shall promote the development of the physical, the intellectual, and the moral powers,―natural dispositions will produce only wild and poisonous fruit, which circumstances will bring to fatal maturity. We are led into these reflections by the two pictures our artist has placed before us. He has selected his illustrations from the working classes. They form a large and most important portion of the community, and on the manner in which their children are trained depends, very materially, the order and comfort of the whole population. We cannot conceal the fact that thousands of these receive no training at all, or are trained only for evil. We pass through our narrow streets and lanes, courts and alleys, and we find them crowded with dirty, ill-fed, miserably clad, squalid, wretched-looking children, idling away their time, or busy only for mischief; and we ascertain that they are, in almost every case, the offspring of thoughtless and neglectful, profligate and dissolute parents. Filth and miasma are their nursing mothers, profanity and irreligion their everyday companions. The father leaves them early in the morning to engage in his daily toil; his intervals of leisure he spends, for the most part, in the dram-shop; he rarely returns to his uncomfortable home till his children have gone to rest; and what training can they have from him who cares so little for them, or what profit can they derive from his example, so profligate and wicked? In consequence of the scanty pittance doled out by the selfish husband, the mother has, in many instances, to toil hard, either at home or abroad, to make out a living, and the instruction, the cleanliness, the comfort of her children, become only a secondary consideration, if it enters at all into her thoughts. Meanwhile the children grow up, increasingly ignorant and increasingly vicious, perpetuating the evils of their class, and inflicting serious injury on the whole community. But we rejoice to know that this is very far from being a just description of the whole of our working population. Thanks to Providence, we have thousands of sober, honest, industrious mechanics, artisans and labourers, whose children are duly cared for, cleanly, decently clad, educated, taught useful employments, and placed in the way of becoming clever workmen, thriving tradesmen, respectable citizens. These, as far as the circumstances of the parents allow, are trained in the way they should go; their parents receive a rich reward, and the community is greatly benefited. To return, however, to our pictures. The artist has placed two children, two courses, two destinies before us. Like Hogarth, the Frenchman has noted the peculiarities of his countrymen, and with a graphic pencil has endeavoured to show how the working man's way in the world is governed by his own determination and perseverance, founded, no doubt, upon the training he received in early life. The incidents in the life of such a man, whether he be a native of America, of England, or of France, do not differ materially. In every place there are temptations to evil and encouragements to virtue; and in every place prudence and resolution are required to avoid that which is evil and to follow that which is good. "Look on this picture, and on that."-In the one we behold the strong, hearty, cheerful-looking workman parting from his young wife, and proceeding to his daily toil; and she, a few minutes afterwards, is busied in those domestic employments which render home a comfort and a joy. In the other, the husband, whether intent on work or on pleasure we can scarcely tell, makes his first call to the dram-shop, while, in the next compartment, the wife is seen in the pawn-shop about to leave her wedding ring as a pledge, whether to purchase bread or for other purposes is somewhat equivocal, as is also the conduct of the young female her companion. On the right hand of the reader there are exhibited the comforts of domestic life: in the centre the grandmother with her daughter and grandchildren around her, and the husband hastening with eager steps to join the happy party; on the sides, the preparation for the mid-day meal, and the tired labourer enjoying his supper in the open air. But what a frightful contrast does the engraving on the left present! The sottish husband, seated in a low public house, unshorn, drunk, and incapable; returning home at midnight; furious at finding his own door closed against him; his wretched wife and children cowering in terror; their only bed some straw scattered on the earthen floor; and as the result of all this selfish and brutal conduct, the poor distracted mother seeking for her infant the protection afforded by the Hospital for Foundlings. Mad with drink, this husband and father has committed some furious outrage, some brutal assault, and is about to be conveyed to a lonesome dungeon. The artist has left us to suppose that the man is sent to prison or to the galleys, and that, as the result, his wife and children are driven to seek a precarious livelihood either by begging, or by the sale of some trifling articles. What a pleasing dénouement is presented on the right hand! The ingenious and skilful mechanic is industriously employed, as is also his eldest boy; his workshop presenting an appearance of neatness and order in every part; and, as the result of skill and industry, we find him at length a respectable employer, with his plans before him, giving instructions to persons in his employ, who, evidently, regard him with deep respect. But through the medium of these pictures the artist becomes also a moralist. In every compartment is instruction, warning, or encouragement. In whatever country the lot of the working man is cast, idleness and profligacy will lead to disgrace, and want, and ruin; industry, forethought, and prudence will lead to comfort, to competence, to respectability. Philanthropists! strive to raise our working classes above the injurious influences by which they are surrounded. Parents! train up your children in the paths of sobriety, industry, and virtue, that they may be happy in themselves, a comfort to you, and a blessing to the land in which they dwell. The CRIME ORIGINATING IN A SENTIMENT OF CHARITY IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY. THE following singular anecdote is told of a princess of Mahaut, Countess of Artois and Burgundy, who constantly occupied herself in acts of charity to the poor and destitute. Endowed with a deep sensibility, she could not bear to see an unfortunate person without endeavouring to relieve him. More than once she got deeply into debt, and involved herself in pecuniary difficulties, to distribute alms to the poor, who flocked from all parts of France to partake of her liberality; and, like the good king Robert, she was always followed by six or seven hundred beggars, whom she fed and clothed, and who followed her in all her travels. historian Gellut, who has given details on this subject, says: "It pleased God to send upon Burgundy a very dreadful famine, so that in the streets were heard piteous wailings, exclamations of distress, and little children crying out that they were dying of hunger. In addition to this, the winter was unusually severe, and the intense cold destroyed almost as many poor as the famine. It is easy to conceive that under these circumstances the ordinary attendance of the princess would be greatly increased, and such appears to have been the case. More than a thousand of these needy dependants upon her bounty had accompanied her this year to the village of Châtellenut, near Artois, where she took up her residence, and generously supplied their wants. But when all her resources were exhausted; when she found she was herself in danger of starvation; when not a coin was left in her coffers, nor a jewel in her casket; after having shed many tears, she resorted to the following expedient, to avoid abandoning so large a multitude to the sad fate which awaited them in a time of great scarcity. One evening she had them closely shut up in her barn; and when she thought they were all asleep, she ordered the barn to be set on fire, and not a single one effected his escape. The historian who relates this circumstance without any expression of astonishment, satisfies himself with saying, "O cruel pity and severe kindness, which involves the most barbarous cruelty! O unmerciful mercy!" He does not state whether the princess had as numerous a body of followers the year after. "In every word there is a magical influence, each word being the breath of the internal, moving spirit. Where is he who is proof either against words of blessing or of curse?"-Dr. Ennemoser's "History of Magic." MRS. ELLIS STAMBOYSE and her sister, and good, bustling Mrs. Strudwicke were marvellously busy with the heaping up of rich bridecake in a silver basket, with gossip, and with preparation of the drawing-rooms for the reception of wedding visitors, during the hour that Leonard, with hurried footsteps but lagging heart, hastened out of the town in the direction of the asylum. The sunshine gleamed upon its many windows, as he neared the house of woe. A clear blue sky circled over it, and a flight of pigeons, with wings gleaming as the wings of angels, soared up in whirling flights above its red prison-roofs. Leonard's eyes noticed every thing, every grass-blade tipped with rime, which nodded along his pathway; every fleecy pile of cloud which rolled through the azure heaven. And now he was waiting in a small sitting-room, where the patients received their friends. With the same dull, mechanical perception, Leonard here noticed the cards stuck in the frame of a ground-plan of the establishment hung above the mantelpiece, and also he noticed that the fire-irons were chained to the stove, and that the window was very high and closed in with bars. And then the door opened, and mechanically turning round, he saw, whilst a great trembling seized his soul-that his mother entered. Except that she was so very thin, and a certain mist hung within her restless eyes, he felt no change in her as she approached him-for she looked but little older, and had always, in years past, a certain wildness in her dress. But it was as a stranger that she addressed her son. This cut poor Leonard, as with a sharp knife, to the very bone. He, it was he, whose features were convulsed with emotion. "You have done me the honour, sir, of calling upon me -pray be seated;" said the poor mother, waving her hand with a strange grace towards a chair. "Visitors are unfrequent now in the world-but I do not wonder that they should not come HERE to see me, though I am the widow, sir, of Augustus Mordant-the poet's widow-for there are sad and terrible things done here. Had my son lived, sir; but, we won't talk about THAT-he was murdered-MURDEREDMURDERED!" and hoarsely muttering to herself the terrible word, she sunk upon the floor oblivious to all but her anguish, and her frame quivered, as if she were seized with ague. "Mother, dear--he is here!" said the stifled voice of Leonard, and he pressed his white lips to her poor thin hands; "I am your Leonard, only look at me, mother." But springing up like a tigress, the heart-broken mother seized her son fiercely by the shoulders, and with flashing eyes uttered a wild yell-" You-YOU MY son! YOU are his murderer!" The door flew open-a tall man seized upon Mrs. Mordant, and holding her poor hands tightly in his grasp, motioned with his head for Leonard to retire. Leonard waited no longer; the last drop of misery was added to his cup, and in truth it flowed over. Pacing up and down the hilly fields around the asylum might Leonard have been seen during the whole of that day-he seemed unable to tear himself away from this place of woe-such a mighty pity for that suffering soul, swallowed his own misery. Doubts of all that is holiest at times assailed him-bitterest scorn of his own impotence stung him-all anchorage seemed lost for his soul. To have believed in utter annihilation after death, and to have sunk into a dull oblivion, was all that he desired. The beauty, the perfection, the cheerfulness of nature seemed a cruel mockery of man. No oasis showed itself in the desert of his life-yet, as in the house of death, the mourners rise up and lie down, partake of meat and drink, and take heed of the morrow-so did the body of Leonard mechanically pursue its course, whilst the soul lay dead. Back to London went the body, re-entered the dingy lodgings, and recommenced a dull, soulless existence-ambition had vanished-hope-love; he never asked himself whether they would any day return. Leonard sternly refused all intercourse with his acquaintance, and changed his lodging, desiring to be lost in the great vortex of London. Much astonishment did his sudden disappearance after his triumph occasion among the academy students and the professors, and especially in good Lambelli's heart. But in London the greatest wonder only remains a wonder its proverbial length of time-nine days. "He was always a queer fellow, was Hale, he'll be turning up again some of these days, never fear," was the consoling reference to the wonderments of his acquaintance. Lucretia Gaywood, however, could not so easily be silenced. Leonard, on his return, was too unobservant of external things to notice an air of freshness and of order which reigned in his room,--that all his book had been dusted and arranged; that all his brushes had been beautifully washed, and his paint-box put into nicest order; that sketches, tumbling about, had been cleaned and laid together,—that a fresh cloth was laid upon his table, of a beautiful dull crimson; and that various rents and rags had disappeared from the hearth-rug. Neither did he notice that a new black tin coffee-pot stood on the accustomed spot of a leaky old one, which, for several years, had been a comforting friend of his. Alas! grief, which so often renders the kindest of hearts unkind, had rendered him blind to the ministration of two bright angels, who, during the days of his absence, had worked with busy fingers and sorrowing hearts for him-the angels Lucretia and her little sister Mary. A great crisis had arrived in the life of Leonard,-he was suddenly become the grave and fully developed man, treading the path of earthly sorrow which our Blessed Lord deigned to tread, our poor hero had become in due time "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Gradually through that dull time loomed forth the truth of many things-and with truth a certain hope. 'Knowing what pain is, having involuntarily caused a pain unutterable, if there be a God of love and mercy, may that God avert from me the bitter curse of further increase of pain-may my life become not a cursebut each day, each hour exist innoxious, if not blessed, through the power of creating joy," thought unceasingly the soul of Leonard. Unceasing ponderings upon these things absorbed his spirit; the seeds of the peculiar nursery of his own and his parents miserable fate, he traced down to their earliest source, seeking with prayers and an agony as of "bloody sweat," to disentangle the mournful skein of their lives. The only remaining motive of his soul, during those long months was a stern resolve to avoid causing a pain or injustice towards any human being, and this alone impelled Leonard to exertion. In order, honestly to pay for the slender requirements of his life, he unceasing made the description of designs for the publisher whom we have already mentioned. To begin any great work of imagination seemed to him a mockery -the glory of his earlier aspirations was gone, and he remembered his fervour of but a few months back with a sort of pity. How long this frame of mind might have continued, had Leonard been left undisturbed in this strange and brooding life, we know not. But the seeds of earnestness having been sown by the angel of Pain in his soul, now came the angel of Pity to call them into life by her warm smiles, and by her tears of sympathy. Leonard was drawing, as usual, one April afternoon, with a dull monotony of hand, and with his thoughts far away, when suddenly once again the angelic vision stood in his room. "You must pardon our intrusion," said Lucretia's mild voice, "but we have been very anxious about you, and Andrew has insisted upon our disturbing you. We have brought you a little bit of nature, Mr. Hale, to tempt you to come out with us and see what pleasant things are going on in the world, which we are all of us apt to forget. Where is it, dear Mary?" And Mary, a girl of fifteen, with the most modest of deep hazel eyes, brought up from beneath the soft folds of her cloak a rustic basket brimful of clusters of the freshest primroses, and bright gleaming arum leaves, and dark-green dog's merny, and ivy trails, with bushes of violets here and there peeping out of moss. "How very beautiful! Miss Gaywood," exclaimed Leonard, with such an expression of pleasure in his voice and in his whole countenance as had not been there for many a long month; "and what a kind, gentle thought of yours-beautiful as the flowers themselves!" "Oh, it is not our thought," said Mary, speaking for the first time, and a bright colour spreading over her face, till she looked almost beautiful; "it was Andrew's thought, yesterday, when we were all together down in those beautiful Esher woods-how beautiful they are !-and the birds singing like mad, and Lucretia repeating her favourite lines of Mordant's about the summer grass, we all at once exclaimed how much we wished indeed that you could have been with us,--for Andrew always connects you with thoughts of flowers, and moss, and ivy; and he said, 'Take him some flowers, and try to persuade him to come here-to these Esher woods I mean.' And so, this morning, after we had been with Andrew to the coach, and bade him good-by, we came over here." As the bright young girl spoke, the dull mist over Leonard's soul was withdrawn for a space, and rays of celestial light fell with a warmth upon him. But he remained quite silent, and there was almost an unresponsively cold look on his face. "We were so sanguine," resumed Lucretia, "as to believe that, together with these flowers, our words might avail some little with you, and that you might be prevailed upon to take some change. I know myself so well the deadening effect of these London rooms, and especially the reluctance that grows upon one living alone, to break through the charmed circle of solitude, the influence of which grows upon one with the strength of an enchanter's spell. I wonder whether you would ever so far break this spell, as to come out to us at Kentish-town; we've no Esher woods there, nor anything even to be properly called a garden-not what we country folks, Mr. Hale, should call a garden-but we have quiet, and a few trees, and beautiful sunsets from our sitting-room window, and we are near to really lovely strolls at Highgate; and, above all, we have a truly hearty welcome for you? Will you believe this, and will you come and test it?" And such truth and purity lay in every accent of the sisters' voices, and in their kind countenances that Leonard, spite of himself, said, "Yes, I will, indeed!" "You will; that is right and kind! but when-let us fix now?" said Lucretia. "You would not come back now with us, would you? This is a very sudden thought, I grant-and startling perhaps to you; but never mind, the sooner, the more suddenly, the better for such a hermit as you are. If we left you time for consideration of the subject-we never should see you!" Leonard smiled. "I will return with you now even, if you really invite me !" "We do! we do!" repeated the sisters. Mary especially looking greatly pleased. "Meet us," said Lucretia, "in twenty minutes at the corner of Tottenham-court-road. Mary and I have to call at a shop in Oxford-street; and so, until then, good bye." And the sisters were gone. It was certainly a clever stratagem of the sisters to have thus suddenly taken poor Leonard at his word, and thus arrange this meeting. For no sooner had their bright presence vanished out of the dusky room, than our hero repented him of his promise. The remembrance of his worn clothes rose up with an importance which they never before had had in his eyes-the pain ever in his soul, seemed to return with a bitter violence, as if to reproach him; thus even for a few moments he had enjoyed respite from its gnawing tooth. But the fresh odour from the primroses and violets rose up towards him with the vernal gentleness of the sisters' voices, and their mild eyes seemed full of reproaches. They are too pure to trouble themselves about my old coat and hat,” thought Leonard, with a smile creeping over his sad face. "What a marvellous world this is, where the sternest griefs can even for a moment be mingled up with such ridiculous trifles." 66 A respite to Leonard's dull grief came whilst he sat in the tiny little sitting-room of the Gaywoods' cottage at their bright little tea-table. Lucretia pouring out the most fragrant tea; and Mary, bringing forth from a Japan cabinet, much too large for the room, all imaginable dainties from the East and the West-preserved ginger, Guaina jelly, and other delicious condiments and confectionaries. "We have long been wanting a guest of especial honour to enjoy all our dainties," laughed Mary, as she dived still deeper into the cabinet, and bringing forth fresh jars and quaint baskets. "Those good brothers of ours, Thomas and Robert, keep our old cabinet always so full, that we really often propose-don't we Lucretia, dear?-to set up shop with our stores. I fancy I could drive a prosperous trade, if Lucretia would only let me have a stall at the Kentish-town gate, near to the old applewoman's. Every month, almost, Thomas sends us some beautiful things to look at, or some good things to eat; and Robert, who is in India-poor Robert-"with a sigh"-is quite as bad in cramming our poor little cottage with stuffed birds, wonderful shells, shell-baskets, ivory boxes, and Indian idols. This is the reason why Lucretia and I have to live like a couple of 'Nellys' in an 'Old Curiosity Shop!' But do try some of this beautiful jelly; its colour is lovely, is it not? there always seems to be a tropical sunshine glowing within it;" and Mary floated about like sunshine herself. But not alone were the dainty foods and marvels of the "curiosity shop"-which, by the bye, extended throughout the whole house, from scullery to attic-the sole entertainments offered by Lucretia and Mary to their guest. Mary glided like a sunbeam out of the room shortly after the disappearance of the tea-tray-in fact, to "wash-up" the tea-cups down in the most ideal of little kitchens-for the Gaywoods kept but one little maid, and such delicate china cups, the gift of "poor Robert," were never entrusted to any unskilful hands. Lucretia and Leonard fell into discourse, such as Leonard had rarely ever enjoyed, and, contracted as was his acquaintance with women, certainly never before with a woman. Of poetry they talked; of Keats, and Shelley, and the new poet Tennyson as the overture. Then Lucretia's little book-shelves having attracted Leonard's eye, the discovery within it of various periodicals containing fugitive pieces of his father's, all carefully marked by Lucretia's hand, surprised him with a mingled thrill of joy and pain. "How much," said Lucretia, without looking up from the delicate needle-work at which her fingers were industriously stitching—Lucretia was always seen employed at idle times, as she would term them, upon the most delicate of needlework-needlework which helped out the very slender income of the two sisters-"How much, and how often, I have desired that the poems of your father should some day be collected into a worthy form. Those gems of poetry, scattered as they are through the periodicals of the time, are lost entirely, except to the earnest seeker of his rare genius. Were I rich, that is a labour of true love in which I would indulge; and I should consider that to unite in one great blessing the scattered fancies of such a mind, would be as benevolent an act as the digging of a well in the desert for the reviving of fainting travellers-and, indeed, the draughts of refreshment to my own spirit which I have quaffed from his poetry, would render such an act but a simple one of earnest gratitude." "I have frequently desired such a thing myself," said Leonard, with his old mournfulness stealing shadow-like over his face; "and one of my thousand fancies has been to sketch a few designs, suggested by various of the poems. It would truly to me be a labour of love, Miss Gaywood; for, with all my unhappy father's weakness, to me he ever appears surrounded by a wondrous glory of even celestial beauty, and- "Is it then possible that you,"-suddenly interrupted Lucretia, looking up at Leonard with an almost stern reproach in her tone-" that you echo the cruel injustice of the world, and fling a stone against the memory of a man certainly more sinned against than sinning, and that man your father. Words such as his lips have uttered it were faithless indeed to believe proceeded from any but the most generous, the most noble soul. Oh! Mr. Leonard, let us cultivate an unbounded charity and faith; they alone enable us to pass with joy through the earth. Trust me that, believing in perfection, perfection reveals itself to the believer." Lucretia's usually calm manner was momentarily ruffled, her. fingers trembled as she resumed her needlework, and a flush passed over her Madonnalike countenance. "Pardon my warmth," she resumed, with a heavenly sincerity looking forth from soft eyes as they rested upon Leonard's mournful face; "I owe your father too deep a debt of gratitude lightly to hear a shadow of reproach cast upon him, and especially by a son. Whatever strength may be given me to perform the duties of existence-whatever sunshine is cast over Mary's and Andrew's life, and mine-we may in a great measure attribute to your father's influence. Years ago-years before you were born-Mordant was an inmate for one whole summer of our father's house. Our father was the schoolmaster of a village upon the borders of Sherwood Forest. I was quite a little child then, but each word, each look of the poet, remains engraven for ever upon my memory. What a marvellous power did he not possess as the interpreter of nature! With a child's simplicity, with a woman's love, and the knowledge of a philosopher, he unfolded the marvels of beauty and joy contained in every natural object around him. He stretched forth his hand and removed the seal; he opened his lips, and behold, the hieroglyphics of God glowed in living fire before even the eyes of an ignorant child! Each acre of the old forest became an acre of paradise, over which the feet of angels eternally paced, leaving the impress of glory, mystery, and joy, behind them. I was, through his teachings, ever hearing the still, small voice of God in the trees, in the murmur of the waters, in the hum of the bees, in the rustle of the flowers-everywhere I beheld "the Burning Bush," and, removing my sandals, adored, prostrating myself upon the holy ground. And when I tell you that your father's words, and gentleness to man and bird, and beast and worm, sinking into the child's heart, as seeds sown in a willing soil, came up in after years and put forth flowers of still deeper thought and purport, do you not acknowledge that that child owes a deep debt of love and gratitude towards the sower of the good seed ?" Lucretia's eyes rested, with warm tears of emotion swimming in them, upon Leonard; but he did not reply, as he sate with a bowed head. ་་ Incomprehensible, Protean nature of the Poet," mused he; "what human being can compute the balance between the good and the evil which thou hast produced?" But it was balm to the wounded soul of the son to recognise the lovely fruit brought fo th by his father in one human life at least. And this might be but a single sheaf from a vast harvest. Mary had returned during Lucretia's unusually excited address; and, sitting upon a low seat at her sister's knee, was gazing earnestly and silently up into her face. Twilight was stealing into the quaint little room, and no sound for a few seconds was heard, but the quick and monotonous click of Lucretia's needle, as, sitting at the window, she still mechanically pursued her work. Suddenly a cab, laden with luggage, stopped before the gate of the little garden; there was a violent ringing of the bell. A gentleman's face looked inquiringly out, and a child was seen convulsively to cling round his neck. Lucretia and Mary starting suddenly up, cried, as with one voice, “That is not Robert-that cannot be little Cuthbert! No, it is not Robert," cried Lucretia, a sudden paleness spreading over her face; and she flew out of the room, and was seen standing beside the cab door; and the gentleman was seen speaking hurriedly, and Lucretia stretched her arms towards the child endeavouring to untwine his little hands, clasped tightly round the gentleman's arm. But the child clasped them ever tighter and tighter, and a sad wail of childlike misery pierced even into the little parlour. Mary, who breathlessly had watched this scene through the window, now also flew to the cab. But no endeavours of the sisters could induce the child to untwine his hands; he fell sobbing upon the breast of the gentleman, who appeared to become more and more impatient. At length he raised the little boy in his arms and bore him, still violently sobbing, into the sitting-room; Lucretia and Mary, with distressed countenances, following hurriedly. "I regret, ladies, that I cannot stay with this poor little fellow, but it is of vital importance that I start to-night for Scotland; we have already, in seeking you, lost only too much time. Strange, unaccountable, that neither Gaywood's letter nor mine, sent from Marseilles, should have reached you! But Cuthbert !-Cuthbert, my man, these are your aunts-this is your house-be a brave little Cuthbert. These ladies love you very much." And as he spoke, the strong sun-burnt man, with a mother's tenderness, kissed the boy's beautiful curling locks, and even the slender little fingers so intricately clasped round his arm. Lucretia and Mary, their loving faces bathed in tears, sought by every possible means to soothe him and attract his attention; but the boy, staring with large mournful deep violet eyes at them for one moment, uttered a sad cry, and once more buried his face upon the stranger's broad chest. "It is very painful to resort to force with the poor child," said the gentleman, in a voice of emotion. "Nothing but this severe illness of my poor mother could induce me to leave my poor little companion in such distress, but we must release his hands; and the strong man's hands unclasped the tender fingers of the child; and Lucretia and Mary holding him in their arms, the stranger hurried out of the room, jumped into the cab, and rapidly rolled away. Little Cuthbert struggled violently, burst from the sisters, and, looking round in wild amaze, caught sight of Leonard, who was gazing at him from the window; he flew to him, clasped Leonard's hands, and imploringly looked up into his face. "You, you'll take me! They frighten me-you are a good man! They frighten me-Papa-Mr. Rutherton-" and the poor little fellow once more burst out into violent sobbing, and clung to Leonard. "How very extraordinary!" exclaimed the two sisters, greatly distressed. "What an unaccountable thing, poor, poor little fellow! It must be that he is not used to women; his father wrote us word that almost from his birth he had been little Cuthbert's nurse, and that he feared he would grow up very strangely; he has no mother, poor, poor little fellow ! And they looked at each other, and then at Leonard, with a strange uncertainty. Leonard, sitting upon a sofa, had taken little Cuthbert on his knee; and the child, flinging his slender arms around his neck, gobbed as though his very heart would break. Leonard made no attempt to soothe him, beyond stroking his soft hair and winding his arms tenderly about him. But a sudden, deep, and marked sympathy, had permeated the souls of the unhappy man and the unhappy child. All remained in deep silence. "May I carry Cuthbert into your garden, Miss Gay Leonard bore the child, still weeping, out into the twilight garden. The stars were already peeping forth here and there in a silvery grey sky; and long streaks of orange and violet lay upon the horizon, gleaming through the budding trees. All was hushed, except the distant murmur of the city. Leonard seated himself upon a rustic chair beneath a weeping ash upon the little grass-plot, and pressing the weeping child yet closer to him, began in a low voice to speak of this kind Mr. Rutherton, and of the long voyage, and of his home in India. Gradually the little breast heaved less violently, and the child, listening and becoming spell-bound by the tenderness of the voice, began, with convulsive sobs ever and anon breaking through his replies, to freely talk with his new friend. Leonard's keen sympathy had discovered the key with which to unlock the little heart. Cuthbert's highly excitable and nervous temperament responded to the imaginative nature of Leonard, and the boy's eyes opened with eagerness, and his lips poured forth a stream of hurried words whilst he filled up the pictures of his Indian life, the outline to which had been suggested to him by Leonard. And thus the two sat in long discourse till the large full moon rose shining through the trees, and Leonard felt the little figure shiver as it lay nestling up to his breast-his soul all eagerness about "that beautiful, beautiful day when papa took him out to ride with him on Mr. Langton's beautiful white Zippithat's the elephant, sir-such a beauty; and, you know, white ones are very rare, even in India; and"But you are cold, dear Cuthbert; let us now go in and tell your aunts about all these wonderful and beautiful things," urged his friend. "But-but-they make me feel quite quite afraid, sir; they are strange-all is strange," whispered the poor child, half weeping, as he crept up to Leonard's ear, and laid, with an indescribable trustingness, his little cheek upon Leonard's shoulder. "Am I not strange, also?" inquired Leonard. "No!" said the child, quite boldly; "I've often seen you in my dreams-you are an old friend quite-they are not; and all you say is so nice, and you love India as I do. I'll always obey you-I know instantly those people I'll obey. I'm very bad and wicked at times; even papa says so: and then, if people don't love me, I wish I was dead, like my beautiful mamma, whom I never knew, but who lies buried beneath the great Banian tree. I wonder, now, whether your mother is dead?--I know, though, she is." "Let us go into the house," again urged Leonard; and with slow steps towards the house the two friends walked. But Cuthbert, when he approached the door, was not so easily persuaded to enter. "It's so dark, and like a box," he said; "I think it as bad as a ship; now don't you, sir? I sha'n't, I'm sure, like this England-I always dreamed I hated it, and that I was always wishing to go to sleep with my mamma under the great Banian-tree." 'But you will like your aunts if you don't like England," remarked Leonard. "Shall I? Do you like them, dear, kind, man? Oh, then, perhaps I shall; only I never had any women about me-papa said always it was a great pity there were no women about me." 66 Meanwhile, the two poor aunts had been most busy in preparing a bed for the traveller; in having his foreign-looking boxes unpacked, and then in spreading a little repast to tempt the poor child to forget its miseries. Mary had brought out all their Indian dainties, in their native jars and baskets, and arranged them prettily from the table before the sofa; had lighted the candles, and brought up out of the kitchen, as an attraction to the child, a beautiful parroquet which Robert had sent them over a year or two previous, and whose harsh and jarring cry had caused him to be banished, spite of his gorgeous plumage, to the lower regions. Several times had the sisters glided to the garden door; but seeing Leonard and the child quietly seated beneath the weeping ash, they wisely returned, leaving the pair undisturbed. very shy, and clung with a convulsive grasp to Leonard's arm, sitting beside him upon the sofa, and only choosing to eat such things as he placed upon his plate. But the Indian baskets and jars, and the parroquet especially, reconciled Cuthbert to his new home; and after various lively sallies, the little head sank upon Leonard's breast, and the heavy, swollen eyelids, closed in sleep. It appeared, however, as if in slumber the child's anxiety returned shadowly into his soul; for he clung yet closer to his new friend, and heavy, sob-like sighs heaved his little frame. Dreading to re-awaken such a sad grief in the little unhappy one, Leonard besought the sisters to leave him reposing within his arms yet a little while. "I fear," said he, "it is growing late, and that I may be intruding; but for the sake of this dear child you will, perhaps, pardon such intrusion. In a half-hour or so, perhaps his sleep will be deeper and calmer." "Oh, we are only too grateful to you!" cried both the sisters. "But with your permission, Mr. Hale," said Lucretia, we will now perform our little evening duty; for the reading of the beautiful words of Scripture I need not apologise to you; and we endeavour, for the sake of our little maid, to strictly adhere to time and season. Mary, dear, ring the bell for Margery." The holy hush of the room, through which Mary's deep earnest, and soulful voice, fell like a quiet blessing as it read : "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted; "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth; "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God;" the gentle aspect of the three women, and the warm grasp of the little slumbering mourner, sent a gush of peaceful love through poor Leonard's heart, as though an angel from God had laid upon it his gentle, beneficent, healing hand. And when the three women, kneeling, repeated with a low, deep, fervent murmur, the sublime and tender words of the Lord's Prayer, Leonard sank his face upon the child's head, and bedewed the soft locks with a few trembling, warm tears, such as had not for years gushed up from his soul. It was the sanctification of a fresh chapter in Leonard's life. It is now a considerable space of time that we must hasten over in our narrative. Leonard became a constant visitor at the Gaywoods' little home, and the affection of little Cuthbert grew the strongest bond between them. The child, spite of a peculiarly affectionate nature, was passionate, most difficult to govern, and of such a sensitive temperament—at times, with an occult sense, as it were, showing itself within him by strange dreams and instincts-that Lucretia trembled for his health, either physical or mental. With Leonard she took earnest and deep council. Her brother Robert wrote, urging that his little son should immediately be placed in some school, where, among boys of his own age, the morbid and unusual developments of the child's nature should be ground off by contact with the realities of life. A public school in the city where his friend Rutherton had been educated, he indicated as the school where, when old enough, Cuthbert should be placed. But Lucretia recoiled from such a training for this peculiar child. Communicating with Mr. Rutherton during his stay in England, and most earnestly (in an interview she had with him before his return to India) entreating him to influence her brother so far as to defer Cuthbert's entrance into a public school, until at least he had attained the age of twelve, Lucretia obtained a partial compliance with her prayers. Cuthbert should remain under his aunt's roof till he was ten; now he was eight. These two years should be most religiously employed for good, she determined, and many were her earnest conferences on this subject with Leonard, who held such singular sway over the child's mind. And in her schemes, also, for Mary's education, Lucretia took council with her friend. But not alone was Leonard's influence felt over Cuthbert, and in Mary's German lessons, but his whole The child was now more courteous to his aunts, yet still graceful, poetical, and artistic nature flowed forth from him |