GRANDMOTHER'S STOCKING

KNITTING.

GRANDMOTHER.

YOU wonder, little child, you say
A How I can sit and knit
Hour after hour, day after day,

And not seem tired a bit.

Ah, child! you little know the string
Of thoughts and memories
That with my yarn I still unwind,
The thoughts of other days.

Sometimes the bell tolls out, my child,
As it has done to-day,
Then long and silently I knit

And much I think and pray.

Your little evening hymn, my child,
I sometimes hear you say;
Then too I sit, and think, and knit,

And knit, and think, and pray.

The folks, the scenes, the words, the deeds,
The dreams of other days:

Still with my yarn they all flow on,
A tangled, ordered maze.

CHILD.

I like sometimes to watch your pins, Twinkling, glancing, bright,

But I wonder you're not tired though, All week-days they're in sight!

GRANDMOTHER.

Look, child, since I began that turn
I've been a child at play-
A girl-a bride-a mother proud-
A widow early grey.

And therewith all the sins and cares,
The sufferings and the loss,
The joy, the grief, the spurning,

And the taking up my cross.

The knitting keeps me waking, child.
Had I been sitting here
Without my knitting, head and hands
Had been asleep, I fear;

And sitting still is more a toil

To an active head and handAnd an active woman have I been, As any in the land.

J. E. C. F.

MARTIN BLACK'S CHILDREN.

(Continued from p. 100.)

1

ARTIN loved children dearly, | and no doubt it was a grief | to him that none would ever play about his hearth, for he had long made up his mind that a poor deformed creature like himself could not expect to marry. For all that, however, there' often were children playing about him, and fondling the rough cheeks of their kind friend, and for these he had always some pleasure in store, a toy, or an apple, or a bright penny, nothing very valuable, for Martin was saving, too saving some said, but then they did not know him well. It was one evening in the chilly early springtime that Martin trudged down to the forge to speak to Sam Martell the blacksmith about a little lad who wanted to learn the business. Martin worked short hours for his health's sake; he was master, not man, now, and had several hands under him. Sam and his old father were at the forge, and they made Martin sit down for a chat. A small sharp knock at the door on which the horse-shoe was nailed roused the party, and when it was open they stared with surprise. A little maid of some seven years old stood in the doorway, cloaked and wrapped up as from a journey.

"I want Martin Black, my uncle,' said the sturdy little girl; 'mother's dead, and now father's dead, and he bid me come here and find him; he said as how he was good to little children, and would care for me.' So Martin Black led his little niece home, the only child of wilful Jim who had gone away so many years ago. The child had Jim's roving black eyes and square face, and Martin loved her all the better for them, though Jim had not been spe

cially kind to him; it was like a waft of fresh air from the days of his childhood. People asked Martin what he could do with a bit of a child like that, lone bachelor as he was, and Martin smiled and bade them wait, he had his plans. And then it seemed that Kate Harding, the poor widow on the Green, was coming to live in Martin's cottage and take care of the little girl, and not a fortnight later, the tiny child of a travelling tinker who died in the village was added to the group.

"Very foolish to burden himself like that,' said the neighbours, but Martin only smiled again. Half in earnest, half in jest, they called the small cottage he occupied the Orphanage, and by-and-by Mrs. Fortescue brought another little child, whom she begged Martin to take in, promising to pay for its keep. Those were happy days for Martin; he did not the less visit the sick, or chat with his neighbours, but his real pleasures were at home with the door shut, and the children playing about, or leaning against his knee as he talked to them. His one anxiety was for them. With his uncertain health what would become of them if he were suddenly called away? True, there was a fund, his small savings would keep the household awhile, and Mrs. Fortescue had promised to do her best in such a caseso generally Martin would drive away gloomy forebodings as useless, and leave himself and his Orphanage in God's hands.

And his little flock increased,-now and again a child was sent to him to be cared for, sometimes with promise of payment, oftener thrown on his mercy, and Martin refused none that really needed a home. It was really deserving now of the name of Orphanage, that little cottage in the village street which the poor deformed shoemaker had populated, and his rich neighbours, by

mere force of example, wished to be allowed to help somewhat in the good work, and Martin frequently now received offers of money and advice. He refused the first, and listened quietly to the last. "When we want aught, me and my children, we will come to you, and thank you kindly for wishing to help us,' he would say. And then some would point out to Martin how with larger means he might do greater good. But Martin had his own way of thinking; it seemed to him that God had placed him in a small way of life, and that while he remained there he knew what he was about, and he was safe; but to take other people's money and set up a grand establishment, as they would have him do, puzzled him. It might be that it was his duty to work on a larger scale, but if so God would make it plain to him, and meantime he would wait.

So Martin waited, and asked God in his daily prayers for guidance in this matter.

Susy, the square-faced little niece, was growing fast, needing strengthening food and plenty of it. Esther, the tinker's tiny baby, required constant care, for she was a sickly child, and of the rest of the little flock, only one here and there was old enough or strong enough to earn a trifle.

Would it be right to agree in the Squire and Mrs. Fortescue's plan of building a fine house by subscription, to hold some fifty orphans, and of which he, Martin Black, would be Superintendent. Superintendent that was a long, cold-sounding title: he was father' now to all the little ones in his care. Martin shook his head, it was not made plain to him yet.

Meantime something happened that was to settle the matter for Martin, though at the time it seemed to have nothing to do with the Orphanage.

(Concluded in our next.)

THE PEACE MAKER. LICE HERBERT sat sewing by the open window of the sunny little parlour, listening to the sweet-voiced birds, and the waving trees, and the low laughter of her youngest brother, Laurie, lying full stretch on the grass talking to Edgar, the young artist, who was putting the finishing touch to a picture he had worked at for many a day with pleasure and pride.

They were motherless, and for a year past Alice had tried to fill the vacant place, and comfort her father, bind the household together by her gentle love, but it was hard

work sometimes, for Edgar was hasty and Laurence mischievous; and it seemed as if little troubles were always coming to mar the peace which once there had been amongst them.

The brothers were much attached to each other in spite of their opposite tempers, and the seven years' difference in their age; but one would hardly have thought it, if they had seen how Laurie rushed in hot with anger and flung himself on the sofa, exclaiming to his sister,

'I'll stand it no longer, Allie; I won't be bothered and bullied by Edgar if he is seventeen and I only ten. I'd pack up my things and run away to sea this very day if it wasn't for you.'

'Oh, don't talk in that wild way, Laurie, you know you wouldn't do anything of the