Year: 1878

Iorenee Amandy would a most died
getun' home, she WAS SO tuckered out


Doesor says he expects she'll have
RELAPSE. had ter get Miss EIlery right
over, and Widder Wells sot up with her
last night. Seems as though you could
ha' waited leetle longer, don't it?''


Poor Mrs Jakeway was too much
troubled in her own conscience to make
tight against these true charges: but
when Florence after all recovered
though the tedious winter had to 90 fir..t.
and the April days encourage her with
their flllible promises of spring-her
mother slipped back into the old wavs.
It needed one more and severer lesson
to teach her that TO be too soon is almost
as bad as to be too late.


1t was two years after this that Mr.
clmOnds was expected from Europe,
and Florence Amanda was togo 10 New
York TO meet him; for he had been in
vited to accept the mastership of an
academy in a large Western town,
whittier he must proceed without un-
necessary delay. As she had no friends
IN New York, her mother was to accom-
pany her.


Now visit to the city was an excit-
ing matter to this good woman, and it
was 8 matter Of more moment to her
than ever that they should be there on
time since that time was so brief The
steamer was expected on Thursday, and
early Wednesday morning the two left
Dover by the first train.


There was no need of this, for the
next train, which was a fast express,
made a connection with the river line
to New York daily; but it struck "Mis'
Smart that perhaps it would not to
day, and it was better to wait two hours
at Willowtown station than take any
risk. So the house was reused as usual,
and Florence Amanda, pale and chilly,
swallowed little breakfast, and was
carried over to the station with her
mother half an hour before time.


The early train was part freight, part
accommodation, and very tiresome; not
only tiresome, but really not safe, for the
road was scarce worth RUNNING at all,
and had no surplus funds to expend on
its equipments.


The passenger car that followed the
ponderous freight vans was old and
rickety to a shameful degree the floor
ing was broken in several places, the
seats loose, the cushions torn, and, as
afterward proved, the wheels too worn
to have been used-sure to have been
condemned had they been properly in
spected.


A "hot box" had already delayed the
train, and they must make up by faster
running. Somebody's cow-as some
body's COW is apt to-strayed on to the
crossing, and stopped there toruminate.
This was enough to throw better train
off the track, and it wrecked this one
utterly.


When Mrs Jakeway picked herself
painfully out of the fragraments she saw
her daughter lying senseless on the
bank beside the track.


But she was not dead, though her
weak spine had received such an injury
that she was lifelong invalid, surviving
only to be moved from her bed to her
chair for several years


Perhaps it was as well for Mr. Simonds;
for a helplessly feeble woman, with a
weak back, an aching head, a chronic
dyspepsia, and the temper inevitable to
such troubles, is not a helpmeet for any
man. No doubt he was much better off
with the rosy, buxom Western girl he
married aflerward, who had no idea Of
the higher mathematics, not much Of
geography, and less of spelling, but who
was capital housekeeper and CHEEKY,
sweet-humored wife and mother.


And perhaps it was also as well for
Florence Amanda. She was not fit to
be a wife or mother in any sense; her
education had untitled her for such
duties, and even as teacher life would
have been a burden to her. Now its
term was shortened, and in the few
years that remained she learned the
best lesson of life-how to die.


But the burden of the sorrow fell upon
poor -"Mis' Smart'-though she never
heard that pseudonym again. She did
not cease to blame herself for taking
that early train, and she never looked
at her suffering child without bitter
pang Of remorse.


No reasoning availed to comfort her.
She tried to be submissive, as became a
good Christian woman, and she set her.
self resolutely to curb her impotence
and fidgety spirit Her home became
peaceful and pleasant to its inmates as
never before, but in her heart lifelong
sorrow remained, to remind her that it
is as bad to be too early as too late
Rose Terry Cooke, in Youths Conpaninn.