when vice might seem virtue. He watched her; helped her; condoled with her; abused the heartless world; sneered at the virtue which suffered others or one's self to starve; and, in the end, succeeded in his worse than murderous purpose. From that day degradation went on rapidly; as she said herself, it seemed to her that she died then.

Mrs. Ellis listened with surprise to a tale such as hundreds might tell, and felt her blood curdle as the hitherto unknown terrors of poverty were opened to her. "And all this has been going on under my eyes," she said, "and how easily might it have been prevented." But the question now as to the woman before her was not prevention, but cure. "Mrs. Fowler," said she, "you would change if you could?"

The woman started at the unaccustomed title, and shook her head in bitter despair. "Who'd trust me?" said she; "I'd be put in jail in a week on suspicion, if I quit my trade."

Her friendly visitor knew not what to reply, for the whole dreadful gulf was beyond her vision; but having asked her wants, and bade her be of good cheer, she sought her clergyman, before whom she laid the whole case. And to him, strange to say, the case was full of new features; busy in his parochial duties, his easy benevolence, his theology and botany, this good man had gone on ignorant that such instances of want and despair and temptation were all about him. He said he would inquire; he hoped something might be done; he wished he knew what to do; he determined he would do something. So, taking his hat and cane, he sought his friend and adviser, Deacon X.; this gentleman, having heard the story, advised at once that the woman should be sent into the country with her children, and thought he might get her a place if she knew any thing of dairy matters.

Mrs. Ellis soon learned that, before her marriage, she had been used to the care of cows, and in a few weeks arrange. ments were made, and the old frame-house in the centre of the square was tenantless.

A year has passed since that fallen woman was placed again upon the way to truth and hope. Her careless and lazy habits, her despondency and sullen temper, are not wholly gone yet; and Bill Fowler is the dread of the neighbourhood. But still a great step has been taken, a great victory won; and Mrs. Ellis often thanks God that she found that lost child; for, but for that child, she might to this day have known nothing of the sin and suffering, of the unknown and unspoken agony, which were "right under her eyes," and which no one is now more busily engaged in relieving than she.

THE HOLE IN MY POCKET.

It is now about a year since my wife said to me one day, "Pray, Mr. Slackwater, have you that half-dollar about you that I gave you this morning?" I felt in my waistcoat pocket, and turned my purse inside out, but it was all space, which is very different from specie. So I said to Mrs. Slackwater, "I've lost it, my dear; positively there must be a hole in my pocket!" "I'll sew it up," said she.

An hour or two after, I met Tom Stebbins. "How did that ice-cream set?" said Tom. "It set," said I, “like the sun, gloriously." And as I spoke, it flashed upon me that my missing half-dollar had paid for those ice-creams; however, I held my peace, for Mrs. Slackwater sometimes makes remarks; and even when she assured me at breakfast next morning that there was no hole in my pocket, what could I do but lift my brow and say, "Ah, is n't there? really!"

Before a week had gone by, my wife, who, like a dutiful helpmate, as she is, always gives me her loose change to keep, called for a twenty-five cent piece that had been de posited in my sub-treasury for safe-keeping. "There is a poor woman at the door," she said, "that I've promised it to for certain." "Well, wait a moment," I cried; so I pushed inquiries first in this direction, then in that, and then in the other, but vacancy returned a hollow groan. "On

my soul," said I, thinking it best to show a bold front, "you must keep my pockets in better repair, Mrs. Slackwater; this piece, with I know not how many more, is lost, because some corner or seam in my plaguy pocket is left open." "Are you sure?" said Mrs. Slack water.

My

"Sure! ay, that I am. It's gone, totally gone! wife dismissed her promise, and then, in her quiet way, asked me to change my pantaloons before I went out, and, to bar all argument, laid another pair on my knees.

That evening, allow me to remark, gentlemen of the species "husband," I was very loath to go home to tea. I had half a mind to bore some bachelor friend, and when hunger and habit, in their unassuming manner, one on each side, walked me up to my own door, the touch of the brass knob made my blood run cold. But do not think that Mrs. Slackwater is a tartar, my good friends, because I thus shrunk from home; the fact was that I had, while abroad, called to mind the fate of her twenty-five cent piece, which I had invested in smoke, that is to say, cigars, and I feared to think of her comments on my pantaloons pocket.

Thus things went on for some months; we were poor to begin with, and grew poorer, or, at any rate, no richer, fast. Times grew worse and worse; my pockets seemed weaker and weaker. Even my pocket-book was no longer to be trusted; the rags slipped from it in a manner most incredible to relate. As an Irish song says,

"And such was the fate of poor Paddy O'Moore,

As his purse had the more rents, so he had the fewer."

At length, one day my wife came in with a subscriptionpaper for the Orphan Asylum. I looked at it, and sighed, and picked my teeth, and shook my head, and handed it back to her.

"Ned Bowen," she said, "has put down ten dollars."

"The more shame to him," I replied; "he can't afford

it; he can just scrape along any how, and in these times it aint right for him to do it."

My wife smiled in her sad way, and took the paper to him that brought it.

The next evening she asked me if I could go with her to see the Bowens, and, as I had no objection, we started.

I knew that Ned Bowen did a small business that would give him about six hundred dollars a year, and I thought it would be worth while to see what that sum would do in the way of housekeeping. We were admitted by Ned and welcomed by Ned's wife, a very neat little body, of whom Mrs. Slackwater had told me a great deal, as they had been schoolmates. All was as nice as wax, and yet as substantial as iron; comfort was written all over the room. The evening passed somehow or other, though we had no refreshments, an article which we never have at home, but always want when elsewhere, and I returned to our own establishment with mingled pleasure and chagrin.

"What a pity," said I to my wife, "that Bowen don't keep within his income."

"He does," she replied.

"But how can he on six hundred dollars," was my answer, "if he gives ten dollars to this charity, and five dollars to that, and lives so snug and comfortable, too?

"Shall I tell you?" asked Mrs. Slackwater.

"Certainly, if you can."

"His wife," said my wife, "finds it just as easy to go without twenty or thirty dollars of ribbons and laces as to buy them. They have no fruit but what they raise and have given them by country friends, whom they repay by a thousand little acts of kindness. They use no beer, which is not essential to health, as it is not to yours; and then he buys no cigars, or ice-cream, or apples at one hundred per cent. on market price, or oranges at twelve cents apiece, or candy, or new novels, or rare works that are still more