light enough to dress by. I am always glad afterwards; but somehow I don't like giving up my own way at the time."

"Nor I," said Helen: "but you know, Mary, one's duty is the best rule to go by; and one never regrets in the long run having done so."

"Talking of a long run," rejoined Mary, whose taste by no means accorded with any thing savouring of a lecture, "let us race now till we come to the gate, or the cows will be tired of waiting, and get cross; and what will old Buckle say then?" Helen assented; and with one parting glance over the bright sea, turned towards the shed where the cows were kept; and away they both ran till the intervening stile obliged them to pause ere they crossed it. The full pail, nicely poised as it was on Helen's head, required a steadier pace in returning and the two girls pursued the chat, which indeed rarely knew an interval during the many waking hours they passed together.

"The people in towns," said Helen, "would think it a great hardship to be out a-milking at this time of day."

"They are better off than we:" replied Mary, to whom the idea of a long morning nap was by no means unpleasing.

"Better off in some things, Mary," said her companion thoughtfully: "but to see the sickly looks of the ladies who come down this way on their road to the bathings, I am not sure I would change with them."

"What! not to ride in your own coach ?" inquired Mary with a stare of astonish

ment.

"I don't know: I hav'nt yet had more walking than agreed with me. Somehow too, the morning is so pleasant, and the fresh air does make one feel so hearty and alive, that if I was in a coach I think I'd be tempted to jump out and take a run."

Mary laughed loudly at the idea of a lady racing against her own coach and horses, but admitted that she should not like to be forced to ride at all times-only when she felt sleepy or lazy. Thus merrily discoursing, the girls approached the gate of what might be called a farm-yard on a small scale; within the limits of which rose a cottage with a very steep pointed roof, well thatched, walls of snowy whiteness, long, narrow casements, and

a porch recently added to its entrance; and there stood a stout elderly man, leaning his folded arms on the lower half of the door.

"There's old Buckle," whispered Mary, "and looking as cross as two sticks."

He certainly did not wear an aspect of much sweetness, when, flinging the little partition open, he advanced, and reached the gate before the girls could lay a hand on its fastenings.

"You need'nt come any farther," growled Mr. Buckle, taking the pail from Helen and swinging it over the gate in a pettish way. "It's a wonder you'd take the trouble of fetching it at all, and only keep me waiting three quarters of an hour."

"Please, sir, I'm very sorry indeed," said Helen, dropping a curtsey. "I did'nt think it was so late as that."

"The sun must have overslept himself, sir," added Mary, "or else I'm sure we are in time to five minutes or so."

"Hold your tongue, sauce-box! Sad girls-lay in bed half the morning, play about t'other half; keep me fasting all the while, and then give me impertinence. All the work of the farm at a stand still. No, I'll not employ such idle baggages any longer. You may tell your granny that from me."

"Please sir”—Mary began.

"Off with you, Miss Pert: no two-pence to-day I'll promise you. Get ye gone; I'll not trouble you much longer to milk my cows. Off with ye!"

The girls intimidated by the stamp that accompanied the words turned to depart, Helen with a curtsey, Mary with something more resembling a shrug than an obeisance. Before they had proceeded many yards, the old gentleman's voice was heard again:

"Stop, can't ye? What a hurry the little toads are in to go and punish an honest old woman for their own bad doings! Here, you Nelly, take that with you, not that you've earned it this time, but it doesn't become a respectable farmer like me to stop the wages that honest people set you to earn." And three broad pennypieces fell at her feet.

Another low curtsey from Helen and a farther progress of a few steps were followed by a louder shout from the farmer: "Mind, you may tell old Mrs. Green to send

"He speaks so loud, and looks so angry, it does half frighten me at the time: and as for being humble, Mary, it's the duty of such as we to show respect to our betters."

"Oh, we are as good as old Buckle any day; only he's getting up in the world, and we are getting down, you know," observed the little girl, skipping backwards before her companion, as gaily as if she had announced the reverse of this proposition. Helen sighed; for she knew there were hearts growing heavy under the consciousness of what gave poor little Mary

no concern.

Helen Fleetwood was the orphan child of one who, being tempted by a fine morning sky to launch upon the waves his worldly all-his boat and implements of fishing-was with them engulfed by the surges that a sudden storm lashed into fury. Helen, who was four years old at the time, retained a distinct recollection of the crowds that pressed to one spot on the shore, near which stood her paternal cottage, and the shrieks and wailings that burst forth when the few survivors of that party who together started before sunrise, returned at the twilight hour of eve with sad tales of their companions' fate. Fleetwood was but one among five or six whose widows were pacing the beach in wild distraction, or sitting stupified beneath the blow. Helen could also remember the day when, some time after this, a corpse, decomposed beyond the possibility of recognition, was cast ashore on a sandbank just above low-water mark, and identified by some fragment of wearing apparel as that of her father. She saw him not: but too well did her memory retain the impression of that moment when the Widow

act of his independence as master of a comfortable cottage, was to place his mother in the choicest of its rooms. His wife, a kind-hearted young woman, heartily concurred in the proceeding, and reaped her reward when the rapid increase of a young family gave full scope to the valuable services of a judicious grandmother. All went well with them; and the readiness with which poor little Helen was adopted into the domestic party on the old woman's suggestion, more closely cemented their mutual confidence and love. But, alas! William's third child sickened of small-pox; the eldest caught the infection, then the mother, and all three died. Poor Green struggled hard to bear up, for the sake of those who remained; but a violent cold taken through continual transitions from the close, heated atmosphere of a sick room to the keen night air of February, in his walks across the common to the doctor's shop, fell on his lungs; and consumption soon laid him beside those whom he had dearly loved and deeply mourned.

The widow was a woman of vigorous mind, doubly armed in the panoply of faith, and enabled to cast herself, with the children committed to her, on Him whom she had found to be a strong-hold in the day of trouble. Her charge consisted of three boys and a girl, the survivors of William's family, and Helen Fleetwood. Richard Green was a year older than Helen; James three years younger; and Mary his junior by nearly two years. The little Willy was but eight at the period when this story commences; and Richard was seventeen. Their father held his cottage, with a field and small garden, on a lease of lives, and bequeathed them to his mother, in trust for Richard, should the lease remain good until he came of age.

The

landlord indeed, who had granted it on exceedingly favourable terms, promised a renewal; but he died soon after his tenant, and his verbal engagement could not bind the heir at law a gentleman residing at a distance, and leaving every thing in the hands of his trusty agent.

Mrs. Green proved herself a wise and faithful steward. The cottage was larger than their diminished household required; and she let two rooms to a respectable woman, the widow of the parish beadle, who paid liberally, according to her means, and proved a quiet, friendly lodger. She let the field by the year, for its just value, which nearly settled the rent of the whole premises; and managed the little garden so well that its produce brought in a small sum, after supplying the family table. A few fowls, Helen's peculiar care, yielded their quota of profit in the neighbouring village market; James kept rabbits, which, thriving well on the refuse of the garden, helped to replenish the general purse: the same prolific garden nearly maintained a pair of ducks, presented to little Willy in their infancy, and soon learning to forage for themselves, to the great advantage of lettuces and savoys, which had often borne the marks of sundry nocturnal depredators, against whom the said ducks waged exterminating war. Willy sank a little round tub in the fowl-yard, and predicted that his ducks would soon prove the most valuable of their possessions.

Richard had profited well by the advantages placed within his reach: he was of a serious, thoughtful turn, but exceedingly active. The school where his father had placed him at seven years old was established for the benefit of boys in an humble walk of life, and the gratuitous teaching was excellent. Richard acquired whatever was to be learned; by his diligence and good conduct earning a reputation that ensured him employment during every spare hour among the neighbours; and his gains, from which he never deducted a half-penny for his own gratification, added to the produce of his grandmother's unwearied industry and that of Helen, assisted in time by the improving habits of Mary, who was often roused into "a great fight," as she called it, against her natural love of ease, placed the family above want, and indeed in possession of

every comfort they could reasonably desire.

But alas for the stability of human happiness, so far as it is dependent on perishable things! The last life in the lease was one on which they might fairly have reckoned for many a long year to come. A severe illness, however, seized on the strong frame of the young man, the only survivor of the three named in that document; and although he rallied in some degree, his state was evidently a precarious one. The lodger, too, was summoned to take possession of some little property left to her in another county, and must leave them shortly. James, the second boy, fell into weak health, imposing an additional care and expense on the household, just as he and they anticipated his becoming an important help, through a good situation that was offered, but for which his increasing debility unfitted him. All these things tended to cloud the atmosphere, and made even the giddy Mary observe that they were "going down in the world."

Of this, however, no visible token as yet appeared; and when the two girls, fresh from their early walk, drew near the beloved cottage, all was as smiling as their own faces. James had cleaned out his rabbit-hutch; Willy was gazing with admiration at the exploits of his young ducks in their narrow pond, and Richard made the most of a spare half hour in digging up the bed where a crop of peas had yielded their last produce. As Helen and Mary approached, he struck the spade into the ground, gave his hands a rinsing un der the pump, and joined the group, who together entered the cottage door with wholesome appetites for their breakfast.

Breakfast, however, was not the first concern with this assembled family. The girls, throwing off their bonnets, and hastily smoothing back the hair which had become somewhat disordered by the seabreeze, followed the widow Green into an adjoining room, occupied by the lodger, and the boys brought up the rear. On a little round table lay the Holy Bible, with a small manual of family devotion; and on the appearance of Mrs. Barker, who promptly answered the accustomed signal, and her settlement in an arm chair, all seated themselves: the widow Green se