Year: 1875

II .
paid her but small returns. She hired
q little room in a tenement house, and
the struggle for daily bread began. II
was . sad and desolate life she led
then. She never went out except to
the store for work, and she seldom
spoke to any one but her employer,
unless it was now and then kind
word to a beggar child. In her room,
at its one window that looked out on
bare bleak walls, she sat and stitched
day after day, while her form grew
thinner, her face paler, and hope
died out of her heart. In this way
the time passed on and weeks length.
ened into months and months into
years, still no tidings came uf her
absent husband.


Tho third winter that came to Alice
in her humble home. seemed to her
colder and drearier than any that had
passed before. The long confinement
began to tell upon her health. and at
last she was really i'll. She had new
er been able to earn anything more
than was necessary for her daily ex-
penses; and now, with the prospect
of sickness staring her in the face, she
often shuddered as she thought what
the future might have in store for her.
One morning, not being able to work,
she was sitting by her scanty FIRE think
ing of all these things. The memory
that had haunted her all these years
came to her then-the memory Of
the first three years Of her married
lite, that had been 50 bright and hap
py. She thought Of the pleasant
home she had then enjoyed, with its
cosy rooms, welllsden tables and
generous fires, but more than all else
she thought OF the love that hsd
crowned her. "If had back my
home and husband | should know how
to prize them now," she murmured /;
but am so lonely and miserable
here"


A tempest of tears and sobs shook
her slight form, and slipping from
her chair down upon her knees, she
prayed to her Heavenly Father for
patience and submission, just as size
had done so many times in these lat
ter years. While she knelt there the
door opened, but she was not con-
scious of any presence save her own
in the room, till some one knelt by
her side, and in q voice quivering
with emotion spoke her name. Sic
looked up quickly then, and met the
face Of her husband-not as she re-
membered having last seen it, bloat-
ed and red with the effects Of strong
drink, but tender, refined and
loving as it had been FIVE years be-
fore.


THANK God! Thank God" only
those words and she was folded to
her husbands heart, and her tired
soul, forgetting its desolatiOn, drifted
back to the haven Of rest once more.


Later, when they were calm, he
told how he had fought with the
tempter in the years since they had
parted, and how he had come back
then, master of himself, to ask her to
begin life anew with him.


"I.et US 20 back, said Alice, "to
our old home. We shall be happier
there"


So they went back as she wished,
and rented the farm they had once
owned, and began at the foot of the
ladder. But they had contentment
in their hearts, and with that even
poverty is sweet.


Many years have passed since then,
and Gilbert is a fine, hale old gentle
man, and Alice a happy matrOn, the
mother of noble sons and blooming
daughters. Years of labor have
brought them prosperity, and the
home of their ancestors is theirs once
more; and there they will pass the
remainder of their days, both of them
perfectly satisfied with their expert
ment at leaving the farm