Then came a deep silence. The poor woman sat with the fingers of both hands moving together uncasily, and Mrs. Lander looked away out of the window and appeared to be intent upon something in the street. "Are these made to please you?" Mrs. Walton ventured to ask. They'll do," was the brief answer; and then came back the same dead silence, and the same interest on the part of the lady in something passing in the street. them and get a supply of food for the many mouths she had to feed. Mrs. Lander received her with that becoming dignity of manner and gravity which certain persons always assume when money has to be paid out. She, as it behooved her to do, thoroughly examined every seam, line of stitching, and hem upon each of the three shirts, and then, after slowly laying the garments upon a table, sighed and looked still graver. Poor Mrs. Walton felt oppressed; she hardly knew why. "Does the work please you?" she ventured to ask. "I don't think these are as well made as the others," said Mrs. Lander. Mrs. Walton wanted the money she had earned for making the shirts, and Mrs. Lander knew it. But Mrs. Lander never liked to pay out money, if she could help it; and as doing so always went against the grain, it was her custom to put off such unpleasant work as long as possible. She liked to encourage the very poor, because she knew they generally worked cheaper than people who were in easier circum-lars stances; but the drawback in their case was, that they always wanted money the moment their work was done. Badly as she stood in need of the money she had earned, poor Mrs. Walton felt reluctant to ask for it until the whole number of shirts she had engaged to make were done; and so, after sitting for a little while longer, she got up and went away. It happened that she had expended her last sixpence on that very morning, and nothing was due to her from any one but Mrs. Lander. Two days at least would elapse before she would have any other work ready to take home, and what to do in the meantime she did not know. With her the reward of every day's labor was needed when the labor was done; but now she was unpaid for full four days' work, and her debtor was a lady much interested in the welfare of the poor, who always gave out her plain sewing to those who were in need of encouragement. By placing in pawn some few articles of dress, and paying a heavy interest upon the little sum of money advanced thereon, the poor widow was able to keep hunger from her door until she could finish some work she had in hand for a lady more considerate than Mrs. Lander. Then she applied herself with renewed industry to the three shirts yet to make, which she finished at the time she promised to have them done. With the money to be received for these, she was to pay one dollar and a half to get her clothes from the pawnbroker's shop, buy her little boy a pair of shoes-he had been from school a week for want of "I thought they were better made," returned the woman. "Oh, no. The stitching on the bosoms, coland wristbands isn't nearly so well done." Mrs. Walton knew better than this; but she did not feel in any humor to contend for the truth. Mrs. Lander took up the shirts again, and made another examination. "What is the price of them ?" she asked. "Seventy-five cents." 66 Apiece?" "Yes, ma'am." "Seventy-five cents apiece!" "I never got less than that, and some for whom I sew always pay me a dollar." "Seventy-five cents! It's an imposition. I know plenty of poor women who would have been glad of these shirts to make at half the price-yes, or at a third of the price either. Seventy-five cents, indeed! Oh, no-I will never pay a price like that. I can go to any professed shirt-maker in the city, and get them made for seventy-five cents or a dollar." 66 "I know you can, ma'am," said Mrs. Walton, stung into self-possession by this unexpected language. 'But why should I receive less if my work is as well done?" "A pretty question, indeed!" retorted Mrs. Lander, thrown off her guard. "A pretty question for you to ask of me! Oh, yes! You can get such prices if you can, but I never pay them to people like you. When I pay seventy-five cents apiece for shirts, I go to regular shirt-makers. But this is what we generally get for trying to encourage the poor. Mrs. Brandon said that you were in needy circumstances, and that it would be a charity to give you work. But this is the way it generally turns out." PLAIN SEWING. "What are you willing to pay ?" asked the poor woman, choking down her feelings. "I have had shirts as well made as these for forty cents many and many a time. There is a poor woman down in Southwark who sews beautifully, who would have caught at the job. She works for the shops, and does not get over twenty-five cents for fine shirts. But, as Mrs. Brandon said you were suffering for work, I thought I would throw something in your way. Forty cents is an abundance; but I had made up my mind, under the circumstances, to make it fifty, and that is all I will give. So here is your money-three dollars." And Mrs. Lander took out her purse and counted out six half dollars upon the table. Only for a few moments did the poor woman hesitate. Bread she must have for her children; and if her clothes were not taken out of pawn on that day she had pledged them only for a week-they would be lost. Slowly did she take up the money, while words of stinging rebuke were on her tongue. But she forced herself to keep silence; and even departed, bearing the wrong that had been laid upon her, without uttering a word. "Did you get my shoes as you promised, mother?" eagerly inquired her little boy, as she came in, on returning from the house of Mrs. Lander. 66 No, dear," replied the heart-full mother, in a subdued voice. "I didn't get as much money as I expected." "When will you buy them, mother?" asked the child, as tears filled his eyes. "I can't go to school this way." And he looked down at his bare feet. "I know you can't, Harry; and I will try and get them for you in a few days." The child said no more, but shrunk away with his little heart so full of disappointment that he could not keep the tears from gushing over his face. The mother's heart was quite as full. Little Harry sat down in a corner to weep in silence over his grief, and Mrs. Walton took her sewing into her hands; but the tears so blinded her eyes that she could not see where to direct the needle. Before she had recovered herself, there was a knock at the door, which was opened immediately afterwards by a lady who came into the room where the poor widow sat with her little family around her. More than an hour had passed since the unpleasant interview with the plain sewer, and Mrs. Lander had not yet recovered her equanim 131 ity of mind, nor lost the feeling of indignation which the attempt to impose upon her by the poor widow had occasioned, when she was favored with a visit from Mrs. Brandon, who said familiarly, and with a smile, as she entered"Ah, how do you do, Mrs. Lander? I have just corrected a mistake you made a little while ago. "Indeed! what is that ?" asked Mrs. Lander, looking a little surprised. "You only gave poor Mrs. Walton fifty cents apiece for the half dozen shirts she made for you, when the lowest price is seventy-five cents. I always pay a dollar for Mr. Brandon's. The difference is a very important one to her-no less than a dollar and a half. I found her in much trouble about it, and her little boy crying with disappointment at not getting a pair of shoes his mother had promised him as soon as she got the money for the shirts. He has been from school for want of shoes for more than a week. So I took out my purse and gave Mrs. Walton the dollar and a half to make up the sum she had earned, and told her I would see you about it. I acted right, did I not? Of course, it was a mistake on your part ?" 66 Mrs. Lander was never more completely outgeneralled in her life. The lady who had corrected her error was one in whose good opinion she had every reason for desiring to stand high. She could grind the face of the poor without pity or shame, but for the world she would not be thought mean by Mrs. Brandon. I am very much obliged to you indeed,” she said, with a bland smile. "It was altogether a mistake on my part, and I blame the woman exceedingly for not having mentioned it at the time. Heaven knows, I am the last person in the world who would grind the faces of the poor! Yes, the very last person. Here is the money you paid for me, and I must repeat my thanks for your prompt correction of the error. But I cannot help feeling vexed at the woman." "We must make many allowances for the poor, Mrs. Lander. They often bear a great deal of wrong without a word of complaint. Some people take advantage of their need, and, because they are poor, make them work for the merest pittance in the world. I know some persons, and they well off in the world, who always employ the poorest class of people, and this under the pretence of favoring them, but, in reality, that they may get their work done at a rate cheaper than it can be made by people who expect to derive from their labor a comfortable support." THIRTY YEARS AGO. BY JOHN SMITH." TIME itself is a great revolutionist, and sometimes a reformer. Its continual dropping wears away rocks of flint and undermines thrones. Time perseveres in its work of dissolution and re-organization, when other powers grow weary with hopeless effort. Time has been the witness to scenes of anguish, when goodness and genius have been immolated on the altar of passion. Time also has witnessed moral resurrections, when goodness and genius have risen from the tomb in which they seemed buried forever. Time brings us hope now, when we contrast it with time that was. Let us see. Come, mother, do give me the sugar in the bottom of that glass; it is so good," said a bright-looking boy, as he looked wistfully up into her face, while with one hand he clung to her gown. Why, Charles," said his mother, "you will become a real toddy-drinker if you keep on at this rate. Your mouth waters now like an old rummy's! Here, I will give you a lump from the bowl, and throw this stuff away." She was about to suit the action to the word, when the little fellow cried out impatiently— "I don't want a lump from the bowl, because it does not taste good like that in the glass!" ? A shade of anguish flitted across the mother's countenance, as she saw such precocity in a habit she knew to be ruinous, and over which already she had wept many tears. As she contrasted the man of her heart's choice, marked with the distinct tracery of vicious indulgence, with the noble and beautiful man he once was, she could truly have said, "The thocts o' by-gane years Still fling their shadows ower my path, They blind my een wi' saut, saut tears, As memory idly summons up The blithe blinks o' lang syne." And yet because her child cried, and every body did as she was doing, because it was fashionable, she allowed him to drain the sugar saturated with brandy. And as he did it he smacked his lips with the keen relish of a toper. The apathy, which then held all minds on the evil of intemperance, was truly astonishing. A mother's sensitive heart would sometimes penetrate the delusions of fashion and custom, and see "hungry ruin" in prospect for her son. Sometimes she would articulate her fears lest Charles would become too fond of strong drink, but the husband hushed her by saying, "Fudge, wife, don't be alarmed, for this is nothing strange or unprecedented! In fact I believe I had as great a relish for such things at his age as Charley has now, and you see I have done well enough!" The wife would have spoken had she dared, as she looked into the face of her husband, bloated and blossomed as it was. She would have used to the father his own prospective ruin as an argument why his son should avoid the same path of death. But such intimations only roused his anger, that she should hint that he was a drunkard, although not unfrequently he had, at some great dinner, been "kicked under the table." The wife suppressed her thoughts, and time unravelled the web of destiny. In three years that husband died-avoiding fashionable nomenclature-a drunkard. Such a catastrophe roused the mother from her stupor, and with what success we shall see presently. It was on a cold blustering day, just as Charles was starting for school, that he came up to his mother: "Mother, I am afraid I shall take cold; come, please fix me a little nice hot toddy to keep me warm!" It was said with a sort of shame-faced boldness, as though he was not altogether sure of doing right. But the mother detected the cravings of appetite, and felt that the demon must now be exorcised or keep possession forever, as she replied: THIRTY YEARS AGO. "No, Charles, you must not have any more such drink. You must never touch it again or you will become such a drunkard as the poor man who died over the way. Do not you remember how he shrieked and howled whilst dying of delirium tremens? No, Charles, you must give it up forever, or you may become as great a drunkard as She would have said "your father,” but of his ruin thoughts trooped up frightfully, and her tongue refused to pronounce the harsh comparison. She burst into a flood of tears. The boy seemed intuitively to catch what was passing in her mind, and instantly sprung to her arms, affectionately kissing her cheek, as he said, "I won't drink any more, mother." She pressed him to her heart, and prayed silently. From that day he seemed to be a different child. No inducement could make him taste a drop of any intoxicating liquor, and with untirHis ing diligence he pursued his studies. mind, rarely developed, comprehended and practised the idea that he must be the architect of his own fortune. His brilliant talents, the more shining in one so young, made him a companion whose society was courted by all. Nature had fitted him to be the admired centre of every circle in which he might move. At the age of fourteen, Charles was entered a member of college. Common consent soon assigned him the first place in the class, and his brilliant qualities as a companion rendered him a universal favorite. Would, I had almost said, nature had moulded him into a ruggeder shape, with mental, moral, and physical ugliness to repel vicious associates, instead of attracting them to himself by so many admirable and fascinating qualities. Intemperance is a social vice, and not a few of its most regretted victims are those whose companionable ways give zest to vice, and pave the highway to ruin. How many victims has intemperance made, through the social principle, in some circumstance perverted into the most dangerous lure that ever caught the unwary. And what a meaning these words have when applied to youth in college. The choicest minds there are congregated. Life is still young, and sociality there sparkles like ruddy wine. Who has not an exhilarating recollection of the hearty laugh, and the brilliant rejoinder of the college circle, when "Greek has met Greek," in the witty warfare? It is the very heyday of glee, and even frosty age is melted as it recurs to those scenes when it was 134 young. And yet that very period is the Scylla and Charybdis of an educated man's life. Thirty years ago the dangers of that period were extreme. Home has just been left behind; and now, for the first time, the youth becomes in a measure his own master. He is a social being, and in circumstances calculated to elicit all his sociality. Hence the hours of mirth and conviviality, in which at length are found not merely the blandishments of an hour, but the beginnings of inveterate habit, the cause of future tears, and, in too many cases, of premature death. The history of American colleges amply proves the assertion. For two years Charles had avoided danger, and by diligence had secured the approbation of his fellows and instructors. The fall vacation had passed, and he was now a junior, when he met a college mate whose social disposition and fine talents he had learned to admire. "How are you, Charles ?" "How are you, William ?" were the mutual greetings with which they met, and then they recounted the pleasures they had enjoyed at home. "Charles, come to my room this evening after nine o'clock. The tutor will be snoozing by that time, and we shall have a nice time talking over vacation, and what we have seen. Come over, won't you?" Thus pressed, the unsuspecting Charles consented, and was there at the appointed hour. He was surprised to find quite a company of mates, and those of a class whose company hitherto he had avoided. He felt uneasy, and wished himself away, but had not courage to gratify his own wishes. They soon surrounded him, and their flattering attentions, and the uproar of laughter excited by some of his sayings, soon reconciled him to his situation. Anecdote, that wine of sociality, freely circulated, and in this, none could equal the widow's son. From his tenacious memory he feasted his auditors with some choice stories, which produced great merriment. It was not long before William introduced the champagne. Charles started and thought of his mother. He would have left, but the fear of ridicule was too strong for him. He feared a laugh more than a bad action, and proved, in his own experience, a drunkard's |