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-which the two youngest children of the party, dirty, rosy little creatures, too young to be useful, but not to be busy, had amused themselves with heaping over her. On recognising us, the family soon came up,-half wild with joy at the fine weather, the abundance of work, the scarcity of hands, and consequently the money they were earning,—all which blessings they imputed to the presence of their innocent.

(To be concluded in our next.)

XLVIII. THE OLD YEAR'S BLESSING.

I AM fading from you;
But One draweth near,
Called the Angel-Guardian
Of the Coming Year.

If my gifts and graces
Coldly you forget,

Let the New Year's Angel

Bless and crown them yet.

For we work together;

He and I are one:
Let him end and perfect,
All I leave undone.

I brought Good Desires,

Though as yet but seeds;
Let the New Year make them
Blossom into Deeds.

I brought Joy to brighten

Many happy days;
Let the New Year's Angel
Turn it into Praise.

If I gave you Sickness,

If I brought you Care,
Let him make one Patience,
And the other Prayer.

Where I brought you Sorrow,

Through his care at length

It may rise triumphant

Into future Strength.

If I brought you Plenty,

All Wealth's bounteous charms,

Shall not the New Angel

Turn them into Alms?

I

gave

Health and Leisure,

Skill to dream and plan,
Let him make them nobler;-
Work for God and man.

If I broke your idols,

Showed you they were dust,
Let him turn the Knowledge
Into heavenly Trust.

If I brought Temptation,

Let sin die away
Into boundless Pity

For all hearts that stray.

If your list of Errors

Dark and long appears,
Let this new-born Monarch
Melt them into Tears.

May you hold this Angel

Dearer than the last,

So I bless his Future

While he crowns my Past.

XLIX. A STRANGE CHANCE.

A. A. P

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CHAPTER I.

ON a cloudless morning of early September, the warm glow of the sunshine tempered by the coolness of the air, a man, who appeared thoroughly susceptible of the exhilarating influence of this pleasant season of the year, was walking along a street in the outskirts of a small manufacturing town. His figure was tall and large-large with a heavy structure of bone, not by any superabundance of flesh. In his face, too, there was the same size and squareness of structure in the cheek and jaw, and the surface of the whole countenance was hard and inflexible, forbidding the capability of any soft expression. Indeed, there seemed to have been a determination in Nature to case up this modern soul, like one of her ancient Ganoids,* leaving only two loopholes in the solid masonry through which its real aspect could be presented to the world. As George Gilbert, inspired by the brightness of the morning, lifted up his eyes to the great blue vault above him, they were filled with a soft tenderness of worship, betraying depths of beauty and love which,

* Ganoids, fishes which, from their remains, seem to have had their outward structure entirely of bone.

VOL. VI.

without their revelations, would never have been suspected. Regarding him attentively, you found also that a ruddy color in his cheeks, which at first might have been mistaken for a steady indication of robust health, was a somewhat more wavering and uncertain sign. It came and went with that hectic brightness and instability which are the fatal insignia of consumption.

Withdrawing his eyes from their upward contemplation, George Gilbert's attention was arrested by something so golden and shining that it seemed like a materialization of the sunny air around him. This was the curling hair of a small, delicately-formed boy, who was standing with another boy, seemingly a little older than himself, and much coarser in appearance, and both looking with eyes full of longing through the window of a shop where many dangerous temptations in the form of candies and sweet cakes were displayed. The fair-haired child lifted up his face inquiringly when George Gilbert halted by his side, and as the little uplifted face came fully in view, the latter gave a start of mingled surprise and pain. His eyes became suffused with a dewy softness of love and tender regret, and caressingly passing his fingers through the child's bright curls, he remained for some moments gazing earnestly upon him.

"Well, my little fellows," he said at length, "are you looking out for something to spend your halfpence in? What is it to be? That gingerbread horse, or that fine barley-sugar wheelbarrow?"

The children, who had hold of hands, looked in each other's faces and laughed, then shyly hung down their heads, then lifted them up again and peeped sideways at their questioner, halfinclined to be friendly, but without giving any reply.

At that moment a tidy looking woman, with a basket containing a few vegetables, came out of the shop, and they ran towards her. She put her arm around them, and looked pleasantly upon the gentleman, who she perceived with quick instinct had been kindly noticing them.

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"You have two fine little fellows there," remarked George, again drawing towards the one who had so strangely interested him, and with the same caressing action as before. What beautiful hair," he continued, less to the woman than musingly to himself; "beautiful, beautiful!"

"Aye, poor little thing," said the woman, in a tone of pity; "he's a smart, pretty little lad enough!"

There was something in the manner of this speech which, joined with the great dissimilarity of the two children before him, and the strong resemblance between the woman and the coarser-looking one of the two, caused George Gilbert to say, "There is no mistaking who this sturdy little fellow belongs to, but this other does not own his mother so well."

"Oh, I'm not his mother, sir," said the woman, with a meaning shake of the head; "he's not mine, sir!"

"He is a sweet-faced, interesting child; whoever belongs to him may be proud of him.”

"Aye, if he had but any one as belonged to him," returned the woman; "but he's an unfort'nate little creature, heaven bless him, and has neither father nor mother to mind for him. His mother was a dirty, drinking woman, that went begging about here a good deal, maybe a year or so ago, and got many a ha'penny and piece of bread for the sake of her little lad, nobody would have given her without him. I was coming one morning along the end of this very street we're now standing in, when I saw her on the other side of the way lugging him in her arms; she was that drunk, though it was only morning, she was fairly staggering; she stepped off the caus'ey ledge to cross the road just as a coach turned the corner, and before the man could stop, though I screamed to him. with all my might, she was knocked down, and the child thrown clean to where I was standing. Well, sir, she was killed there and then; and somehow I felt so grieved for this poor little thing, who was very badly hurt against the stones, I wouldn't let them take him to the workhouse, or anything of that sort, but carried him home to look after him a bit myself. That's about seven months ago; you may see the scar here where his forehead was cut," she continued, at the same time lifting some of the child's curls to show the mark.

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"You have been good; very good, indeed," said George Gilbert, with a very sincere appreciation of the woman's kind action.

He resumed his contemplation of the boy more thoughtfully than before, and still with the same softened expression in his eyes. "And you could never find out any one belonging to him?" he asked.

"No, sir; nobody knew anything about his mother even; she had only been begging about for four or five months, and an awful, wicked, swearing woman she was, to be sure."

"And he has no friend but you?"

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Only me and my master.

We've done our best to keep him with us, but I'm afraid, without times look up a little, we shall have to let him go into the workhouse after all, for things are pretty hard with us just now."

During this conversation, George Gilbert had been forming a serious plan, and making up his mind to put it into immediate execution. There was a reminiscence connected with the most beautiful and sorrowful passage of his own previous life in the face and bright hair of the child, which raised in him a strong desire to keep it near him. Standing in the pleasant morning sunshine, with his hand upon the little one's glossy hair, and his thoughts trembling over the graves of past emotions, a spring of secret tenderness was unsealed within him, and in its flowing stream a subtle sweetness of pleasure was mingled with still more of the bitterness of pain. He felt he had mental strength to take the

charge of the boy's future upon himself, and that he should not be liable to shrink from any difficult duty it might entail upon him. In his own home there was nothing to forbid such an addition to his family a sister who superintended his household for him was his only domestic companion, and his means were amply sufficient for what he wished to do.

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"How many of these little people of your own have you?" he asked of the woman. "Why four of them, sir," she replied: "Tommy has one little sister younger, and another sister and brother older than he is."

"Four to provide for! I am sure that is too much care and expense for you. I have been thinking we must try and arrange for me to take this little fellow off your hands; I have neither wife nor children of my own, and would gladly have the charge of such a boy as this."

The woman hesitated. Poor as she was, and burdened with her own children, she had no selfish eagerness to be relieved from this extra charge upon her care and affections. She looked wistfully

down at the child as she answered

"Why, if he would only be happy to go with you, I dare say it would be a very grand thing for him, for we have little enough to give him, God knows! only I should not like to think he was grieving after me; for someway," and there were tears in her eyes, "one gets to love these poor little things, if even they ar'n't one's own. I should not like him to be grieving, and missing me,though to be sure, if he should have to go into the workhouse"—and she paused.

"I will tell you how we will arrange it," said George Gilbert; "my home is not in this town, but I shall be remaining here some weeks longer, and a sister, too, with me, who, if all things fall out as I wish, will have to fill your place to this little boy; let us try if by having him with us during this time, we cannot make him like us well enough to be content to go away with us when the time arrives for our departure."

After some further conversation and arrangement it was settled that, as a first step, the two little boys should be taken home, and attired in their Sunday clothes; that they should then both accompany Mr. Gilbert to the inn where he was staying, and which was close at hand, and that in the evening the mother should call there to take her own boy home, leaving the other for the night, if he would only be willing to remain.

In adopting this little outcast, George Gilbert had no romantic visions that its love would, some day in the future, fill a weary gap and yearning in his life; indeed, he had scarcely considered what the child was to be in reference to himself. He had only seen before him a helpless being, introduced, as it were, to his sympathies by the dearest portion of his own life. A singular resemblance in the expression of its countenance, and the uncommon color

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