CHAPTER IX.

"Oh! be thou zealous in thy youth,
Fill every day with noble toil;
Fight for the victories of truth,

And deck thee with her deathless spoils;
For those whose lives are in retreat,
Their valor and ambition flown,

In vain the 'larum drum is beat,

In vain the battle trumpet blown!"

Poetry of the Orient.

"Time's onward footsteps have no backward turning."

WHILE you and I, reader, have been occupied in reviewing and reminiscences, time, with relentless finger, has touched and changed animate and inanimate bodies here, there and everywhere-silently, little by little, but surely and forever-as time only can change all things. Nothing stands too high or lies too low to escape his icy breath, his withering glance, his destroying touch.

Two years and nearly a half more have passed since that cold day on which we first met little Hannah, and we of the cottage on the hillside are all here; time has touched us lightly, and yet there

are changes. Ben, Bert and Tom are great strapping fellows-good boys and good scholars. Flossie and Bessie have laid aside bibs, and are both in school; only one little fellow plays at trains of cars or makes soap bubbles in the nursery at home. John is growing portly, and I am getting gray, but we are all happy.

But if the change is noticeable in us, how much more so in Hannah, or "Tangle-Tow," as Ben at first called her. The pale, careworn look has passed away, and instead of the pinched form, the old expression, with eyes too big for her face, we now see a tall, graceful girl of "half past sixteen,” says Ben, with hair the color of dead gold, cheeks like rare, ripe peaches, and those wondrously beautiful grey eyes. Yes, time, with culture and prosperity, has changed Hannah most of all.

When a guardian was appointed for her, the choice was given her to go away to be educated at an institution which was patronized largely for the education of the orphan children of Odd Fellows, or to remain at home and enter the public schools of the city. She chose the latter, saying:

"I will learn all they can teach me here first, and then I'll see what I'll do."

And from her first session until the present time

she has always led the grade, and twice been honored by special promotion.

You see this girl, child of the "hireling Yankee mechanic" and the southern belle of refinement and culture, was of good blood and clear brains. Her habits of industry, neatness, promptness, cheerful obedience and general lady-like deportment won the highest praise uniformly from the teachers. Her reports were all good, and it had become a patent fact that Hannah Dare, the stranger, would graduate with special honors from the high school of the city of When they drew it mildly it was "Hannah Dare, the stranger," but there were occasions when it came out rough-shod, "Han Dare, the foundling, the charity scholar, John H.'s hired girl." And this was not spoken by heathen children of South Sea Islanders, but, shame to say, by children of good parents and good citizens, who forgot to bridle their children's tongues or muzzle their mouths.

Good business men, excellent mothers, often wonder at the loss of friends here and influence there, and surmise this cause or that, never thinking of the careless words dropped before children, the unkind criticism or bit of scandal about other people's affairs, retailed out to each other with thoughtless recklessness, which the children, with

equal recklessness and less judgment, spread forth for public entertainment" so witty, you know." Ah, the "little foxes spoil the corn."

You see, reader, the prosperity resulting from her own industry raised up envy, and that begot malice, which vented itself in evil speaking, and then, as usual, they grew to hate the one they wronged.

There were scores of children in those city schools, as in all schools, who would gladly have bought an education, if it were only in the market, and whose parents would gladly have purchased capacity for knowledge, if that kind of capacity were an article of traffic; but as success depended upon labor, and not upon papa's position or bank account, they stood back and gnashed their teeth and wagged their tongues, and voted it vulgar, any way, to be a drudge, either in books or work; and if they couldn't do anything else, why, they could make her feel that she was ignored and looked down upon by "our set," and they did it, reader, to the best of their ability. The good, true-hearted, faithful girl, with her loving heart, her keen appreciation of pleasant society, was cut off from everything that they could possibly prevent her enjoying. When a lot of school girls set about a thing of this kind they generally accomplish it about as