"With you, poor lad?" said Ole, and began to mend the fire vigorously under the boiler. There was going to be a mangling that same afternoon, and I went, with Ole, into the room. We did not go until it was almost over; and when the message was sent to bid Fransine come, she was a long time before she made her appearance; and when she came, she said"Good afternoon to all here!" in a different tone to what she had done before.

Everybody was quite silent when she came in; and all the time that she was placing the clothes within the linen of the roller, the whole place was so still that you might almost hear the people breathing. When she had got all ready, and stood by the mangle, there was a pause of a minute or two before any one offered to help her. At length Ole stepped forward from the ranks, as on the former occasion. He seized the handle, and at the first turn that he gave, the huge mangle rocked to and fro, and was shaken out of its place; and Fransine, throwing down the mangle-stick, rushed out of the room.

Ole and several other of the men went round into the public drinking-room, ordered each a measure of brandy, and were more than usually merry. After a short time, however, Ole grew very quiet, and, rising up, stood leaning against the inner door of the room.

While he was thus standing, my cousin Anton came in from the street. He stayed a moment at the threshold of the outer door to knock the snow from his shoes, and then was about to pass through the room, on his way to the parlour, against the door of which Ole was leaning. He might very well have gone in without disturbing Ole if he had chosen; but instead of that, he cast an angry glance at him, and bade him go out of the way.

Ole stood immoveable, as if he had not heard him speak; whilst the other young fellows drew together in a group by the counter.

"Did you not hear that I told you to stand out of the way?" cried my cousin.

Ole still leaned against the door-post as before, and replied "There has hitherto been, just as there is to-night, room enough for two people at

master's door."

One of the young men tittered; the rest drew closer together.

"Out of the way, fellow," shouted my cousin, growing angry, For else I'll help you!" "You had better help yourself," replied Ole. My cousin was almost beside himself: "You rascal," said he, "are you making game of me?" And with this he seized Ole by the breast of his coat.

But Ole was as if planted in the earth, and he merely said "Take your hands off!"

moment, gasped for breath, and then sank to his knees, the blood covering his face.

All the spectators stood as if petrified.

Ole stood staring for a moment, and then said-" Now I also have done some mischief." And then, bursting open the sitting-room door, stalked through it, with long strides, into the kitchen; and I, crying with all my might, ran after him.

In the kitchen stood Fransine. Ole, with his left hand, seized her by the arm; and she, terrified, sank upon her knees before him, whilst, with his right outstretched, he seemed as if grasping after some deadly weapon. Fransine screamed; and I, scarce knowing what I did, seized upon his outstretched arm and screamed too. The maid-servants came rushing in from the maid-servants' room; my aunt came out of her bed-chamber; and my uncle, who heard the noise in the distant counting-house, hurried in also. My cousin came reeling in, with a bloody pocket-handkerchief held to his face, and otherwise looking very white. At sight of my uncle and aunt, Ole let go Fransine, and remained standing immovable, with downcast head. Fransine sat down on the choppingblock, and putting her apron before her face, began to cry.

What is amiss here?" asked my uncle, looking round him. "How came you to be bleeding?" asked he of Anton.

"It is your brandy-distiller who has struck me," said he.

"And he has rushed through the parlour into the kitchen, and knocked down one of my maidservants!" said my aunt.

"Ole, what is the meaning of all this?" asked my uncle; you have hitherto been a wellconducted fellow. Have you had any cause of offence from any one? What is amiss, Ole?"

Ole seized my uncle's hand without looking at him, kissed it, and said-" God bless you, master!--but I must leave you.”

What, will you leave before your time is up,

Ole?"

"Yes, let him go!" cried my aunt, who was very irritable; " we are not going to ask him to stay, I should think."

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Master, I'll willingly forfeit a quarter's wages," said Ole.

"What! a quarter's wages? Do you think that I am troubling myself about your wages? You can set off, for what I care- -Heaven forgive me, I was nearly swearing! Only let me have peace in my own house!"

With these words my uncle turned round to go, evidently greatly disturbed, and, in passing Anton, he said to him, in a low voice-" It is all owing to you, you bad fellow! It is you, and nobody else, who has made all this mischief!"

Anton followed my uncle out of the kitchen, and said something to him which I did not hear.

"Pack up your things and be off," said my aunt to Ole; "and, Fransine, do you come with

me!"

in which it takes root and flourishes. About the fact that most criminals are ill-educated, or not educated at all, there can be no manner of doubt; and even when they appear to know something, it is mere words. They can repeat certain formula, which they have been taught to look upon as mystically efficacious in some way, but their mental and moral faculties remain dormant and are never awakened. A certain species of smartness may no doubt characterize the young criminal: he is shrewd beyond his years in seizing his prey and eluding his enemies, but all this is compatible with mental development a few degrees above idiocy. Seeing then that ignorance is, in a certain sense, not so much an index of crime as the very element in which it grows, it would go some considerable way to lessen crime were ignorance made less common than unfortunately it is. The amiable author of the work now before us has paid much attention to the mutual relations subsisting between crime and education, and she purposes "Reformatory Schools" for children of a certain age, who have once subjected themselves to the severity of the law. And were schools open to all our people gratis, this proposal would be unobjectionable; but, in the mean time, there are difficulties in the way. It would be hard to leave the honest poor child without education-which would advance him in life-and give it to his brother because he has been actively vicious. If the vicious are to be educated, much more those who have not yet fallen in to the ways of vice. Of course it is Lot mere book-learning that will reform a child if it has fallen into bad ways, and walked in them long. Industrial employments must be sedulously taught, and the habits of self-control and regularity worked into the constitution. But such is the force of habit that these might certainly, in a majority of cases, be formed in a year or two at the utmost.

We do not mean to say that the cases are quite analogous, but certainly the effects of drill and discipline, as seen in raw recruits, afford an example and encouragement for trying the same plan with the young of our criminal population. If a few months at Woolwich, under the drill sergeant, convert the veriest clodhopper into a "smart young man," why should a few years of discipline not operate on the morally dull and heavy in the same way? Mind is as obedient to law as matter; and if half the pains were taken to reform our young criminals that are taken to make soldiers, our judges and jailors would have much less to do. The attempts made at present by means of Ragged Schools, to draw off the sources of crime-though worthy of all praiseare too irregular aud too weak to make much headway against the torrent of juvenile depravity that runs down the streets of London, and all our large towns; and Miss Carpenter very properly urges that, as all suffer from the depredations of this lawless horde, all should pay to get it repelled. Desultory and unconnected efforts will do little good. This is a point of view that requires to be pressed on public attention: ·

"If anything is to be effectively done to purify the corrupt mass that is diffusing its noxious influence around, all must be made to co-operate in furnishing the pecuniary means, either by a municipal rate in each town which is sufficiently large to stand in for the purpose, such inspection being always proneed of the agency, or by distinct government grants vided as will secure the establishment of such schools in the localities where they are needed, and the management of them in an enlightened and efficient manner."

The establishment of such schools she maintains would be of the greatest utility to the state, and she quotes examples in point from some of the towns of New England. There is no doubt the vast number of our people who have either fallen, or are ever ready to fall, into the rank of criminals, is the darkest spot on the present character of England; and we fervently unite with the author of the work before us when she says

"Let us no longer be a reproach to our neighbours; let them not point to our multitudes of ignorant and uncared-for children;-let the philanthropist devote heart and soul to the work; let him go forth in the spirit of his great Master to the highways, and bring in the lost and ignorant ;--but late the public finances that their labour shall not let such arrangements be made by those who regube in vain for want of means to carry it on, but that a wisely arranged plan shall oblige all to contribute to what is for the benefit of all." Here, we take it, lie the pith and marrow of the whole question. We must attack crime early if we would attack it successfully, and the schoolmaster is much more wanted than the jailor or the executioner. But there must be an army of schoolmasters-not mere teachers of the A, B, C, but educators in the highest sense of the word-acting not with individual impulse, but under the guidance of a master-mind, and with systematic devotion. This is a state of matters, however, that we hardly hope to see realized all at once. The short-sighted economy that prevents the people of England from securing to every English child "the rudiments of letters," and "that moral and religious truth both understood and practised," which Wordsworth so long since proclaimed to be an inherent right, will keep them from educating the criminal." If they will not help the falling, how can we expect them to do anything for the fallen but trample on them? Meantime, however, every volunteer in this glorious service must be welcomed, and those who lead the forlorn hope shall in the end-doubt it not-receive a double share of honour. Miss Carpenter has spoken a wise, considerate word, for the fallen and the falling; and while self-righteous Pharisees may turn away with affected or ill-concealed disdain from this subject, as low, she knows that humanity in its worst and most degraded forms has something in it ineffaceably divine, and that no labour is thrown away by which that element may be made to struggle against what is evil; even if, in this life, it should never entirely predominate. The encouragement she holds out to others we

C

hope will auicate borself, and nerve her spirit for further labour in this neglected field of inquiry. Society is not to be taken by a coup de main, but yet it is not altogether unimpressible. Howard and Fry did not effect their mission in a day, and Miss Carpenter must not lose heart if society seems slow in responding to her call. Let her call and call again; and "by her continual coming she will weary them." Society is somewhat cowardly, and it is not impossible to coerce it into right.

The numerous and weighty authorities that our author has collected on this subject, and the thorough investigation that she has subjected it to, will render her book a valuable source of reference to all who take an interest in this most important matter. She pleads powerfully and eloquently for the class that she has taken under her protection, and we hope she will not plead altogether in vain. Some of the concluding remarks are worth the attention of those with whom the whole question is a mere matter of

TAKING

CHAP. I.

calculation, but we shall rather choose as a final extract a passage addressed to those who recognize other influences than that of money:

dens of iniquity, to swarm in our streets, to levy a "These young beings continue to herd in their costly maintenance on the honest and industrious, to rise up to be the parents of a degraded progeny of pauper children, or to people our gaols until they are audaciously wicked enough for transportationin either case to be a drain on our resources, a festering plague-spot to society. There are many carnest and Christian workers in this cause, who see these evils, and know what only can be a cure for them;-let them not be weary in their exertions; let them not be daunted by discouragement, apathy, heart and voice unite in striving that the perishing repeated disappointment;-but let them with one and dangerous children of our land shall no longer remain in this outer darkness. Surely the people will listen when earnest words of truth and soberness are addressed to them;-the legislature will move when they hear the united voice of the nation."

A lady, past the prime of life, sat, thoughtful, as twilight fell duskily around her, in a room furnished with great elegance. That her thoughts were far from being pleasant, the sober, even sad expression of her countenance too clearly testified. She was dressed in deep mourning. A faint sigh parted her lips as she looked up, on hearing the door of the apartment in which she was sitting open. The person who entered, a tall and beautiful girl, also in mourning, came and sat down by her side, and leaned her head, with a pensive, troubled air, down upon her shoulder.

"We must decide upon something, Edith, and that with as little delay as possible," said the elder of the two ladies, soon after the younger one entered. This was said in a tone of great despondency.

66

Upon what shall we decide, mother?" and the young lady raised her head from its reclining position, and looked earnestly into the eyes of her parent.

"We must decide to do something by which the family can be sustained. Your father's death has left us, unfortunately and unexpectedly, as you already know, with scarcely a thousand dollars beyond the furniture of this house, instead of an independence, which we supposed him to possess. His death was sad and afflictive enough-more than it seemed I could bear. But to have this added!"

The voice of the speaker sank into a low moan, and was lost in a stifled sob.

"But what can we do, mother?" asked Edith,

in an earnest tone, after pausing long enough for her mother to regain the control of her feelings.

"I have thought of but one thing that is at all respectable," replied the mother. "What is that?" "Taking boarders."

Why, mother!" ejaculated Edith, evincing great surprise, "how can you think of such a thing?"

"Because driven to do so by the force of circumstances."

"Taking boarders! Keeping a boardinghouse! Surely we have not come to this!" An expression of distress blended with the look of astonishment in Edith's face.

"There is nothing disgraceful in keeping a boarding-house," returned the mother. "A great many very respectable ladies have been compelled to resort to it as a means of supporting their families."

"But, to think of it, mother! To think of your keeping a boarding-house! I cannot bear it."

"Is there anything else that can be done, Edith ?"

"Don't ask me such a question."

"If, then, you cannot think for me, you must try and think with me, my child. Something will have to be done to create an income. In less than twelve months every dollar I have will be expended; and then what are we to do? Now, Edith, is the time for us to look at the matter earnestly, and to determine the course we will take. There is no use to look away from it. A good house, in a central situation,

large enough for the purpose, can no doubt be obtained; and I think there will be no difficulty about our getting boarders enough to fill it. The income, or profit, from these will enable us still to live comfortably, and keep Edward and Ellen at school."

"It is hard," was the only remark Edith made to this.

"It is hard, my daughter; very hard! I have thought and thought about it until my whole mind has been thrown into confusion. But it will not do to think for ever. There must be action. Can I see want stealing in upon my children, and sit and fold my hands supinely? No! And to you, Edith, my oldest child, I look for aid and for counsel. Stand up, bravely, by my side."

"And you are in earnest in all this?" said Edith, whose mind seemed hardly able to realize the truth of their position. From her earliest days, all the blessings that money could procure had been freely scattered around her feet. As she grew up, and advanced towards womanhood, she had moved in the most fashionable circles, and there acquired the habit of estimating people according to their wealth and social standing, rather than by qualities of mind. In her view, it appeared degrading in a woman to enter upon any kind of employment for money; and with the keeper of a boarding-house, particularly, she had always associated something low, vulgar, and ungenteel. At the thought of her mother's engaging in such an occupation, when the suggestion was made, her mind instantly revolted. It appeared to her as if disgrace would be the inevitable consequence.

"And you are in earnest in all this?" was an expression, mingling her clear conviction of the truth of what at first appeared so strange a proposition, and her astonishment that the necessities of their situation were such as to drive them to so humiliating a resource.

"Deeply in earnest," was the mother's reply. "We are left alone in the world. He who cared for us, and provided for us so liberally, has been taken away, and we have nowhere to look for aid but to the resources that are in ourselves. These, well applied, will give us, I feel strongly assured, all that we need. The thing to decide is, what we ought to do. If we choose aright, all will, doubtless, come out right. To choose aright is, therefore, of the first importance; and to do this, we must not suffer distorting suggestions nor the appeals of a false pride to influence our minds in the least. You are my oldest child, Edith; and, as such, I cannot but look upon you as, to some extent, jointly with me, the guardian of your younger brothers and sisters. True, Miriam is of age, and Henry nearly so; but still you are the eldest-your mind is most matured, and in your judgment I have the most confidence. Try and forget, Edith, all but the fact that, unless we make an exertion, one home for all cannot be retained. Are you willing that we should be scattered like leaves in the autumn wind? No! you would consider that one of the greatest calamities that could befall us-an evil

to prevent which we should use every effort in our power. Do you not see this clearly?" "I do, mother,' was replied by Edith in a more rational tone of voice than that in which she had yet spoken.

"To open a store of any kind would involve five times the exposure of a boarding-house; and, moreover, I know nothing of business." "Keeping a store? Oh, no! we couldn't do that. Think of the dreadfui exposure!"

"But in taking boarders we only increase our family, and all goes on as usual. To my mind, it is the most genteel thing that we can do. Our style of living will be the same. Our waiter and all our servants will be retained. In fact, to the eye there will be little change, and the world need never know how greatly reduced our circumstances have become."

This mode of argument tended to reconcile Edith to taking boarders. Something, she saw, had to be done. Opening a store was felt to be out of the question; and as to commencing a school, the thought was repulsed at the very first suggestion.

A few friends were consulted on the subject, and all agreed that the best thing for the widow to do was to take boarders. Each one could point to some lady who hd commenced the business with far less ability to make boarders comfortable, and who had yet got along very well. It was conceded on all hands that it was a very genteel business, and that some of the first ladies had been compelled to resort to it, without being any the less respected. Almost every one to whom the matter was referred spoke in favour of the thing, and but a single individual suggested difficulty; but what he said was not permitted to have much weight. This individual was a brother of the widow, who had always been looked upon as rather eccentric. He was a bachelor, and without fortune, merely enjoying a moderate income as book-keeper in the office of an insurance company.

But more of him hereafter.

CHAP. II.

Mrs. Darlington, the widow we have just introduced to the reader, had five children. Edith, the oldest daughter, was twenty-two years of age at the time of her father's death; and Henry, the oldest son, just twenty. Next to Henry was Miriam, eighteen years old. The ages of the two youngest children, Ellen and Edward, were ten and eight.

Mr. Darlington, while living, was a lawyer of distinguished ability, and his talents and reputation at the Philadelphia bar enabled him to accumulate a handsome fortune. Upon this he had lived for some years in a style of great elegance. About a year before his death, he had been induced to enter into some speculation that promised great results. But he found, when too late to retreat, that he had been greatly deceived. Heavy losses soon followed. In a struggle to recover himself, he became still further involved;