remember it. I regret I did not read more of the Bible when I could.

"I had an elegant copy of the Scriptures lying on an embroidered crimson velvet mat, on a little table in the corner of my parlor; but after I had written in it the date of our marriage, and the advent of our little Violet, I seldom consulted its sacred oracles."

Mr. Leaden repeated slowly, "The sun shall be no more thy light by day, neither shall the moon give light unto thee; but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory." "Thy sun shall no more go down, nor thy moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be thy everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended."

"The Bible, to me," said Dr. Wendon, "is like the well of Sychar, deep, and nothing to draw with. These promises

are not mine."

"You have a claim to them all," said Mr. Leaden, kindly. No eclipse need hide your soul from this spiritual sunshine. These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.' Thy word is very sure, therefore thy servant loveth it.' These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.' He has put you on the darkening waves, that you may follow the guiding light hung out astern. Only believe, and you shall hear a voice as you take a hand stretched out to you from out the dark,' Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I`unto you.'

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I once read in a book," said Dr. Wendon, "that thero was no real trouble, so long as we can have God for our friend. I know no earthly philosophy can comfort or make me happy, afflicted as I am. If there is such a thing as peace, I would like to have it. As I stumble along my dark way, I wish I could walk and talk with God, and I would not be so perfectly desolate. I read in the Bible, when a child, about Paul and Silas singing praises in prison, and it seemed to me very strange. My soul is in a dark prison, and I cannot sing praises. I cannot see how God communes with man. It all seems dark and mysterious to me. Right before me I can feel

The great world's altar stairs,

That slope through darkness up to God.'

I cannot go forward without some hand to lead me."

Mr. Leaden was called away, and the doctor sat alone by the window till almost sundown; and at last his pent up heart burst forth in the words of that beautiful hymn :

He struggled long with doubts of his own fitness and of God's willingness, as he walked back and forth during the long evening, and at last he knelt down and prayed like a tired child at a kind Father's feet, and this was his prayer : "Just as I am-though tossed about With many a conflict, many a doubt, Fighting within, and fears without, Ŏ Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Just as I am-poor, wretched, blind,
Light, riches, healing of the mind,
Yea, all I need in Thee to find,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Just as I am-Thou wilt receive,
Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve,
Because Thy promise I believe,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

Just as I am--Thy love unknown
Has broken every barrier down;
Now to be Thine, yea, Thine alone,

O Lamb of God, I come, I come!'

Morning came at last, and as the sunshine fell on those sightless eyes, these words floated into the illumined casement of his soul, like a chime of heavenly music :

"Immortal light, and joys unknown,

Are for the saints in darkness sown."

As he rises, and goes about his room, alone, as before, he sings with radiant face:

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Thy will be done! I will not lear

The fate provided by Thy love;

Though clouds and darkness shroud me here,

I know that all is bright above."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

PRUDENCE POTTER'S NEW DISCOVERIES.

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"O DEAR! I am clear beat out. I wonder if there are any more stairs ?" exclaimed a sharp, impatient voice, as a straw bonnet with green ribbons, a brown shawl, a gray bag, and spectacles, were seen slowly ascending the fifth flight of Mrs. Edwards' stairs. Well, well! what can't be cured must be endured; but I guess my rheumatism won't be any better after this. I never thought I'd get up so high, but I'd climb twenty pairs of stairs before I'd pay six dollars a week for my board-but that mortgage money will all be lost if I don't stay and see about it.

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"Here," said she, suddenly turning round and addressing the Bridget behind her, who had been showing her the way up stairs, Here," said she, just read what's on that card. I must have put my best spectacles in my other pocket. I was so flustered when I came off."

Bridget takes the card, and reads

TRAP, FOGG & CRAFT,

Attorneys and Counsellors at Law." Trap, Fogg and Craft, is it? Well Mr. Fogg gave me the card, and he says it is a stiddy, respectable firm. Well, I must stay here until this business is done. If Priscilla's husband hadn't died until Spring, I might have stayed there, and saved paying all this board. It is a good plan to visit when you can, and save paying your hotel bill."

"Here is your room, ma'am," said Bridget, throwing wide open a door at one end of the hall; and turning round, she went down stairs quickly, as if glad to got back to her bedmaking on the second floor, where she could smell of the nice young gentleman's Lubin and soap, and try a little of his fragrant pomade, and see how his new pearl-backed stiff brush would feel on her auburn curls; and examine the pictures in his last magazine, and chat a little at the window

with yellow-haired blue-eyed Mike, who is trimming the grape vines in the garden opposite, and who has promised to marry her, if Margaret won't have him.

Miss Prudence stands up erect, and looks around, and then, as she folds up her shawl in the old folds, she says to herself, with the old smile on her face, "Never less alone than when alone."

When the bonnet and green ribbons are stowed away in the bandbox, and covered carefully with the clean pocket handkerchief, to keep out the city dust, and the shawl wrapped in a newspaper, and laid on a shelf in the closet, and she has put on her high-crowned cap, with a frill all around it, and her other spectacles, she stands in her door and looks cautiously round. "I wonder if there is any men folks up here?" thought she, as she began walking around on tiptoe, and looking into the half-open doors of the rooms on that floor. They were all servants' rooms, except the room opposite hers, whose door, as she said, was a crack."

open on

With one of her comprehensive glances, she saw at once the sloping windows, the old Brussels carpet, the old-fashioned high square mahogany washstand, with a piece of its marble top broken off, the single bed, the cracked glass over the bureau, the trunk in the corner, with the initials, N. S.' in brass tacks, the rows of nails at the foot of the bed, with their well-mended, carefully preserved dresses. All the furniture had been costly when purchased, and once graced the more elegant rooms below. There was a large oil painting standing upon the floor, leaning against the wall, and on the easel near it, an unfinished copy of the same painting, with an ivory pallet beside it, with newly mixed colors. Miss Prudence walks up and looks in the glass. She always puts on her cap with remarkable precision, but her is one-sided, her curls longer on one side, her sleeve drawn up. She stretches down the curls, draws down the sleeve, pulls the collar around, and draws down her mouth on one side, as she says, "Why, how did I get everything so catacornered?" But the more she adjusted her collar, curls and dress, the more crooked she was getting. The glass was crooked. It had been purchased long ago, for its ele gant frame, as many boarding-house mirrors are, without regard to their true reflections. In most of the glasses in

cap

that house, your dimensions were either elaborated or elongated, twisted, exaggerated, or distorted. People like to look as well as they can, and have at least a correct estimate of their outer selves.

"Ne

On the bureau is a well-worn Bible, with the name penthe Stuart," written in a delicate hand on the blank leaf, and by its side is a vase filled with fresh violets; on the table is a basket just large enough for a neat little lady to carry about with her. That trunk is the identical trunk once placed by Carleyn in the bottom of his carriage. Prudence walked about quietly, and started suddenly as she looked at the bed, for there lay asleep the young occupant of the servants' room, with an unfinished drawing of a violet in her hand. The drawing was correct and artistic. In the folio beside her are many sketches, and among them, an exact copy of a certain lay figure always to be seen in a certain room at the School of Design, with which the young ladies have so much amusement.

Miss Prudence walks softly out as she sees the sleeping young lady, saying to herself, "Well, well! Here's somebody fiddling away her time ;" and then she steals back into her room and shuts the door, taking out her unfinished pair of mixed stockings and knitting away. You could buy stockings all made at the stores for half the cost of that yarn, and yet she laments over the idleness and folly of the picturemaking young lady in that room; while Nepenthe, who is really not very fond of copying, is to be paid twenty-five dollars each for two copies of the picture on the easel. But Prudence wishes she could manage for her, as she sighs and says, "What can't be cured must be endured."

"Well, well," says my aunt Lydia, to whom I have been reading my story thus far, "don't go on saying anything more, Minnie, about attic rooms-we all know how cheerless are those rooms in the top of city boarding-houses, with only apologies for windows; and you needn't tell about her pale face and large eyes. All the heroines in novels have pale faces and large eyes, growing up and thinking themselves so plain-looking, yet they turn out exceedingly handsome after all. And don't put in any more moralizing or fine sentences. People can always read enough of them in books that are written on purpose. I always skip them in a