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"WHAT did he mean by telling me that story about the sailors ?" said Sarah Adams to herself, when my grandfather had disappeared. "He might have found something better than that to talk about, and I in such trouble," she thought, almost resentfully.

Something better! Something better! The thought had no sooner come into her mind, than other thoughts succeeded it.

"And what was it kept him from saying something

OCTOBER, 1867.

better?"—this was the current of her troubled reflections.

"Didn't I tell him that he need not be always throwing religion in my face? and he said that he would not do so any more. But I did not mean what I said, not entirely; and he might have given me a word or two of comfort; and if he had offered to kneel down and pray for me, I wouldn't have minded. It is long, long, since I heard a prayer. 0 dear! I don't know what is to become of me. I am very unhappy. If he could but have known how unhappy I am!"

Poor Mrs. Adams was very unhappy, more so than she could have told in few words. It was not altogether her temporal distress; this was not so new to her that she could not have borne it with the same sullen, dull kind of patience which she had often manifested before. Nor was it a very tender regard for her husband, and a delicate sensibility on account of his disgrace, which caused her mental wretchedness. She had not altogether lost her love for him: it would be untrue to say this; but the knowledge and a long painful experience of his deficiencies had caused a sort of external indifference towards him which had an influence on her feelings. At this time, too, she felt, perhaps justly, resentful towards him, as the cause of her poverty and degradation. Neither was it that she saw her children around her in rags and ignorance. She was so used to rags and ignorance that they had ceased much to trouble her: and, at present, in spite of their rags, her children were happy enough in their ignorance, especially as (thanks to my grandfather's benevolence) they had recently been well fed.

And yet, my grandfather's visit left her more unhappy than it found her.

"I did not really mean what I said when I told him that I did not want him to say any more to me about religion," -so Sarah Adams went on thinking;-" and he need not have taken me at my word so hastily. To be sure, it worried me, and reason enough; but for all that I knew he meant it kindly, and he might have seen that. But it seems now as if he had given me up altogether, as too bad to mend; and though he is still good to me, he won't try any more to do my soul any good. And so I have lost my best friend's best help-the only one who was ever faithful to me as he has been."

Poor Mrs. Adams sat down and wept bitterly. She could not help being convinced that it was by her own deed she

had lost the Christian faithfulness of my grandfather; but this consideration added poignancy to her grief. "If it hadn't been my own fault, I could bear it better," she said within herself.

She had no time to waste in sorrow, however; for the most grief-stricken woman, if she have six children to tend, must sometimes put her private troubles on the background, as Mrs. Adams did.

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The morrow brought with it other thoughts and cares. Her husband was taken a second time before the magistrates, and was sent back by them to jail, to be tried at the next quarter sessions for his breach of the law. This was only what the wife had expected; but the knowledge of its certainty, and of the heavier punishment he would probably have to endure, softened her heart towards him. He is not without his faults," she pondered, as she sat down and wept copiously, when she heard what had been done by the mag gistrates; "and I wonder who is: but there are many worse husbands than John has been to me, and worse fathers than he has been to the children. And if he has gone wrong at times, as he has, what have I ever done to keep him right? Have I made his home happy? Have I made it even as comfortable for him as I might have done?"

These were painful musings, doubtless; but the selfreproach was deserved, and therefore they were wholesome. Their effect was good too; for she was reminded by them of her present duty.

"I'll clean up the house a bit, and make things as straight as I can; and then I will go out and see if I can get anything to do, to earn a penny or two. Better do this than starve, or trust to charity, or go to the union," she said. In truth, Sarah's house wanted cleaning up more than a bit; and she set to work. Her first proceeding was to send her children to play in a neighbouring meadow, under the charge of the eldest, who was a girl of nine or ten years old. Alice was a good girl to look after the little ones, the mother often said, and they would be safe under her charge. Having done this, she began her house cleaning.

As I have said, Mrs. Adams was not encumbered with much furniture, nor did her cottage contain many rooms; but for all this, she found her cleaning to be rather uncomfortable work, for there was so much dirt and dust to be got rid of. The poor woman sighed as she thought of her earlier life, when she would not have believed, if anyone had told

her, that she would have been contented to live, even a single day, in such discomfort as had gradually gathered around her. Nevertheless, she went on bravely enough; for the hard work, while it lasted, kept despairing thoughts at bay.

While she was thus engaged, the relieving officer of the district called upon her, to say that the board of guardians had agreed to allow her a small sum every week for the support of her family. If she could make that do, well and good; if not, she and her children must go to the unionhouse till her husband was out of his trouble. Mrs. Adams accepted the offer; received the first week's payment, and, when the man was gone, once more set to work.

At last, all was done,- -or rather, the worst of the dirt and dust was got rid of; and all that remained was to put back her goods and chattels. In doing this, she came to a small box which, for many years had reposed undisturbed under the bedstead.

"I may as well see what's in it," said she: "though I know pretty well that it is only rubbish."

The box was locked; but Sarah had the key somewhere, she knew; and after some search she found it, and used it. It was, as she remembered, pretty much all rubbish that the box contained :—worn-out children's shoes; rags which from time to time, in her earlier married life, she had rolled up and put away, thinking that they might some day come in for mending, but never had; old gloves without fingers (she had long left off wearing gloves), and old socks without toes. There were a few relics too of her girlish days, in unuseable pincushions and faded ribbons the ribbons which once trimmed her wedding bonnet. It did the poor desolate woman good to set her eyes on these relics of happier times; for it brought back to her mind remembrances of what she then was; and yet every scrap of this kind which she found, made her feel more and more sorrowful.

At last, she came to the bottom of the box; and among the last trifles she took out was a little bag made of printed cotton. It was the ticket bag of Sarah's Sunday school days.

Another sigh rose as she held the bag in her hand. Those Sunday school days of hers were comparatively happy days. The world was fresh and young to her then; her heart was tender, and her hopes were high. The bag was not empty; and the poor woman would examine its

contents.

Old school tickets, she supposed. Yes, old school tickets. Nothing more,-some half dozen or more small tickets with a Scripture text printed on them, surrounded by a red border; and two or three larger picture cards, with verses of hymns under the picture. Sarah remembered them now. They were the tickets she had in her possession when she ceased to be a scholar. And here they were now, to stare her in the face, and to reproach her silently for her neglect of religion and the Bible.

What were the texts on the Scripture cards? Mrs. Adams read one or two of them without much interest. She looked at another,

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Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price." The little card fell from the woman's hand.

"Come ye to the waters! Every one that thirsteth!" The words had strange meaning, surely.

Mrs. Adams was not dull. Her mind was not so active as it once was, perhaps: but it had not lost its power; and power was roused.

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"I see now what he meant," she said to herself, as she thought of my grandfather's visit. He told me that story about the sailors, to put me in mind of this. He would not talk to me about religion till I asked him, he said; and he has kept his word: but this is what he meant when he asked me if I had ever known anybody to act so foolishly as those sailors acted, almost dying of thirst when good fresh water was around them."

Her thoughts wandered a little now; or, rather, they came unbidden into her mind. At school, Sarah had been remarkably quick in committing hymns to memory; and though time had rubbed out many of these recollections, there were traces of them remaining. Here are one or two of these traces;-I will put them in the order in which they presented themselves to the disturbed woman.

"He said something, too, about a neglected treasure. What did he mean by that?-Treasure!-Let me see :-that hymn-how does it begin?-Precious Bible, what a-no, that is not just it. Stay,-I remember it now :— 'Holy Bible, book Divine,

Precious treasure,'

yes, that is it,-'Precious treasure, thou art mine.' Mine, indeed! Yes, it is mine; for the Bible I used to read from

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