was his name-came to her, his face beaming all over with joy, and said—

Father has

"O Fanny! I am going-going to Boston. got me into a great store there-a great store, and I'm to stay till I'm twenty-one. They won't pay me hardly anything-only fifty dollars the first year, and twenty-five more every other year; but father says it's a great store, and it'll be the making of me.' And he danced and sang in his joy; but she wept in bitter grief.

Well, five more years rolled away,-they were not winged as before, and John came home to spend his two weeks of summer vacation. He had come every year; but then he said to her what he had never said before-that which a woman never forgets. He told her that the old Quaker gentleman, the head of the great house he was with, had taken a fancy to him, and was going to send him to Europe, in the place of the junior partner, who was sick, and might never get well. That he should stay away a year; but when he came back, he was sure the old fellow would make him a partner, and then-and he strained her to his heart as he said it-"then I will make you my little wife, Fanny, and take you to Boston, and you shall be a fine lady -as fine a lady as Kate Russell, the old man's daughter.' And again he danced and sang; and again she wept, but this time it was for joy.

He stayed away a little more than a year, and when he returned, he did not come at once to her, but wrote that he

would very soon. In a few days he sent her a newspaper, in which was a marked notice, which read somewhat as follows:

"The copartnership heretofore existing under the name and style of RUSSELL, ROLLINS, & Co., has been dissolved by the death of DAVID GRAY, Jun.

"The outstanding affairs will be settled, and the business continued, by the surviving partners, who have this day admitted Mr JOHN HALLET to an interest in their firm."

The truth had been gradually dawning upon me, yet when she mentioned his name, I involuntarily exclaimed

"John Hallet! and were you engaged to him?”

The sick woman had paused from exhaustion, but, making a feeble effort to raise herself, she said, in a voice stronger than before

"Do you know him, sir?"

"Know him? Yes, madam ;" and I paused and spoke in

a lower tone, for I saw that my manner was unduly exciting her; "I know him well."

I did know him well; and it was on the evening of the day that notice was written, that I, a boy of sixteen, with my hat in my hand, entered the inner office of the countingroom of Russell, Rollins, & Co. Mr Russell, a genial, gentle, good old man, was at his desk, writing; and Mr Rollins sat at his, poring over some long accounts.

"Mr Russell and Mr Rollins," I said, very respectfully, "I have come to bid you good-bye. I am going to leave you." "Thee going to leave!" exclaimed Mr Russell, laying down his spectacles; "what does thee mean, Edmund ?" "I mean, don't want to stay any longer, sir," I replied,

my voice trembling.

"But you must stay, Edmund," said Mr Rollins, in his harsh, imperative way. "Your uncle indentured you to us

till you are twenty-one, and you can't go."

"I shall go, sir," I replied, with less respect than he deserved. "My uncle indentured me to the old firm; I am not bound to stay with the new."

Mr Russell looked grieved, but in the same mild tone as before he said

"I am sorry, Edmund, very sorry, to hear thee say that. Thee can go if thee likes; but it grieves me to have thee quibble so. Thee will not prosper, my son, if thee follows this course in life."

The moisture came into the old man's eyes as he spoke. It filled mine, and rolled in large drops down my cheeks, as I replied

66

Forgive me, sir, for speaking so. I do not wish to do wrong, but I can't stay with John Hallet."

"Why can't thee stay with John?"

"He don't like me, sir. We are not friends."

"Why are you not friends?"

"Because I know him, sir."

"What do you know of him?" asked Mr Rollins, in the same harsh, abrupt tone as before. I had never liked Mr Rollins, and his words just then stung me to the quick. I forgot myself, for I replied :

"I know him to be a lying, hypocritical scoundrel, sir." Some two years before, Hallet had joined the church in which Mr Rollins was a deacon, and was universally regarded as a pious, devout young man. The opinion I expressed was, therefore, rank heterodoxy. To my surprise, Mr Rollins turned to Mr Russell, and said

“I believe the boy is right, Ephraim; John professes too much to be sincere; I've told you so before."

"I can't think so, Thomas; but it's too late to alter things now. We shall see. Time will prove him."

I soon left, but not till they had shaken me warmly by the hand, wished me well, and promised me their aid whenever I required it.

When I had given her some of the cordial, and she had rested a while, the sick girl resumed her story.

In about a month, Hallet came. He pictured to her his new position-the wealth and standing it would give him; and he said he was preparing a little home for her, and would soon return and take her with him for ever.

[He had then for more than a year been affianced to another-a rich man's only child-a woman older than he, who would have been most repulsive to him, had not money been his god.]

It is needless to detail by what devilish fraud and artifice this wretch at last achieved the poor girl's ruin.

About a month afterward, taking up a Boston paper, she saw the marriage of Mr John Hallet, merchant, to Miss "Some other person has his name,' "she thought. "It cannot be he; yet it is strange." It was strange, but it was true; for there, in another column, she read that John Hallet, of the house of Russell, Rollins, & Co., and his accomplished lady, were passengers by the steamer Cambria, | which sailed from this port yesterday for Liverpool."

Mr

The blow crushed her. But why need I tell of her grief, her agony, her despair? For months she did not leave her room; and when at last she crawled out into the open air, the nearest neighbours scarcely recognised her.

It was long, however, before she knew all the wrong that Hallet had done her. Her aunt noticed her altered appearance, and questioned her. She told her all. At first the cold, hard woman spoke harshly to her; but, though cold and harsh, she had a woman's heart, and she forgave her. She undertook to tell the story to her brother. He had his sister's nature; was a strict, pious, devout man; prayed every morning and evening in his family, and, rain or shine, went every Sunday to hear two dull, cast-iron sermons at the old meeting-house; but he had not her woman's heart. He stormed and raved for a time, and then he cursed his only child, and drove her from his house. The aunt had forty dollars-the proceeds of sock-knitting and straw-braiding-not yet invested in hymn-books, and, with one sigh for

With that, and a

the poor heathen, she gave it to her. small satchel of clothes, and with two little hearts beating under her bosom, the poor girl went out into the world. Where could she go? She knew not; but she wandered on till she reached the village. The stage was standing before the tavern door, and the driver was mounting the box to start. She thought for a moment. She could not stay there. It would anger her father if she did; no one would take her in; and, besides, she could not meet, in her misery and her shame, those who had known her from childhood. She spoke to the driver. He dismounted, opened the door, and she took a seat in the coach, to go-she did not know whither, she did not care where.

They rode all night, and in the morning stopped at Concord. As she stepped from the stage, the red-faced landlord asked her if she was going further. She said, "I do not know, sir;" but then a thought struck her. It was five months since Hallet had started for Europe, and it might be that he had returned. She would go to him.

Though he could not undo the wrong he had done, he still would aid and pity her. She asked the route to Boston, and, after a light meal, was on the way thither.

She arrived after dark, and was driven to the Marlboro Hotel that Eastern Eden for lone women and tobaccoeschewing men-and there she passed the night. Though weak from recent illness, and worn and wearied with the long journey, she could not rest or sleep. The great sorrow that had fallen on her had driven rest from her heart and quiet sleep from her eyelids for ever. In the morning she inquired the way to Russell, Rollins, & Co.'s, and, after a long search, found the grim old warehouse. She started to

enter the counting-room, but her heart failed her. She turned away, and wandered off through the narrow, crooked streets. She met a busy crowd hurrying to and fro, but no one noticed or cared for her. She saw neat, cheerful homes smiling around her, and she thought how every one had shelter and friends but her. She looked up at the cold, gray sky, and oh, how she longed that it might fall down and bury her for ever! And still she wandered, till her limbs grew weary and her heart grew faint. At last she sank down exhausted, and wept-wept as only the lost and the utterly forsaken can weep. Some little boys were playing near, and after a time they left their sports, and came to her. They spoke kindly to her, and it gave her strength. She rose, and walked on again. A hack passed her, and she got