heaven.

Then came my sister Alice “good for nothing," as some one says, "but to love and be loved by all the rest; " and lastly, a little baby-brother who was called Charley.

Our house, as I have said, was small-but then we had a good-sized garden, which my brother and myself, assisted of an evening by my father, managed to weed, and keep in tolerable order. As we grew older, this garden became a source of profit as well as amusement. The cottage was a detached one, healthy from its elevated position, but much exposed to the wind, which used to go sweeping round it in winter, until the walls seemed actually to tremble at its violence. Many a time have I trembled too in my little bed, as I listened to it. But I knew who it was who "hath ascended up into heaven, or descended, who hath gathered the wind in his fists."

In the summer time it was a pretty place enough. Outside grew a woodbine and honeysuckle, planted and trained by my father; and our little window needed no other curtain. There was a large apple-tree in the garden, and lilacs, and laburnums, and mignonette, of which my mother was very fond. All around

were green fields gladdened in spring with a wealth of buttercups and daisies, childhood's treasures, and surrounded by hedges where grew the sweet may, and the white hawthorn; and beneath which we used to hunt for violets ―ay, and find them too.

My father often said that he would not mind walking double the distance he did in order to procure us these simple and healthful pleasures. We were very happy then. Too young to take thought for the future, the present was everything to us. As a late author writes: "We had our parents, our brothers and sisters, old familiar faces, the sheep and cows in the mea. dows, the birds on the trees, the glad sunshine, the blue sky above us, and God who lived in it; and that was all-but what a beautiful all!"

CHAPTER II.

UNCLE JABEZ.

UNCLE JABEZ was a very old man, and lived in a very old house, about a mile off. He was my mother's uncle, the only relative she had left; and her desire to be near him was one among the many reasons which had induced her to settle in the neighbourhood. I have already mentioned that the lowness of the rents in that vicinity was another, and had probably led to Uncle Jabez taking up his abode there many years before. Although an old man, Uncle Jabez was not nearly so old as he looked. His skin had a dry, shrivelled appearance, like a piece of ancient parchment; and there was a nervous twitching in the thin, yellow face every time he spoke. His eyes were singularly keen and bright. He must have been tall in his youth, but his form was now sadly thinned and bowed down.

He lived a hard life. In the winter he fre

quently went to bed at six o'clock, in order to save fire and candles, and scarcely ate enough at times to keep life in him. Nevertheless he was supposed to be very rich. My mother knew that he had been so once, years ago, before he took to the strange life which he now led. But then she also knew that he had been very wild in his youth, and obliged to sell the old house where he was born, and go abroad; and she believed that his property was all spent long since, everything had been so changed since his return. Many, however, thought differently.

It was wonderful to hear of the presents which he was continually receiving. One neighbour sent him a little sucking pig; another a barndoor fowl; another, a pot of fresh butter, or honey, with fruit and vegetables in abundance. All that he could sell was sold, or kept until they were no longer fit to be eaten; but they were eaten, nevertheless: nothing was wasted-nothing given away. Of course my parents did not send him anything: they had nothing to send; it was as much as they could do to procure food for their own little ones.

I shall never forget my first interview with

Uncle Jabez, which happened soon after the death of the little golden-haired sister before alluded to. I had frequently heard my brother describe him, but I should not have recognised him if he had not stopped and spoken to me. "So you don't know me?" said he.

"How should I, when I have never seen you before?" was my reply; "but I suppose you are Uncle Jabez."

"And I suppose you are John Cunningham. Your mother might well call you delicate. Why you look more like a girl than a boy." I felt the colour rush to my face, and the tears to my eyes; but this time I remained silent. "And so you are in deep mourning. Well to be sure, who would have thought it in your circumstances ?"

"Oh, uncle!" I exclaimed. "Don't you know that we have lost 'Sunshine'?”

He looked up, wonderingly, into the clear summer sky. "I know that your little sister Mary is dead," answered he, after a pause; "and so much the better; there will be one mouth the less to feed."

"One mouth less to feed! Oh, Uncle Jabez, we would all of us have willingly gone without,