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Tales and Sketches.

LUCIUS STREET.

A STORY WITH A MORAL.

"LOOK out, Ellen, right across the street," said Mr. Walden, laying his paper on his knee, and speaking to his wife, who "Do sat at the opposite front window. you see that young man ?"

"Yes, Henry; I happen to know himone of your clerks;" and the lady turned her face, most sweet, most fair, from the beautiful child, to whom she was tossing up and down a cluster of silver-voiced bells, and listening to its crow of triumph.

"Was one of my clerks, you mean, Ellen. That's the very young man we turned off last week for helping himself to money out of our till. You remember I told you about it."

"Yes, but I never suspected that he was the one. You know he brought me messages several times from the office, and I was always pleased with his bright, pleasant, courteous manner. He hadn't the face of a rogue, Harry.'

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"No; this was his first offence. I believe the boy was as honest when he came up from the country as ever one was; but he fell into bad company, and there was an end of him. There's no trusting boy or man after the first theft," and Mr. Walden took up his paper.

His wife glanced sadly across the street to the slight young figure which was slowly passing out of her range of vision. She remembered its rapid, alert step, which had struck her a little while before, and fancied there was remorse and depression in the altered bearing. Then her glance dropped on the sweet face with the wide bloom in its cheeks, and the childish wonder and joy in its eyes, and her heart grew pitiful, and reached out with a half mother-yearning after the slight, half-drooping figure, which had just passed by.

She thought of him, friendless, disgraced, desolate this youth, in the great city, so full of all temptation and enticement; and she thought, too, of the mother he must once have had, and who was just as proud and fond of him as she was of her own boy; and involuntarily this lady, with the sweet face, this lady, whom wealth and luxury, and all that is good and to be desired in

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Mr. Walden looked down on his sma hoir a little touched.

"I shall never place him in the midst such temptations as my warehouse."

"But this boy had to meet them, an because he failed once, it seems to me the it was hard to turn him right out into th cold and dark of the world.”

Mr. Walden smiled a little.

"O Ellen," he said, "that would sour very pretty in a story, and sentiment this sort is very attractive in a woman lik you; but it don't do for us business me We've got to be up to the mark, hard, an straightforward, and practical."

"And yet, Harry, you business men hay had mothers to love you, and have sons i your turn to love. That is the har straight, practical truth."

When she paused, her husband sai "Why, Ellen, what makes you take su an interest in this clerk, whom you' never seen half a dozen times ?"

"I don't know, Harry. Perhaps it because I look at my own boy and yours. "Well, to please you, I'll promise to ta him back once more, and give him a tris

And Mrs. Walden rose up, went over her husband, pushed away the black ha sifted with grey, from his forehead, and ti kiss which fell there was the warm, swee fragrant kiss of a loving wife.

Half an hour later, Lucius Street was r tracing his steps through the wide stre flanked with its stately homes, down whi he had wandered unconsciously, for son spirit of unrest and unhappiness had tak possession of him that day, from which vainly tried to deliver himself.

Suddenly a voice called to him on t opposite side, "Lucius! Lucius Street!" He turned, and there, standing on t broad stone steps of his dwelling,

was M

Walden beckoning to him. A blush burned up into the boy's cheek; he hesitated.

And again Mr. Walden's voice came over to him kindly but authoritatively, "Lucius! Lucius Street!" And it compelled his steps to the gentleman's side.

Mr. Walden looked on his former clerk with kindly eyes, which were not to be mistaken.

"Come in, Lucius, come in," he said.

And the youth followed him into the great parlour, whose gorgeousness fairly dazzled his eyes, and the merchant, seating him in one chair, took another by his side, and looking at him, said in a kindly voice, "Lucius, you have an honest face, and you had an honest name till that time, and because of it, if you had told the truth, we would have forgiven and kept you."

The tears strained themselves into the boy's eyes, his breast heaved, every limb shook. Mr. Walden was touched. laid his hand on the boy's shoulder.

He

he

"Tell me the truth now, Lucius," said; "you shall not be sorry for it." The boy looked up his face was white, and worked fearfully. At last the halfcoherent words struggled out.

"It's all dim and blurred to me, Mr. Walden; but I suppose I did take the money, although I can't remember very well; the wine had got into my head." Mr. Walden shook his head. "Bad company, bad company, my boy," he said. "It was the first time, the very first time in my life," said the boy, speaking steady and fervent this time.

"I believe you; and now if, because of this, we take you back once more to your old place, will you promise, for your own Bake, not to fail again, to avoid all tempta in of evil, wine, and wrong companions? for they have made you fall once, and they will inevitably drift you to your ruin." "I will promise you, sir."

"Then be back, Lucius, to your old place to-morrow morning."

The boy buried his face in his hands, and burst into tears-tears which, in his case, were the blessed "latter rain," in which dwelt repentance and a new purpose. And Mr. Walden, touched beyond his usual self, laid his hand once more on the boy's shoulder, and spoke to him many words of counsel and encouragement, which were almost fatherly in their tone, and even inrited him to remain to supper with his family; but the reinstated clerk declined doing this. And when Lucius Street went

out into the road once more, it was not as he went in.

That night, at "Sparks's Saloon," half a dozen young men and boys, bent on what they called "mischief" and "fun," waited vainly for another to join their company. The barn was fired; the flames spread beyond the original intentions of the incendiaries. Much valuable property was destroyed, but Lucius Street was not there to see. He was faithful to his new covenant. He withstood the jeers and persuasions of his old companions, the temptations and enticements of his city life.

As his years grew into manhood, he rose to new positions of trust and responsibility in the great warehouse, and always filled these to the satisfaction of the proprietors, and at last he became head clerk in the establishment. And it was not till the evening of his appointment, which transpired ten years after his reinstatement in the warehouse, that he related to Mr. Walden the evil into which he had fallen at that time.

"I was on the brink of an awful precipice, sir," he said, with emotion which fairly choked his words. "My ruin was inevitable; and it was you, under God, who saved me.'

"Not I," interrupted Mr. Walden, almost as much moved as his clerk; "it was Ellen, my wife, who did it all. You owe the thanks to her."

And then the senior partner, whose hair was not now sifted, but crusted with silver, related all which had transpired between himself and his wife that afternoon in his sitting-room ten years ago. And the young man wept like a child again.

"I never knew before what made Mrs. Walden so kind to me," he said; "I understand it all now."

"Come up to supper to-night, and tell her with your own lips," said Mr. Walden. And Lucius went, and hearing it, Mrs. Walden wept for joy, and thanked God in her heart.

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This led the interesting individual, whose short history I am about to relate, to call on me. He was a plain, sensible, kindhearted man, and spoke the broad Yorkshire dialect. I do not know if he is yet alive; but when I saw him, his hair was as black as a raven, his cheek bloomed with health, and his eye was like a rainbowthe tears and the sunbeams sparkled in it.

After we had conversed for some time on various subjects, at my request he related the following particulars :

"I was born near the edge of yonder lofty hill. My father occupied a small farm, on which the family used to work during the summer months, and in the winter we all wove cloth, for our own use and for the market. There was no church near us, and we grew up in great spiritual darkness. The Sabbath was our holiday, which we generally spent in playing at cricket and foot-ball. In this state I remained until I was about twenty years of age, when one winter evening I rambled down from the edge of the mountain, to call on a neighbour who lived a few fields below.

He was a man that feared God, and was accustomed to have morning and evening prayer with his family. When the usual hour arrived for the household to assemble, he said to me, in our dialect, 'John, ha mun stop to family prayer?' I consented. A chapter was read, and he and his wife and children fell upon their knees, while I, as it was no business of mine, sat still and looked on. But I assure you, sir, I felt very strangely; I never felt so before. As soon as it was over, I left them without saying a word, and walked to my father's house; but the scene I had witnessed could not be forgotten. I was struck to the heart. As I ascended the side of the hill I thought, this must surely be the worship of God. This is what I have never done, but it is what I ought to do.

"I hardly knew what to do, and I went to bed as usual-without prayer. But it was the last night I ever did so. Almost

the first thing that came into my thoughts when I awoke was my neighbour's family prayer. At the proper hour I went to my loom, and commenced working, but I I could not go on. I felt as if my heart would break; and I was forced to cover my work with a handkerchief lest the piece which I was weaving should be injured by my tears. I longed for night to return, that I might go down to my neighbour's

house, and see the family prayer. I di so; and, as a kind Providence would hav it, my neighbour again asked me to stop t the family prayer.' This was just what wished. Nothing on earth would hav pleased me so much. So the great boo was brought, and the good man read, an they all fell upon their knees. I did no now kneel with them; but O, what I felt As soon as they rose I immediately left the house, without saying a word, and hastened home. As I was going up the hill I felt a if I must pray that moment; but ther was no shed into which I could enter and kneel down, and the snow was thick upo the ground; so I walked on. But my conscience would not let me proceed. 4 voice seemed to say, 'Go to prayer, seek the Lord; cry for mercy: begin at once! So I pulled a large stone from the hedge and placed it on the snow; and there, on that stone, I first kneeled down and called upon God."

Reader, look at him for a moment There he is on his knees. "Behold, h prayeth!" Yes, with the snow for a car pet, and a stone for his cushion, and the heavens for a canopy, and the moon for witness, and angels for his attendantsthere he first cried, "Lord, have mercy on my soul!" Oh, what a night was that for my friend! It will be remembered with rapture after the moon has been turned into blood, and the stars have withdrawn their shining.

From that day the weaver became praying man; and when I first knew him he had been twenty years a deacon of 1 Christian church, and was well known a one of the most active, and zealous, an exemplary servants of Christ in all th neighbourhood.

I inquired as to his progress in the reli gious life. To which he replied, "My ignorance of Divine things was so great that I knew not what to do. I had no been a drunkard, nor a swearer, nor had! kept company with loose young men ; but I had been living without God. All my plans and habits, and thoughts and de sires, had been about this world, and never ro higher; but now all things were be come new. I was afraid to open my mind to any mortal about it, but I could tell my Saviour; yea, I could tell him all. My father had a barn, that became my favour ite retreat. That was my house of prayer, and it was indeed the gate of heaven to my soul. Often, often have I entered into

that barn, and shut the door, and kneeled and prayed to the Father who seeth in secret, and the Father who seeth in secret hath richly rewarded me. My enjoyment was very great; sometimes it was joy unspeakable and full of glory; but it was not always so. No, there was sometimes much darkness in my mind, and Satan took adFantage of it, and greatly harassed me.

"But the Bible is full of encouragement to a soul oppressed with guilt; and as my knowledge of that sacred book increased, so did my peace and joy; and I have often thought that God intended, by bringing me through these deep waters, to prepare me to speak a word to heavy-laden sinners. It often falls to my lot now, in my visits to the sick, and in conversing with candidates for admission into the Church, to meet with people under 'soul-trouble,' and I have always a word for them; for I never meet with any so completely dark as I was."

I had heard from his minister of his knowledge of the Scriptures, and of his gift in prayer; and now, as I heard from his own lips his insight into the devices of Satan, and his intimate acquaintance with the human heart, I could not but admire the wisdom and goodness of God in raising up men in every station of life to direct the anxious, inquiring sinner to that Saviour who 66

says, Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

Family prayer was a duty he often inculcated, urging those who felt its importance, but feared to engage in it, to begin, relying on Divine aid, for then obstales vanished. This service also constituted charm of his own domestic circle, for he had conscientiously regarded the apostolie injunction to marry only in the Lord! Oh, who can tell the delight and refreshment of those hours when a family bow at the altar of God: the mother reads, the children sing, the father prays, and all devoutly join in worship! ""Tis like a ttle heaven below."

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We commended each other to God by ver, and shook hands and parted, in #joyful expectation of meeting again in

heaven.

Reader, are you training up a family for judgment without family prayer? Do you regard the eternal welfare of the le of domestics under your charge? Are there those far from God around you; and can you not, by inviting them to

join in family worship, or by other means, do something for their salvation ?—Richard Knill.

THE LITTLE STRAWBERRY

SELLER.

A TALE FOR GIRLS.

Ir had been a very dull winter; in fact, winters are generally dull at Tunbridge Wells, for in the summer and autumn it is a fashionable visiting-place; but as the residents are comparatively few, it is very much forsaken in the other parts of the year.

Well, the early spring found Mary Roberts and her little girl in very brd circumstances. The father had met wh an accident soon after Christmas, and le was still in the infirmary. The Robertss kept a small greengrocery shop in Mom t Sion, and rented an acre or two of lend about ten minutes' walk out of the town, which the husband had heretofore cultivate single-handed, raising upon it, besides vegetables, a con-iderable quantity of strawberries. But this acciden: had sadly put them about, for being obliged to hire a hand to work in the garden ground, nea ly all the money they took in the shop, or otherwise got, had to be devoted to the man's wages. But there was no alternative, for unless they did so, the crop of strawberries would, in all probability, fail, and upon this, under Providence, all their hopes for the future hung.

Early and ste Emmy and her mother might have been seen carefully watching their garden of promise. And sometimes in the very stress of anxiety the mother. and child knelt together in the little tool-shed, and supplicared for the protec› tion and blessing of their God and Father, whom they knew to be the God of nature. as well as the God of grace.

But the poet Cowper has very truthfully said

"God moves in a mysterious way

His wonders to perform."

And so it was with our strawberry-growers. After expending their little all on the ground, the spring and early summer proved to be unusually wet, literally rotting the fruit before it came to perfection. Oh, how the mother and child sat and shed tears together over their perishing fruit! And the poor man, as he lay on his bed of suffering, watched the descend

ing rains, which continued day after day, with all the bitterness of despair. These rins would be their ruin. How could the hand of love be dealing out so bitter a potion ?

One day the mother and child had succeeded in gathering a few quarts of tolerably fine fruit. The weather had held up for some hours, although it was again raining incessantly. But no time was to be lost in disposing of their gatherings. So while the mother proceeded to attend to the shop and manage the fruit, Emmy dressed herself sufficiently as she could to face the weather. She had not much choice of clothes, but she put on what was best calculated to keep her warm and dry.

She was but nine years of age, and a little thing, too, for that; so that, as she took the basket and hung it upon her little arm, and prepared to set out in order to vend the little fruit they had secured, she looked too young and weak to be exposed to such bad weather. But there was no help for it; indeed, she was only too glad to have any strawberries to offer for sale. So she scarcely noticed the weather, as she tripped lightly along from house to house, in the best neighbourhoods. And as the fruit was scarce she readily found customers, who, when they heard her simple, childish tale of the long destructive rains, and of the losses they had sustained, invariably refused to take any change out of the pieces of money which they gave her.

It was very wet-wet-wet, still she continued her walk; she knew it was of great importance to them to sell what they had gathered at once. And as the gay folk were chiefly within doors-prisoners to the drenching rains-they were well pleased to see the little strawberry-seller entering the garden and offering the delicious fruit, so scarce that year, and for the most part so very inferior.

"Poor little girl!" said many of the ladies, "you must be well paid for your strawberries to-day."

"Poor little girl!" said many a gentleman-the happy husband, or brother, or lover of some fair purchaser; and without taking her fruit they dropped silver coins into her basket.

"How is it," some inquired, "that your mother has sent you out this wet day? Why did she not come out with them her. self?"

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"Oh, she had to get the baskets ready,' said the little Emmy; "but before this

I have no doubt she is round at the houses too."

"Poor little girl!" said a lady.

"Oh, we are too glad, ma'am, to have any fruit to sell, to care for the wet," said Emmy.

And then she told again her oft-repeated tale of the destructive wet and the perish. ing, soddened strawberry beds.

Who could hear and not feel for little wet Emmy? So the purchasers paid her liberally that day.

When all the fruit was sold, little Emmy crossed the common towards her home. She had not counted her gains, but she had tied it all up-silver and coppers together; and she felt light at heart at what she believed would surprise and please her mother.

But upon reaching home her young heart was saddened by the sight of her mother weeping. A message had come from the infirmary stating that erysipelas had shown itself, and that her husband's life was in danger. So the mother was getting ready to go there.

Emmy was just in time to mind the shop in her mother's absence. It was no time to tell her success, so she put the money away safely in the cupboard till her mother's return.

Poor little thing! She loved her father. In his rough way he had always been kind to her. The child was naturally more delicate and soft-mannered, taking, per haps, after, and being an improvement upon her mother, who before her marriage had been a lady's-maid. Roberts used to call Emmy the little lady; there was natural superiority about her. She had not had much education; only just what she could get at the free school; but she learned readily, and retained what she learned.

Little lady! there was not much external resemblance, as Emmy sat down in their back room, after her mother had gone out, and divesting herself of her outer garments, and shoes, and stockings, wrung the wet from them as though they had been taken out of the wash-tub. And then she spread them out before the morsel of fire over which the tea-kettle was singing lazily.

While thus engaged she had not given way to her grief for her father. Perhaps she had hoped it would yet take a favour able turn. But now that she had nothing more to do, her thoughts lingered

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