brothers with more than parental care. Now, when the father too was taken ill, there seemed to be not a vestige of hope for the family, excepting in the exertions which might be made by her, young as she was.

The first thought of the poor little girl was to seek for work proportioned to her strength. But that the family might not starve in the meantime, she resolved to go to one of the Houses of Charity, where food was given out, she had heard, to the poor and needy. The person to whom she addressed herself accordingly inscribed her name in the list of applicants, and told her to come back again in a day or two, when the case would have been deliberated upon. Alas, during this deliberation, her parents and brothers would starve ! The girl stated this,

but was informed that the formalities mentioned were indispensable. She came again to the streets, and, almost agonised by the knowledge how anxiously she was expected, with bread, at home, she resolved to ask charity from the passengers in the public ways.

No one heeded the modest, unobtrusive appeal of her outstretched hand. Her heart was too full to permit her to speak. Could any one have seen the torturing anxiety that filled her breast, she must have been pitied and relieved. As the case stood, it is not perhaps surprising that some rude being menaced her with the police. She was frightened. Shivering with cold, and crying bitterly, she fled homewards. When she mounted the stairs and opened the door, the first words that she heard were the cries of her brothers for something to eat 'Bread! bread!' She saw her father soothing and supporting her fainting mother, and heard him say: 'Bread!-she dies for want of food.'

'I have no bread!' cried the poor girl with anguish in her tones.

The cry of disappointment and despair which came at these words from her father and brothers, caused her to recall what she had said, and conceal the truth. "I have not got it yet,' she exclaimed, 'but I will have it immediately. I have given the baker the money;

he was serving some rich people, and he told me to wait or come back. I came to tell you that it would soon be here.'

After these words, without waiting for a reply, she left the house again. A thought had entered her head, and maddened by the distress of those she loved so dearly, she had instantaneously resolved to put it in execution. She ran from one street to another, till she saw a baker's shop in which there appeared to be no person, and then, summoning all her determination, she entered, lifted a loaf, and fled! The shopkeeper saw her from behind his counter. He cried loudly, ran after her, and pointed her out to the people passing by. The girl ran on. She was pursued, and finally a man seized the loaf which she carried. The object of her desires taken away, she had no motive to proceed, and was seized at once. They conveyed her towards the office of the police; a crowd, as usual, having gathered in attendance. The poor girl threw around her despairing glances, which seemed to seek some favourable object from whom to ask mercy. At last, when she had been brought to the court of the police-office, and was in waiting for the order to enter, she saw before her a little girl of her own age, who appeared to look on her with a glance full of kindness and compassion. Under the impulse of the moment, still thinking of the condition of her family, she whispered to the stranger

the cause of her act of theft.

'Father and mother, and my two brothers, are dying for want of bread!' said she.

'Where?' asked the strange girl anxiously.

'Rue

No. 10'. She had only time to add the name of her parents to this communication, when she was carried in before the commissary of police.

Meanwhile, the poor family at home suffered all the miseries of suspense. Fears for their child's safety were added to the other afflictions of the parents. At length, they heard footsteps ascending the stair. An eager cry of hope was uttered by all the four unfortunates, but,

one.

alas! a stranger appeared in place of their own little Yet the stranger seemed to them like an angel. Her cheeks had a beautiful bloom, and long flaxen hair fell in curls upon her shoulders. She brought to them bread, and a small basket of other provisions. 'Your girl,' she said, 'will not come back perhaps to-day; but keep up your spirits! See what she has sent you!' After these encouraging words, the young messenger of good put into the hands of the father five francs, and then, turning round to cast a look of pity and satisfaction on the poor family, who were dumb with emotion, she disappeared.

The history of these five francs is the most remarkable part of this affair. This little benevolent fairy was, it is almost unnecessary to say, the same pitying spectator who had been addressed by the abstractor of the loaf at the police-office. As soon as she had heard what was said there, she had gone away, resolved to take some meat to the poor family. But she remembered that her mamma was from home that day, and was at a loss how to procure money or food, until she bethought herself of a resource of a strange kind. She recollected that a hairdresser, who lived near her mother's house, and who knew her family, had often commended her beautiful hair, and had told her to come to him whenever she wished to have it cut, and he would give her a louis for it. This used to make her proud and pleased, but she now thought of it in a different way. In order to procure money for the assistance of the starving family, she went straight to the hairdresser's, put him in mind of his promise, and offered to let him cut off all her pretty locks for what he thought them worth.

Naturally surprised by such an application, the hairdresser, who was a kind and intelligent man, made inquiry into the cause of his young friend's visit. Her secret was easily drawn from her, and it caused the hairdresser almost to shed tears of pleasure. He feigned to comply with the conditions proposed, and gave the bargainer fifteen francs, promising to come and claim his purchase

at some future day. The little girl then got a basket, bought provisions, and set out on her errand of mercy. Before she returned, the hairdresser had gone to her mother's, found that lady come home, and related to her the whole circumstances; so that, when the possessor of the golden tresses came back, she was gratified by being received into the open arms of her pleased and praising parent.

When the story was told at the police-office by the hairdresser, the abstraction of the loaf was visited by no severe punishment. The singular circumstances connected with the case, raised many friends to the artisan and his family, and he was soon restored to health and comfort.

LATEWAKE ENTERTAINMENTS.

IDLE and extravagant as some of our funeral customs continue to be, they bear no comparison with what prevailed some sixty or eighty years ago; even within the last thirty years, a very great improvement has taken place in this branch of our domestic economy. The most remarkable thing about the old Scotch funeral customs, was the high degree of jovialty which prevailed. The interval of a few days which elapsed between the death and burial of an individual, was little else than a period of continual feasting, and the house bore more resemblance to a tavern in the height of business, than to a dwelling of sorrow and lamentation.

We are old enough to remember some of these remarkable ongoings, and their gradual subsidence into comparative decency and sobriety. First in the series of entertainments, came the dressing of the corpse,' which was attended by all the female acquaintances of the family,

and also some of the more intimate male friends at a later period of the evening. In every town there was at least one old lady who followed the profession of making cerements, and she, of course, on occasions of this nature, figured as mistress of the ceremonies. The body of the defunct, under her directions, was now, seen laid out in a sort of state, with the pure white habiliments spreading in all their amplitude around the sides of the bed, and hanging from the top in tastefully disposed festoons.

Next in the order of ceremonies was the chesting,' or laying of the body of the deceased in the coffin; and this generally took place, in the midst of a great number of friends, on the evening previous to the day appointed for the funeral. The chesting, being an assemblage rather more of a private than of a public nature, was immediately followed by the 'latewake;' a lengthy entertainment, or series of entertainments, at which perhaps some hundreds of persons attended by invitation. The latewake was in fact a regular carousal, lasting the greater part of the night. Inasmuch as some prim old female fashioner had superintended the ceremony of laying out the corpse, so now the undertaker, who was some douce old carpenter, reputed for his skill in coffin-making and grace-saying, acted as master of the revels. If the number of the acquaintances of the family was considerable, the duties of this most respectable functionary were by no means trifling. In order to serve all equally, so many guests were invited at one hour, and so many at another, by which there was a fresh company every hour, and to each the same attentions were shewn. Yet it rarely happened that the whole of each company was cleared out; there was always a remnant, composed of a few 'drouthy neebours,' who felt themselves particularly comfortable both in respect of drink and conversation, so that a leavening of the same individuals may be said to have been kept up from first to last through the entire latewake. Now, to meet such contingencies as these, and keeping in view that each new service required a new benediction, it was