MRS. DIVINE. Umph! it needn't have taken a sage to say that!

I. You did not hear him out. He adds, 'Happier he that hath a dog alone!'

MRS. DIVINE (contemptuously). A sage? Nothing but a cynic! Leo, there, is wiser. He would say-if he could speak that he'd rather have you for his friend than halfa-dozen dogs!

To which argumentum ad canem neither the Eastern sage nor I had anything to say.

Pardon this digression-if a digression it be! In coun try life, animals hold an important place. Dogs, horses, chickens, may fairly be counted members of the social

circle.

On the second Sunday after the one of which I have given such faithful and voluminous account, Ruth Winnot's birdlike voice again charmed my ear, and recalled to my memory the resolve made, at Bona's instigation, a fortnight before; which, I am ashamed to say, I had suffered to slip from my mind, amid the multiplicity of my interests and occupations. My faithful Mentor did not fail to improve the opportunity to administer a reprimand and an admonition.

"Remember that your talents were not given you," she concluded, "to be buried in a napkin, when you cease to care for them, nor to be exercised merely for your pleasure or that of your friends; their possession involves a fearful responsibility. God expects to receive His own again, with usury."

That very evening, I sought out my hostess. "Mrs. Divine, tell me something about Ruth Winnot, please."

"Ruth Winnot!" repeated the old lady, wiping her spectacles, preparatory to taking a wondering view of me,"there's nothing to tell, that I know of, only that she's Farmer Winnot's daughter, and lives in that red house, up on the hill, there."

“But what makes her look so sad?"

"Well, I guess it's on account of her feet.”

"Her feet!" I repeated, in amaze,

"Yes. Didn't you know she had crooked feet-club. feet, some folks call 'em. She was born so."

"And why were they never straightened?"

"Well, her mother couldn't make up her mind to see the child suffer;-some mothers can't-or won't-do that, you know, even when it's for their children's plain good. If God had felt like that, I wonder where mankind would be now! And Ruth has grown up so delicate, that the doctors don't advise the straightening, at present. But she's awfully sensitive about her feet, poor thing! She never goes anywhere, hardly, except to church; and she always takes good care to get there before other folks come, and waits till they are gone, before she leaves."

"Ah! yes," said I, "I remember that she remained in the gallery all alone, on the day of Maggie Warren's funeral, when Alice and I went down stairs. I wondered at it, then."

"She always does so. And her mother told me she couldn't bear to have a word said to her about her feet, even by her; and Alice-who is more intimate with her than anybody else-says that she never heard her so much as hint at them, in the most distant manner. But I don't think there's any sense in letting her go on in that way. I told her mother it would be real good for her to be made to talk about them (a thing you can't talk about, always seems twice as bad as it is), and that she ought to try and overcome her dislike to going among folks. She's getting into a downright unhealthy, morbid way; and something ought to be done about it, I think. Come, there's another chance for you to do good, Miss Frost, and you seem to be on the lookout for all such."

The next morning I despatched the following laconic epistle to Uncle John; having before my eyes the fear

of sundry pishes! and pshaws! that I had heard him. utter over Flora's letters; wherein demands for money, and commissions, were so mixed up with foreign matter that he declared himself unable to get at what was wanted, except by a careful process of sifting and taking notes:

"Shiloh, June 15, 186

"Dear Uncle: Please send up my piano, at your convenience, marked, 'Care of Reuben Divine, Mumford depot, &c.' Also, my music-stand, with contents. The roses have not budded yet, but I have planted the seeds.

"Your affectionate niece,

"WINNIE FROST."

To which, in due course of time, I received this answer: "New York, Wall St., June 16th, 186

"Dear Niece: Piano sent to-day, as per order, freight pd. Enclosed please find check for fifty dollars ($50), on acct. for two full-blown roses, to be delivered as per agreement. Glad you can write a sensible letter.

"Your affectionate uncle,

"JOHN FROST,"

I smiled to see that this document had been signed, from force of habit, "John Frost & Co.;" but the writer had bethought himself in time to draw his pen through the words indicating copartnership, and save me from the dismal conviction that the nearest relative I had in the world, had sunken his personal, flesh-and-blood identity in the mere abstraction of a firm. Yet the smile was inextricably entangled with a tear;--to be sure, it did not need my uncle's prompt compliance with my request, nor his check, to assure me that he loved the child of his dead brother, in the depths of his heart; but he was so undemonstrative a man, outwardly, that it required an effort of the reason and the will, sometimes, to hold fast to that truth. "Deeds, not words," was the motto of his affections.

The piano-that piano which I never intended to touch again!—was duly installed in the "out-room; and I inaugurated its mission (for it has one!) by playing a polka or two for "the boys -a term which Mr. Divine seems to apply indiscriminately to his grown-up sons and his hired men,―a nocturne for Alice, and two or three sweet old Scotch melodies for the elder members of the household. I dared not yet trust myself to sing,-that was too full of stinging memories!

Then, I set out to find Ruth Winnot.

XVI.

RUTH WINNOT.

ONA (emphatically). You know you cannot expect to get much, without giving something.

I winced.

Confidence was the one thing I

was unprepared to give.

MALA (chiming in with my mood). You know the giving will be like pressing on a raw sore; and the getting will not heal it.

BONA. No, only help to heal it. As whole acres of Persian roses are required to make a single ounce of pure ottar; so the soul's balm is the slow product of a long course of right living and thinking,-every separate act and thought of which contributes its own minute but precious particle of sweetness to the rich result.

MALA. But, after all, how hard it is to have to take up with hurt and healing, instead of happiness!

BONA. How hard it is for the roses to be plucked and pressed, and to have their sweetness concentrated and preserved, instead of perishing utterly from the earth by the natural process of decay!

MALA. Nonsense! I am talking of a living, beating, human heart. Of course, the roses are inanimate things, and feel nothing.

BONA. If they did feel, might they not reasonably prefer the short pain of the process that makes them imperishably useful and delightful, to a few more hours of idle