altogether. Since then the family had changed their dwelling, which made her return to them more improbable than it would otherwise have been: Mrs. Harris had long opposed the removal; but her husband had taken a disgust to the place in which they had suffered so much, and being a stern man had little wish to see his daughter again; and all that the unhappy mother could do was to leave word with the neighbours where the family might be found, and to go among them, from time to time, to ask whether the wanderer had returned, and be disappointed.

Having no comfort to suggest respecting her, M. inquired what means were taken to prevent the corruption of the youngest boy. He was kept as much as possible from playing with the children in the alley, and employed by his mother's side. This was all.

"Do you not send him to school?"

"I never could part with him out of my sight, after what I had gone through with the other two."

"You take him to some place of worship?"

"I have no heart to go to any such place. We have never kept our Sundays since our troubles were at the worst. We left off going out then because we had not clothes to put on.

"But there is no such reason now."

"No, Sir; but every thing is so changed since the time when we used to make Sunday our resting-day, that we try, I scarcely know how, to make it as much like other days as we can. I have often wished we lived out of hearing of the church-bells."

Before M. could reply, Harris entered. He looked full at the unexpected visitor, and rather surlily asked what business brought him. He was but little softened by M.'s explanations of his purposes of kindness and peace.

Harris answered that his troubles, be they many or few, concerned only himself, and he hoped the gentleman would leave him to get over them as he could. It signified to nobody what became of him and his.

'Indeed!" said M. "And do you feel no concern when you see a neighbour tossing on his bed with pain, or downcast because he sees his family starving round him? Do you say it is no concern of yours, and instead of trying to help him leave him to get over it as he can?"

"When I am sick," said Harris, "I will send to the doctor; and when we are starving, we will go to the parish, and ask nobody's charity in either case?"

"And when you are unhappy," said M., "what then? "I don't think reading prayers does any good, so I shall not send for the clergyman: and if he chooses to come without being sent for, I shall not scruple to tell him my mind."

"I understand you," said M., " and I with you agree further than you think. I am not come to read prayers with you; for, though I am certain that it is our best comfort to look to God at all times, I believe that we please him best by helping one another, in the first place, to remedy the misfortunes we meet with. Did you ever see a man lying by the road-side so sick or hurt that he could not go on with his journey?"

"No; but I saw a woman only the other day run down in the street, and her leg broken."

"And what became of her?"

"We got a shutter, I and another man, and carried her to the hospital."

"Poor soul!" said his wife. 66 She fainted by the way and they thought she was gone, till George got some wine, and poured it down her throat. And when she reached the hospital, all her cry was about her children, till George offered to go and see that they were taken care of."

"Why did you trouble yourself?", asked M. "What did it signify to you what became of her and hers?" Perceiving that Harris was at a loss for a reply, he continued,

"I was going to remind you of a story of a man who fell among thieves, and was left by the wayside wounded and half-dead; and of the way in which he was helped by one who passed by, and had compassion on him. But, by what you have told me, I think you must remember the story well, and who told it first. If so, you cannot doubt its being the duty of us all to help one another whenever we can."

"It would be unnatural to let any body faint or. die for want of a drop of wine or so," said Harris. "But that has nothing to do with your coming here. You can't bring back my daughter; and as for that boy yonder, he is made for the gallows: 'tis his own father says it," he continued, flinging his hat to the furthest corner of the room, "and 'tis his own father that forbids you to meddle with him, and to come any more to see what trouble we are in."

M. instantly rose to depart. "I will not remain with you against your will," he said, " and it is my rule never to interfere between parents and children. But nothing can prevent my feeling for you, or keeping an eye upon your son, with the hope of giving you assistance or comfort when you will be more willing to receive it. If you wish to see me again you will find me according to this address."

When M. had laid his card on the table, Mrs. Harris exclaimed,

"O George! It was but yesterday you said that nobody in the world cared for us, and that no good came to us from living, as people boast, in a Christian land. And now you send away the first friend that has come near us these many days."

M. paused a moment to see the effect of this expostulation; but as Harris still stood in an attitude of sullen gloom, he hastened away. As he left the alley, he spoke a few words to Ned in a tone which convinced the boy that the stranger had not been, as he supposed, "set against” him by his parents.

M. was not much surprised at meeting Harris, within a week afterwards, coming in search of him. The man looked awkward, and began a kind of apology, which M. cut short with a smile and a few kind words. Harris came to say that his boy's curiosity seemed to have been excited by M.'s visit. He had asked two or three times what the gentleman came for, and whether he would return; and, as he had obtained no satisfactory answer, the incident seemed to have made more impression upon him than was usual. His mother fancied that the reappearance of the stranger might produce a yet further effect, and therefore humbly requested the favor of another visit, which M. gladly promised. He determined that Sunday morning should be the time, as the whole family would then probably be at home; but he made no appointment, lest Harris himself should take care to be out of the way.

As M. entered the district in which Harris's house was situated, there was nothing to remind him that it was the Lord's-day but the church-bell, which the wretched in spirit would fain have silenced. No man was more averse than M. to the sight of evil over which he had no power; and he therefore pushed his way hastily through the groups of slatternly gossips who were abroad to buy their potatoes, and made a wide circuit to avoid the sound and smell of the crowded gin-shop. When he reached the place of his destination he found no drunkenness, but almost every evil short of it. Harris was out in search of Ned, who had just

made his escape, as he was for ever trying to do on the Sunday morning. The younger boy was leaning half-naked out of the window, watching a fight which had been got up between two cocks in the alley; while his mother was preparing to clean the room. There was not a chair to sit down upon, and her appearance was more untidy than could be excusable on the busiest Saturday night.

"I should not have guessed that you lived within hearing of church-bells," said M. "You seem to have forgotten that this is Sunday."

Mrs. Harris, with some confusion, asked him in, promising to arrange the room in a few minutes. M. refused, but offered to return in half an hour, when her husband might be at home, and the house and herself in better order.

M. presently met Harris in the street. He had traced his boy to his usual Sunday haunt, and was returning, angry and miserable, to tell his wife that they need not expect to see Ned for hours or perhaps days. He had joined a set of young thieves who met in a cellar near to play cards and drink spirits all the Sunday. "You have tried to bring him home, of course," said M. "Why did you leave him." is, Sir, for an honest man

"You don't know what it to show himself among those young rogues. I once followed Ned in, and I will never go again. They would lay hold of me, and turn me out with a word from him.”

"I will go, however," said M., "if you will show me the way."

"You don't know what you would be doing, Sir; you would be in danger of your life.

"I think not," said M. "So just turn back with me, will you?"

Harris obeyed unwillingly, and retreated when he had pointed out the entrance to this place of iniquity.