give his sick wife all she wanted,—who had done every thing for him. He would consult his wife, however, he said; and to this Mr. Strawbridge, who always consulted his, when she was awake, could not object; and thus came about Ned's evening at home, and John's faces at the unof fending fire.

VIII.

Ned and Nelly talked the matter over at length, and passed a unanimous vote that Ned had better say nothing to his partner about the matter. Nelly, however, down deep in her soul, determined that, the first time she was well enough to write, she would herself pen a line to Mr. Strong, and ask him to be, what he had always been, a true friend. But do not think because she proposed to write, that Bob never came near his partner's sick wife; he was too kindly not to do that, and, more than once in the month, usually, drew up his horses at her door, and perfumed her chamber with the sphere of Havanna which accompanied his steps. Nelly, however, dared not trust herself to talk, so she determined to write. And she did write, and, foolish, unsuspecting child that she was, told of the offer made by Mr. Strawbridge. Had she not done this, Bob's easy, kindly selfishness would probably have led him to do the very thing that was wanted, when urged by the gentle, persuasive tone of the invalid. But to learn that his partner and his rival were conspiring,conspiring to break the agreement which had been acknowledged by Ned as a great favor done him, -conspiring to defraud him, the benefactor, of his dues, and make him pay a clerk, that the poor country boy he had befriended. might live in ease and luxury, we cannot tell how much virtuous indignation at such treachery and meanness bubbled up in Bob's breast; bubbled over, indeed, into a reply, which tore another year, it may be believed, from Ellen's short span of life. She burned it, she tried to forget it; but

it never left her.

Why? Because she feared that, God forgive them, they were ungrateful to their greatest earthly

benefactor.

IX.

The little town is in

Let us turn the glass once more. utter consternation. Mr. Strawbridge is rushing, bareheaded, for the doctor; the clerks of Strong & Co. are so pale and palpitating, that every ribbon and silk in the store might be carried away and they unable to resist; the very lawyer runs out, leaving all his papers for the winds to play with, in order that he may learn the particulars. Alas! the particulars are few and soon learned, - Ned Pond in lifting. a case of goods has broken a blood vessel, and has been carried home, dying or dead. Every man, woman, and child, as the word spreads, feels as though a little piece had been taken from his own heart. No one knew how dear Ned had been to him till now that Ned is gone,that bright face gone, that pleasant voice stilled to all earthly ears. Night comes half an hour sooner than it ever did before, — sinks upon every threshold with deeper darkness. Away in the country men put their hands to their chins and tell how sudden it was! and at his mother's? at his home? dare you go thither?

X.

Look at this scene. Bob has been suddenly wakened from his afternoon nap by slamming doors. He starts up with a look of singular anxiety. He has been dreaming, what he often dreams lately, that Ellen, pale as a spirit, has been to beseech him to save her husband. He had heard the doctor say three months ago that Ned could not live if he did not stop working so. "He chooses to do it," said Bob to hisconscience. Conscience entered into no discussion, but intimated that he was not telling the truth, and 41

VOL. I.

Bob turned away. But in his dreams conscience plays the tyrant; he is haunted before his time. A year has passed since that cruel note to the sick wife, and day by day he has seen the husband fail, and speak no word. He begins to tremble; he questions whether he has been as generous as he deemed himself; he is resolved to release his partner from his old bond that has enslaved him now these seven years. He starts up, as we say, with a strange look of anxiety; rubs his eyes; resolves he 'll do it to-morrow, and lay this ghost that pursues him. Calmed by his good resolution, he tries to sleep again, when the door opens, his eldest girl rushes in, and, forgetting all in her grief for Ned, whom she loved dearly, throws herself at her father's knees, and sobs out, "O papa! papa! he 's dead!" "Who? what? when?" "Dear Ned Pond, papa! he died at the store, — died at his work!" Died at his work! How will you lay the ghost now, selfishly generous man?

XI.

Once more we look into the chamber of the invalid. The little saucepan is silent; the voice of time, as instant after instant is told off, alone breaks the stillness. Who sits by the bedside? It is the beetle-browed Englishman, calm and mournful. Is he watching by the sick? No, but by the dead. And where is Ellen? Too ill to be here? No, she is here, and never did her plain features seem so beautiful; but the eye is closed, yes, closed in death. The blow was too much for one so weak. Side by side they lie there; or no, not they, but their decaying and corruptible frames. They at last are free: the family circle is again formed: the parents and the children have met together.

A knock is heard on the door, a step in the entry; the silent hinges turn; Robert Strong enters the room. He has been requested to watch there with John Strawbridge, and he dares not refuse. How the night lingers! Not a word;

not a motion, unless when the air from the half-opened window stirs the bed-curtains, and the shadows dance and whisper, and then sleep again. Hour after hour the watch ticks, and the pulses of the living beat, and their breath comes and goes, and memory and conscience have all the conversation to themselves. It is a terrible night to Robert; but is it only terrible? Does no clearer insight into life and duty come to him? no comprehension that mere impulse is not God's voice, and that no kindly-selfishness will take the place of true, thoughtful, consistent, enduring, self-denying kindness? Let us trust that he is learning in these silent hours that there is an aid which is no aid, a generosity which is robbery, a kindness that kills.

CHARITY IN THE COUNTING-HOUSE AND

OUT OF IT.

It's a desolate place, that suburb of Fulton. Of a cold, dark evening, when the easterly wind draws down the val leys, and the clouds drift by with a snow-spit now and then, I know not of a more desolate place on earth. The long Front Street of Cincinnati, which runs by the river-side, and follows the vagaries of the stream, at length runs close under the hills, and melts into the single avenue which forms the thoroughfare of the superb city of Fulton. In front rolls the turbid Ohio; behind rise the precipitous hills, whence clay avalanches for ever noiselessly slide, pressing houses and stores hourly forward, forward, like an inexorable fate.

Slowly, wearily, through the mud of that single thoroughfare, now on planks, now on the railway which runs in the midst of the street, now on the curb-stone of some intended, but never completed sidewalk, the straight, soldier-like form of Ferdinand Spalding glanced amid the increasing snowflakes, as he struggled, after a long day's work, to seek the material of more work. On his left lay the ship-yards, with their ribs of future leviathans glistening in the ghostly snow-light. Hill-pressed houses, nodding in tipsy reverie, uncertain when to tumble, glowered on his right. Before him, the locomotive, filling the street with its black-white