such a glorious strain of psalmody and thanksgiving, that I cried aloud in transport,-I couldn't help it-It is done! It is done! He blesses my work!""

"You felt repaid then for all?" observed the widow, wiping away a tear from her cheek.

"I did! I did! And you wouldn't think it; but once set going, how that machine did talk."

"Indeed! and what did it say ?"

"Well, I confess at first it was very personal; kept on hinting what a clever fellow I was, how rich I should be, and how my name should be spread through the world; and, above all, it kept slyly whispering,-I know what you are thinking about. Already you are planning how to cut me out by some much more imposing affair; art saying loftily to thyself, as you look down upon me, 'What's this to the things I can do, with opportunity and appreciation!' I won't deny it, such thoughts were lulling me into a delicious day-dream. O, 'twas amazing the eggs that were being hatched and sold, and the castles that were being bought with the money. Well, well,” continued the Inventor, after a pause, and as he began to cover up his model, "everybody, you know, has his follies, so even a poor Inventor must be excused his dreams."

"But are they, then, only dreams after all?" asked the widow, somewhat earnestly.

"That's the very question I come here to solve," replied the man. "You know now my business, and all about me. There's a manufacturer

"Mr. Wolcombe ?"

"Yes; they say that he buys inventions, and that it is peculiarly in his way."

M

"Would you like to speak to him now ?" continued the widow. "This is always the best time to catch him, if you want a quiet talk: just after mill hours. I don't think he has yet gone home."

"Then I'll go at once."

"And I'll get you a cup of tea and something to eat by the time you return. See," said the widow, as she led the way into the open air, and, stop ping, pointed to the pretty upper window of her cottage, "there's your bedroom with a nice outlook over the valley, and to the opposite hill. 'Tis my daughter's room, when she gets home for a night or two. She's governess to Mr. Wolcombe's family."

"Governess!" echoed the Inventor, as though surprised at the discrepancy betwixt the positions of daughter and mother.

The widow noticed the tone, but answered quietly, and without the least appearance of pain or offence, " Yes, I understand your surprise-my poverty."

"No-yes-that is-I mean-" exclaimed the man; but in his desire to avoid offending, made the matter worse by making so much of it. The widow, however, went on to say

"I moved once in a different sphere. But the death of my husband left me without money or friends, and with this, my only child, then an infant. Ah! it has been a hard struggle since then, I assure you; or else Barbara-that's my daughter-should never have gone to

the mill."

"What! worked in the mill-and now a governess! I own you do, indeed, astonish me! How might that be?" Why, she was taken under very sad circumstances

but I need not make a mystery of that which every one about her knows so well. She married one Abel Drake, but they quarrelled and parted, and he's dead now."

"Indeed! But-governess !"

"Mrs. Wolcombe took her home as nursemaid; there she got on so well by devoting every spare half-hour to learning, that she began to be noticed, and helped-and raised-until at last the education of the children was entrusted to her."

"A touching story!"

"Yes," continued the widow; "and since the death of Mrs. Wolcombe, who was a sweet, good lady-God ever bless her for what she did to mine and me!-everything at the hall falls to her to see to."

"Then you think Mr. Wolcombe won't have gone home?" hurriedly interrupted the man, as if impatient now to get to his own business.

"No, but I would make haste," observed the widow. "It was thoughtless of me to detain you so long, but you so much interested me with your story, that somehow I couldn't help letting you know a bit of mine. You will laugh at me, perhaps, for saying so, but I am not generally very talkative."

“Ah, then I'm afraid you won't like me, for I am— that is, when I care to open my mouth at all."

"I shall be quite anxious to hear the result of your interview," said the widow.

"Well," replied the man, "it must be an absolute hit or miss, for I can wait no longer. Come, old fellow, another hoist on to the shoulders that have borne thee so long and so far that I don't know how I should get on

without thee.

Yet, who knows? perhaps it may be for the last time. Come, then, work of brain and hand, child of many years of toil, I must now present thee to the world, and hear what it thinks of thee. Thou hast promised much. What wilt thou now realize? All? Ah, the blood dances in my veins but to think of it. Goodbye, widow, for the present. Wish me luck. I shouldn't like to tell you how much depends upon it. Good-bye!"

"Good-bye, and good luck!" exclaimed the widow, moved out of her usual passionless exterior; so much so indeed that she could not help watching him cross the beaten path of the green, to reach the mill gates, where she saw him knock, and then pass through the little wicket-door that was opened to him, and closed after him.

"Poor fellow!" said the widow to herself, as she turned away to prepare the tea; "I am greatly deceived if he has not left dear ones behind him, for whose welfare in this venture he cares even more than for his own."

CHAPTER XII.

THE HIGGLING OF THE MARKET,

ALL the loud noises of the factory-the whirring, beating, booming, confusing noises-were still; the endless bands were at rest, the looms silent, the place deserted. So profound was the solitude, that the occasional jingle of keys, or the chink of money in the cash-box from Mr. Wolcombe's counting-house, or the watchman's heavy footstep, broke upon it harshly, and vibrated through the building. Mr. Wolcombe slammed his desk, locked it, put the keys in his pocket, restored the ledger (which he had been carefully examining) to its place on the shelf, and began to put on his great coat, looking the while through a glass door upon the glow of the watchman's lantern as it appeared and disappeared continually among the weaving machines of the great room. He waited till it approached the counting-house, and the watchman came in and hung up some keys.

"By-the-bye, Jansen," said the manufacturer, as he buttoned up his coat, "I'm told there are suspicious characters in the village: harvest tramps, I suppose. Make your rounds carefully. Stay, who's that? See what that shabby-looking man wants."

"Yes, sir," said the Inventor, as he came in, and set down his machine model on a chair just inside the door,