By dint of worrying and coaxing, her purse is considerably lightened of its contents by the juveniles of her family. Edward has seen a splendid riding whip, which he would fain add to his possessions; and if grandmamma would but give him ten shillings he could manage it. Little Tom, who has set his heart and eyes on a monstrous kite, artfully contrives to lead grandmamma to the toy-shop window, and fully persuades her that it would be a delightful evening's employment for her to help him make a tail to it. Miss Clara stops short on Ludgate Hill, being inspired, with "love at first sight," by a sweet work-box; and, considering she has made a marble bag and hemmed two handkerchiefs in her lifetime, the desire for such a necessary appendage is not to be wondered at. Miss Emily, who has a pet spaniel, happens to see a beautiful silver collar, and divines, with the most extraordinary sagacity, that it would "just fit" Fido's neck. In short, there is no end to the demands upon the old lady's generosity; but then it is well known she has a handsome independence, and "if she chooses to spend it in such a way, what is it to any one?" It is quite useless for papa or mamma to interfere. It is vain to tell her she spoils the children, for she only smiles a little sadly, and says, "Never mind! my race will soon be run; I shall not be here long to spoil them;" and then who can breathe another word of expostulation to "the Old Lady of the Old School?"

THE GLASS OF GIN.

BY SILVERPEN.

ELIZA COOK.

and sought her brown silk dress from amongst a few others, in a box which, as she thought, had not yet been unpacked. But, to her surprise, it had been, and the first thing seen, on raising the unlocked lid, was a great hollow, where she had, in packing the box before the sale, laid a very rare, old-fashioned satin quilt, which for years had been an heir-loom in their family. Thinking, however, that Mary might have placed it elsewhere, the matter soon passed from her mind. By the time she had finished, it was nearly twelve o'clock; but Mary had not yet come up stairs, and knowing it was useless to seek her under present circumstances, she went to bed, and was asleep before Mary returned. In the morning she found her by her side, in too soddened a sleep to be awoke, so she dressed, got her own breakfast, left Mary's ready, and set off on her errand of hope and better fortune. Nothing could be briefer than her business. After receiving a letter at the agency office, she carried it to a private house, in a dull, though fashionable street, and was, in less than an hour from her entrance into its quiet study, engaged as daily governess to four children-three boys and a girl, at a salary of forty pounds per annum. Their mother, the wife of a private gentleman of fortune, seemed interested in Alice from the first moment; what she saw, and learnt from her herself, perfectly satisfied her, and taking her warmly by the hand, as she departed, begged she would make it convenient to see her pupils on the following Monday morning, at ten o'clock. Full of thought, and inexpressibly happy, Alice, in retracing her steps homeward, turned down a wrong street, and was not aware of her mistake till she had gone some distance. Whilst returning, her quick step was suddenly arrested by seeing, hanging in the window of an old curiosity shop, the identical quilt she had only missed that morning. It was not to be mistaken, for it was of curious_workmanship, and the rich embroidery on it exquisite. Impelled by a to-host of contending feelings, she entered the shop, and addressed a very respectable elderly woman, who, with her elbow on the counter, amidst a world of little fat china Mandarins, old bowls, rare plates, rich-coloured jars, and quaint Majolica china, was earnestly talking to a little fat woman, dressed as a domestic servant. They did not observe Alice at first; she therefore heard a few sentences of their conversation.

(Continued from page 73). One evening, in the early part of April (for so had time progressed,) as Alice was ironing by their poor garret fire, Mary, as she supposed, being out, the shop-boy brought her up a letter. It ran as follows:

"If Miss Alice Clive will call on Monsieur morrow morning, at ten o'clock, she will hear of a situation as daily governess."

Breathless with delight, at what she conceived goodfortune come at last, Alice went down stairs to see if Mary were returned, when, as she passed Mrs. Topple's door, she overheard her sister's voice. Startled to find her again in companionship with this woman, after her earnest promises to the contrary, she tapped gently at the door, and went in. The two women had drawn a table close to a bit of dull, smoky fire, and on it stood a bottle and glasses. At the instant Alice entered, Mary was raising a glass to her lips, but trying to conceal it, the instant she heard Alice, it was turned over in a stream upon the table. Regardless of this, Mary hurried to the door, in order to meet Alice, and thus cover her participation in the orgies of the drunkard.

"Well, what do you want?" was the question, when the door was closed and they stood outside.

But the good news was almost chased from the heart of Alice." Why are you with this woman, why-" "If that is all you're come to say, you'd better go back again," spoke Mary, assuming one of her fierce looks. "I'm not a child, and won't be catechised."

"Yes," said the little old fat servant, "Mr. John, grave as he is, does all he can to nurse and cheer our poor dear drooping boy; and as for dear old master, the Admiral, he seems as if he couldn't live out of the childrens' sight, especially that of poor little Tom. Ay, ma'am, dear old master wouldn't have lived a month after the loss of the sea-captain, their papa, if it hadn't been for them."

The mistress of the shop was about to reply, when Alice, apologizing, spoke again.

"It is not usual to answer such questions," was the civil answer to Alice's query; "but I bought the quilt a week ago, from a decent, middle-aged woman; indeed, I might almost say, lady, rather stout, and dressed in mourning. She was accompanied by a drabbish-looking, pale-faced woman, and both seemed the worse for liquor." Alice heard no more-wanted to hear no more.

"It is not only companionship," said Alice, roused from her wonted self-command, "by which you debase your-Bursting into tears, and sobbing convulsively, she hurried self; it is also drink."

"You lie; go up stairs." She pushed Alice forward on the staircase, and re-entering the lodger's room, slammed the door. Alice's judgment on this case was one too stern for tears; she went up stairs, and as she grew calm, she resumed and completed her task. She had now come to the conviction, that unless she acted with steady self-resolve, her own degradation was as certain as Mary's. With this view, she prepared her things for the morrow, for her mourning was now too shabby to appear in before strangers. She therefore got out her pretty straw bonnet, trimmed with rich white ribbon, and a bunch of white violets grouped in their green leaves,

from the shop; for it was, indeed, true that-
THE RARE AND COSTLY AMBER SATIN QUILT HAD
GONE FOR GIN!

Out of our sorrows, many times, spring future blessings and divinest hope; out from our smallest actions, though they be, are led a chain of causes of great consequence; out from much entirely evil comes large good a thousand fold; so now as heretofore, and yet hereafter, God dwelt amidst these shadows!

"A sweet face, Molly," said the mistress of the shop, after some other comments respecting Alice, and wiping the dust from a Sevrés jar, as she spoke.

Ay, ay," replied the old servant, rousing herself

ELIZA COOK'S JOURNAL.

from a sort of reverie to answer, "I was now thinking, it is just the very sort of one our dear old master would like to see about our little Tommy's bed."

By the time she reached home, Alice was calmer. She felt she must wait a fitting opportunity before she spoke to Mary, for, after one of these drinking fits, her irascibility was usually so great as to make the most trivial comment the pretext for anger; often cruel, always insulting. Alice opened the door, and stepped quietly into the room. Mary was still in bed.

"Well, Mary," she said, as she sat down by the bed, "I've a piece of good news for you. The letter you wouldn't hear about last night, I've attended to, and, within this hour, it has led to my engagement as daily "it's time you governess, at a salary of forty pounds per annum." " was the cold reply; "I'm glad of it,' were doing something. Clear the breakfast things away, will you, and get to work. The people have sent for the lawn-fronted shirts, and I can't work to-day." "Mary, Mary," ejaculated Alice, "Are you already Yes, I say, it's lost to common feeling? There was a time whenI want to rest. "Don't annoy me. time you were doing something." Alice, with bleeding heart, turned away, and supplicated, as she did so, "God, be thou my friend, and aid me!"

She sat down to work, but her despair was not as heretofore-without hope; above the ruin, so thickly spreading round them, salvation, now, might even be for Mary.

Alice commenced, and progressed with her duties most satisfactorily. The children were dull and sickly, but well disposed; and her own health and spirits were, for a time, better for the change. Even Mary, in her sober hours, appreciated their altered prospects, and, for a brief interval, resumed those old ways of kindness, so powerful in their influence over a nature like that belonging to this little sister; and which, at each recurrence, strengthening anew the tie between them, seemed to make their equal ruin inevitable.

With this renewed chance of paying their rent, they returned to their old room; though Alice would have rather quitted the lodgings altogether, and thus removed Mary from companionship with the second-floor lodger; but difficulties now so environed them, as to make, till these were lessened, any change impossible.

For the hour being, this change of circumstances was
effective in controlling Mary's acts; but soon Alice began
to find, upon her return at three o'clock, no dinner pre-
pared, no work done, and Mary either half asleep, or else
in such a state of excessive irritability, as in a moment to
show what deadly power had been at work. Yet she was
cunning enough, or else the same quantity of spirits did
not now take the same effect as at first, to avoid that
state of helpless imbecility, or fury, which betrayed at
Neither could you approach the subject,
once its cause.
nor tax her with drink, while such proofs were in abey-
ance; and the pertinacity with which she denied the fact
of drink, if even only cursorily alluded to, prevented at
last even an appeal from the heart which loved her

so well.

Than this home, therefore, nothing can be conceived more desolate. To return to it, to find,-however neatly left,-disordered and dirty, sometimes fireless, sometimes breadless, to sit down to the labours of the pen or needle, under circumstances such as these the pen or needle, which had never been taken up since laid down by herself, required a power of stern self-government with which a nature like Alice's is not often gifted. But if these days were mournful in their course, the nights were often horrible; and thus, with broken rest, and in a foul and fetid atmosphere, Alice's health gradually gave way; the only light within these grim shadows closing round, being her daily duty to her pupils; or else the fatal secret, guarded with such care, must have bereft her of

reason, or driven her to extremity. But the children's
troubles, though they were far from guessing the depth
they came into the school-room, and saw
parents were noble creatures; they thought she had
of them; and
Alice look more than usually pale, they made her put by
the books, and, after lunch, have a long walk with the
children round the parks.

On one of these occasions, and on a bright September
from one of these walks in St. James's Park, to please
afternoon, as she was returning up Parliament Street,
the two eldest boys who were with her that afternoon,
the handkerchief of the younger came untied just as they
As she did this,
reached the front of the Admiralty. Gently stooping
it, and then brushing back his long hair, took his hand
down, whilst the boy held his hat in his hand, she re-tied
again with some kind word or another.
she was suddenly aware that a grave middle-aged man,
which they stood, had stopped, and was intently observ-
who had just come through one of the official doors near
busy talking with the children, she was quite unconscious
ing her; but as she quickly moved on, and was soon
that this stranger followed so close upon her steps, as far
as Pall Mall (where he lost sight of her), as must have
On the day of receiving her second quarter's salary,
enabled him to distinctly hear much of what was said.
the children went, for some weeks, with their parents to
Hastings. Returning home thus earlier than usual, she
found two strangers up-stairs with Mary, who were loudly
brought. There was no evading the truth, no possibility
insisting upon payment of bills they had respectively
of concealing it; and whilst Mary sat crying with her face
buried in her hands, Alice took the bills, and found them
to be both for spirits, got on credit at neighbouring
Before they had got
public-houses. Together they amounted to four pound
eighteen shillings; this sum Alice paid immediately,
and the two men departed.

"what is the use of
'Mary," said Alice, at length,
down stairs, Mary came weeping round her.

66

tears?"

"But I will refrain, I will, indeed!-I-I-I-,” and then, with passionate entreaties, she begged forgiveMary, you don't seem to recollect that ruin in the Had you no idea of this, ness, as she had done twenty times before. meanwhile is crushing us. Mary drew back aghast. "This heartless act," conwhen you sold the quilt?" tinued Alice, "I have brooded over, till my soul is dead within me; and I never will forgive it, unless you will at once tell me what other things are parted with. My “I—I—I———.” heart is breaking with despair, in God's name tell me."

Is the plate safe?"

Mary, tell me.
"Yes, yes; there's nothing gone-only the.”
"What?"

"Nothing-but-the ten-."
Alice now knew.

Unable to command herself, she dropped upon her knees, and in a voice, which quailed the drunkard's soul,

"THE TEN BLANKETS GONE, AND ALL FOR GIN!" Yet to utterly despair was not in the nature of Alice. Won again by promises as unstable as water, she went that very evening to the City, and was so fortunate as to obtain a good supply of needlework of great value; with this she returned home and set busily to work. Night and day she worked, till robe, and cap, and gown were finished, and the whole made up a fair sized bundle. For some days previously to this she had felt indisposed, and this night of completion she was so feverish and ill, to Mary to take home. She returned in good time with as to be obliged to go to bed, and to intrust the bundle the message, that their employer could not pay them for a day or two, as she had had an unexpected call to meet. Alice believed this circumstance the more readily, as it had happened once previously. But her terror may be judged, when, two evenings after, whilst Mary was out,

1

and she herself was still in bed, half blind from a slight attack of opthalmy, accompanied by low fever, one of the shopmen, from the City, came to inquire for the work. It instantly crossed Alice's mind that Mary must have pledged it; and though so ill, she had judgment enough to send word down-stairs, "that Miss Clive should attend to the message, as soon as she came in."

Alice knew not what to do. Ill as she was, she rose and dressed herself, and frantically awaited Mary's return. "What have you done with the work? what have you done with it?" spoke Alice, shaking from terror and fever, as she went and met her sister on the staircase.

Really terrified at her sister's aspect, for she was this night sober, Mary led Alice into their room. "Alice, Alice, I know I am a curse. That night I could not resist drink; I pawned the bundle for a pound-but this night shall end it-I am a curse, and I'll." She said no more, but strode like a giant to the door. She was this night conscious of her enormous sins, as they stood up before her bald and leprous. It was Alice's turn now to sue and to entreat, to draw her from the door, to minister to the despair of conscience.

"Mary, for God's sake, do not quite kill me by talking thus; we can redeem it, and

A piece of good fortune helped on Alice's convalescence. The solicitor who had supplied them with copying and engrossing, had recommended her so warmly to a friend of his, who had a large family of children, as to promise her a new engagement for instructing five children daily, between the hours of three and seven, at a salary of forty pounds per annum. This at once raised her income to a yearly sum of eighty pounds. Immediately she was able, she undertook her new duties, and with Mary sought out a new lodging, as she had long and secretly desired to remove her sister from any chance of association with a woman of Mrs. Topple's character. The apartments they finally decided upon were more expensive than Alice desired; still, as they were Mary's choice, she resolved to only work the harder, in order to let nothing stand in the way of a chance of her reformation. Accordingly they moved. Alice, always the little housewife and manager, unpacked the fine old china, and arranged it on the little chiffonnier, put their books into the neat mahogany book-case, their few good paintings on the walls, her two rich needle-work cushions on the chairs, and repairing Mary's tattered wardrobe, set, in about a fortnight's time, quite a new face upon things. With all these advantages (not the least of which was, that Pinch had a grand kennel afforded him, vacant through the recent death of a shaggy proprie

for it had first sheltered them in an hour of great sorrow,
and with the exception of the drunken lodger on the
second floor, all else had been orderly and respectable.
As soon as her old pupils returned, the day was labori-
ten in the morning till seven o'clock at night; but in no-
wise daunted by severity of toil, the remaining hours
were not unemployed. Though so sterling a scholar in
other respects, she had, in undertaking more advanced
pupils, found her deficiency in the French language; she,
therefore, commenced taking lessons from a first-rate
master. So ably did she progress, as to find that in a
few months' time, she should be able to add to her
income as a translator. Thus renewing her diligence, she
commenced and translated a small political pamphlet so

"By what? We haven't a shilling in the world," and the sober drunkard grasped her own throat like a mad-tor), Alice did not leave the old room without regret, man. Alice forced her down into a chair, with passionate entreaties. She then took a bunch of keys from Mary's pocket, and lighting a candle went to a large box in one corner of the chamber. She knelt down before it with a passive grief, more touching than the wildest despair.ously occupied, with the exception of half an hour, from Lifting the lid and removing some wrappers, she took out from it, one by one, six splendid damask table-cloths. As she brought these towards the table, and opened one, there dropped out of it, on to the floor, a sprig or two of withered hawthorn, gathered and placed there in that fresh young May, after lying on the scented garden hedge, and drying to lily whiteness in the summer winds. Nothing else, perhaps, in the world, could have so touched the heart of the sick and drooping girl, as these few withered sprays and flowers; nothing else could have brought so forcibly before her their past innocence and pre-ably, as to make the foreign bookseller who had employed sent degradation, their once home of purity, their present poverty and squalor, nor all of what they once had been, and what they were. The moral degradation of their present position overwhelmed her; in all its horrors the future was revealed.

But the necessity to act in the present case was mercy. Though burning with fever, she put on her shawl and bonnet, and with Mary set off to the shop where the baby linen had been pawned. Here the splendid tablecloths were pledged, and the baby linen redeemed. Thus thrust upon a dirty shelf, and coarsely handled; no summer air upon them, and no scented flowers beneath :

THE DAMASK TABLE CLOTHS WENt for fatal giN. The baby linen, thus redeemed, was soon placed safe in the owner's hands, but not without a severe reprimand for delay.

Two hours after her return home, Alice was delirious with fever; a doctor was called in, and Mary hung with despair about the bed. For days she lay betwixt life and death, and nothing but the humane attention of the good surgeon saved her. To do, however, Mary justice, nothing could be more exemplary than her conduct throughout this time of trial, nor could remorse be more keen than hers, when she saw Alice suffering a thousand privations, consequent on her own fearful viciousness. Thus, as Mary smoothed the pillow, kissed the parched and fevered lips, spoke loving words, and nestled Alice in her arms as she had done in infancy, it only served to make the final tragedy more tragic, by renewing all the passionate affection of the young girl's nature, and by making this a point of time, never through future sin and suffering to be thought of, without the large and full redemption of pity and the tears of mercy.

her, place in her hands a celebrated work of one of the French economists. Thus, the hard day's duty was usually prolonged till a late hour. Still Alice did not care, so Mary progressed in her work of reformation.

For some weeks things went on smoothly enough; the dinner was punctually ready for her only spare half hour, the hearth bright, and Mary kind.

The first signs of change was the old and unaccountable irritability, which Alice was at first willing to attribute to indisposition. But when it assumed its old form, when it began again to display itself by fierce gestures and cruel taunts and threats, when she became negligent, parsimonious, or lavish, just as the case might be, Alice felt that the curse, though hidden, again hung over them with all its irremediable and fatal consequences. For with this better home, and with immediate poverty removed through Alice's exertions, Mary soon acted as if a coffer of gold stood ready open for use. So dissension was soon rife again; for let Alice say as little as she would, often not speak at all, the bare surmise that she sat in judgment on this cruel course of action, made Mary at times almost fiendish in her acts of spite and hate.

To avoid these, and their accompanying scenes, Alice kept away from home as much as she could; for days never returning to dinner, but leaving one set of pupils, dine off a bun as she walked slowly to the next.

Returning home one evening, during a period of brief reconciliation, and going to the chiffonnier to place on it some trifle the children had given her, Alice missed immediately a little jar of rare Sevrés porcelain, and one which had been highly prized by their father.

'Mary," she said, turning round to her sister, who was making tea, "in Mercy's name, where's the jar?"

"Though I have been desirous, many weeks, that you should quit my house, Miss Clive, still, for the sake of your sister, I have passed by much which is flagrant and objectionable in your conduct. I can do this no longer; When the lookers-on had wondered enough and were and foregoing a week's rent, I beg you will make immegone, Mary went and sat down beside the breakfast-diate arrangements to quit my house to-morrow. It has table, and folding her arms, set her face steadfastly towards Alice, just as a cat would watch a peeping mouse. There was cruelty, fear, hatred, in this concentrated glare; it was the glare of a demon. At last she rose, and slowly going to the couch, as slowly dragged her victim from it to a chair opposite her own.

"Please say no more," at last spoke Mary, hastily, lodgings are plentiful; we'll go.”

more for contemplation than the appalling ruin, which, made more dreadful by the silence of its approaches, must sweep over them before long. To return at night was a misery I cannot describe. It was needing peace; and yet, with the necessity of entering bedlam to find it. To have the miserable meal of the day thrust before her, as if she were a dog, or else locked up from her; to have no peace of any sort or kind; to be met with reproaches, continuous as a song; to have the bed half dragged from under her at night; the books, or papers, or work, swept from off the table by day; to be condemned to the meanest drudgery, for the ease and luxury of one demoniacal tyrant; to starve on scraps, while another wantonly revelled in all procurable luxuries; these were some of the things-the natural fruit of most accursed GIN!

Thus dismissed, the landlady departed, and Mary, dressing, went out immediately. She returned in good time, but in what state Alice did not know, as she had gone to bed, and Mary did not enter the bed-room. In the morning she found her asleep on the sofa, and when she returned from her second pupils in the evening, not One day, in a moment of great need, Alice recollected only had Mary taken a second lodging, but removed the that there was lying by, amidst her papers, a small things, and made a settlement of all pecuniary claims. pamphlet which had been translated in their former lodgAlice shuddered. This last circumstance could only have ings; a larger part of it in their bed-room, and when Mary, been effected through some further inroad on their miser-purposely to annoy, would open the intervening door and able possessions. bawl out her loudest song. Finding it, and hurrying on Alice found their new lodgings cheerful and comfortable, her things, she was enabled that same day, through the and in few respects inferior to the one they had left. assistance of her old French master, to sell it for five When she entered, and found something like a prepara-pounds, and, with a heart which had not been so happy tion for her reception, tea upon the table, and dear old Pinch barking and running round her, in his excess of delight, pride, reproof, anything like unforgiveness passed away before the large mercy of her most genuine nature; and hurrying up to Mary's side, she folded her arms around her, and, with passionate tears, kissed convulsively the hands which so lately had been raised against her

life.

But Mary, like the murderer who has imbued his hands in blood, was never again the same creature, from the period of this last sad act. She received kindness in a spirit of dogged sullenness; and, with apathy on every point, maintained rigid silence in all which related to their joint affairs. One by one rich china bowl, and cup, and plate, disappeared; week by week, some garment or another was missing from its accustomed place; and if Alice even chanced to ask a question, insolent and brief was the reply.

for many weeks, she returned with its price. On her way, she was attracted by a cheap dress in a window, and recollecting that Mary had scarcely one to her back, she went in and purchased it. Its price was a pound. Though no great milliner, Alice set to work as soon as she got home, and in a day or two completed a very neat gown, which was put on that very evening, to grace their little tea-table; but, by the third evening after this, not a shred of the original colour was left in the whole front of the skirt; a pot of fat or oil had been spilled over it, how or when, Alice never knew; but the dress was a rag, which would not have fetched sixpence in Houndsditch.

Scarcely a week after this occurrence, the solicitor, their friend, sent Alice a deed of much importance to be engrossed; for latterly, he had, without assigning a reason, enclosed a note, with all the work sent in, to the effect, that Alice undertook it. On this occasion, after sitting a long day, and accomplishing more than twoThey had scarcely been two months in their present thirds of her task, Alice put on her bonnet to take poor lodgings before new misfortunes fell thickly around Alice. Pinch for a little airing, leaving the work, as was her The parents of the first pupils again took a house near custom, open on the table at which she had been writing. the sea-side, this time for a lengthened period; and To her consternation, when she returned, she missed the Alice, with a small gratuity for the short notice given, deed, and could find it no where; and naturally referring its found half her income swept off at once. As if this loss to her sister, she made inquiry, and found that Mary visitation were not enough, a sudden death, some three had gone out soon after herself. She went, and in every months after this occurrence, necessitated the removal of direction tried to trace her, without effect, till about ten the family of her second pupils to a distant part of Eng- o'clock that same night, she found her crying in a street land. Thus, without remedy, she was again adrift and leading out of Cheapside, and no great way from the beggared. To add still something more to these mis-solicitor's offices. A crowd was round her, and when a fortunes, her health had been for many months on the new comer stopped, it was instantly said the woman had decline; and however circumstances might necessitate, lost a deed. she could not just then have accepted an engagement, The parchment was only restored after great expense even had one offered. Their needlework, through Mary's and delay; with this very natural result, that the solicitor negligence, had long passed from their hands; and, peremptorily refused to issue any further work to them therefore, no immediate resource was now left to them, from his office. As to Mary's motive for withdrawing other than a little engrossing from the solicitor in the the deed, it could be accounted for in no other way, than, City. But there was hope, if the translation she had had that supposing it to be finished, she was on her way with so long in hand could be accomplished, though, as it re-it to the office to get possession of the remuneration, for quired excessive care, it could not be very rapidly proceeded with, particularly as low diet and confinement again brought on an attack of ophthalmy.

But I must avoid the detail of these miserable months; the make-shift poverty, the stern necessity, the awful ruin; but none of these wrung the soul of the wretched girl so much as contention and the bitter reproaches heaped upon her, for not bringing in the customary earnings. For days together, when the low intermittent fever of the ophthalmy made it impossible to write, she would go and sit out in one of the parks for the day, with no other companion than old Pinch, and with little

the purpose of drink. The mental agony endured through this last act, threw Alice again on to a bed of sickness, and one surrounded by the most abject poverty. Just as she was recovering, her first pupils' parents sent her a week's invitation, and enclosed her a pound for the journey; but, for the desire of getting well, and being able to renew her work, Alice would have refused this invitation as she dreaded to leave Mary. She went, but for the week only, though pressed to stop several, for her heart dreaded all sorts of mischances during her absence; not that she was ignorant, poor child, that the moral power she once exercised over Mary was gone; yet, still