Year: 1877

husbands nature. She did not, how
: ever, attempt to argue with him, al
though she knew that his reasoning was
in some sense false and superficial.
Her question did not even touch his
late remarks, but went straight to the
discharged office boy.


GLOW came Tom TO fall into this bad
company, Luther?"


'The answer is easy enough, Mary.
1t all comes of that cheap boarding
house, and the folks inside of IL. BOYS
with his salary have to put their heads
where they can, and people who take
them on low terms, with provisions Mt
these starvation prices, can neither at
ford to be exclusive with regard to the
class they take in, nor to offer an at
tractive home TO their boarders. Tom,
like the rest, boted his food, suppose,
and had no place but the streets to pass
his evenings in, and of course a green
boy from the country afforded a fine
chance to his fellow-lodgers to induct
himinto all sorts of follies and sins, and
he hadn't sense or strength to resist
them"


"Poor boy! All, Luther, if he were
ours" and the mothers soft brown
eyes glanced again toward the white
heap of life and brightness and bloom,
which lay on the floor.


And again the fathers eyes followed
hers, and the hardness melted ont of
them now, and he said fcrvently:


"God forbid. | would rather lay my
boy in his grave, this hour, than know
he should live to be turned adrill in his
youth, in this great city, with no friends
! 10 n1 ,tat I,~s,
in wait on every side to devour him."


"And Tom had mother, too. and
she must have loved him once as we do
ours, Luther. almost hope she isn't
alive now, for can Judge by my own
heart that ii must break hers TO know
that her boy is lost"


"Ies, she is living" Mr.. Randolph
answered, almost reluctantly. ~ re-
member Tom told me so, and that she
was widow and that he was her only
son; although ne had a little sister be-
side. Foolish boy, TO run his neck
straight into that trap!" added the gem
tleman, half angry at himself to find
that his heart was beginning TO relent
toward the culprit.


Tears brimmcd the eyes of Mrs. Ran
dolph. From the first, she had taken n
fancy to, an unusual interest in, the
bright-faccd little Office boy, whom her
husband frequently despatched up TO
the house with some note or message
for its mistress.


The boys bright, prompt, pleasant
manner, his quick intelligence, the
courtesy OF speech and bearing. which
indicated careful home cultivation, had
all attracted the lady.


And now her mother heart was
touched to its centre, thinking of that
other mother, lonely and widowed,
whose pride, and joy, and strength had
been this one boy, now turned out on
the world in shame and disgrace. She
thought how smoothly the downward
road winds along the days; she thought
how the proud young spirit, stung with
remorse and shame, would be likely to
flash up into fierce recklessness or settle
down into sullcn defiance. The lady's
heart, looking OH her own son, ached
and yearned over this other mothers.


She rose up, she took her little boy
in her arms and set him on his fathers
knee. ''Luthcr," she said, 81 will not
argue or reason with you, for You will
get the best of me there; but plead
for this boy in the name of your own,
take him back; give him one more
trial, for the sake of this" and she
placed her hands on the child's head.


The child looked up with his sweet
face full of bewildermcnl. Something
in the tender, solemn face of his mother
seemed to impress him. lie reached
out his fat, dimplcd hands TO his father,
and cried in his pretty child voice,
''Take him back, papa, take him back" !"


Mr.. Randolph was moved. lie ben.
down swiftly and kissed the small
speaker, and fancied himself guilty of
great unmanly weakness when he said,
80, Mary, you women, with your child
lren, are enough to turn mans brain.
It's against my lifelong principles to do
what you ask"


But, after all, the speech conceded
much more than it denied, and Mrs.
Randolph knew that if Tom was not
gone beyond recall, he might have an
other chance with his master.


Three days had posed, and the year
had stepped softly from November into
winter, and the last month opened with
smiles as radiant as those which kindle
the face of June, with winds balmy as
Mays and with no sign or whisper of
the long path of storm and darkness
through which the road lay toward the
spring, Just as some lives lie in sweet
warmth and security on the bordcrland
of awful experience of sorrow and pain
and loss, through which their feet must
walk into the eternal rest beyond.


And one morning of this "sunshne
out of season." youth somewhere
about his seventeenth year might have
been seen making his way slowly along
one of the principal thoroughiares OF
the city.


If you had looked in his face YOU
would have found it bright, intclli-
gent one, with eyes that held usually
plenty of fire and spirit in them, but
now carried some gloom or sadness or
both. So did the step, slow and de-
spondent, so did the slender boy fig
ure, with the idle hands listlessly in the
pockets, for want of some better en-
ployment.


"NOw, Tom Haynes" buzzcd the
busy brain of this youth, ''you'rc done
for in this city, and the sooner you clear
out and go of TO sea, the better for You.
The best thing you can do 10 to shin as
a common deck hand for a good long
round the world. You'll have a chance
to see something of the world before
you get back, and perhaps you'll get
into good berth and be a captain some
day. Itll be hard enough at first, and
you must make up your mind to plenty
of knocks; but il will be better than
loafing around the city with your hands
! in your pockets and your last dollar
going. There's no chance for YOU
here, with your character gone and
. your situation lost, and you've nobody
: to thank but yourself, as the old fellow
told you when he sent you off. All
your fine visions and pretty dreams OF
nj home are gone now"


"Poor mother and little Ruth" All
there was twinge then, that made the
boy start and shrink as one might al
the touch of coal of fire; he knew the
poor, broken-down mother, the bright
5 little sister, just three years his junior