dirty Irish girls! I would kill myself if I had to stay here. Why was I ever born? I have such kummerniss (woes) here (she pressed her hands on her heart)—I am poor!”

We explained more, and she became satisfied. We wished her to be bound to stay some years. "No," she said passionately, "I cannot; I confess to you, gentlemen, I should either run away or die, if I was bound."

We talked with the matron. She had never known, she said, in her experience, such a remarkable girl. The children there of nine or ten years were often as old as young women, but this girl was an experienced woman. The offence, however, she had no doubt, was her first. We obtained her release, and one of us, Mr. G— walked over to her house or cabin, some three miles on the other side of Williamsburg, in order that she might see her parents before she went. As he walked along, she looked up in Mr. G's face, and asked thoughtfully why we came there for her? He explained. She listened, and after a little while said, in broken English, "Don't you think it better for poor little girls to die than live?" He spoke kindly to her, and said something about a good God. She shook her head. "No, no good God. Why am I so? It always was so. Why much suffer if good God?" He told her they would get her a supper, and in the morning she should start off and find new friends. She became gradually almost ungoverned-sobbed-would like to dieeven threatened suicide in this wild way. Poor girl! to her there was only one place where the wild embittered heart could rest. Kindness and calm words at length made her more reasonable. After much trouble they reached the home, or the den, of the poor rag picker. The parents were very grateful, and she was to start off the next morning to a country home, where, perhaps, finally the parents will join her.

For myself, the evening shadows seemed more sombre, and the cheerful home-lights less cheerful, as I walked home remembering such a history.

IMPORTANCE OF YOUTHFUL DILIGENCE.

"WHAT do you mean to do for a living when you come to be a man?" said Mr. Hedges, the schoolmaster, to William Marsh, one evening as they were sitting by Mr. Marsh's fireside.

"I mean to be a stage-driver," was William's prompt, and, in manner, not very respectful reply.

Mr. Hedges did not say anything more to him. He asked the question with the hope that it might lead to some profitable conversation. He had noticed that William was very inattentive to his studies when at school; and he was in hopes, now that he had come to live for a week at his father's, that he could induce him to feel more interested in the cultivation of his mind. The boy's reply to his question discouraged him altogether. Perhaps he was discouraged too soon. Perhaps, if he had persevered in his attempt, he might have awakened some feelings of desire or shame that would have led William to pay more attention to his books.

As Mr. Hedges was about to leave for another place, he took occasion to speak to William's mother respecting her son's inattention to his books, and to advise her to require him to be more diligent.

Mrs. M

replied that she had never known much good to come of book learning. William was a smart boy for a bargain, and could drive the team as well as his father.

The teacher came to the conclusion that William would realize his purpose of becoming a stage-driver.

In the same school was a boy named Joseph Reed, who was very fond of his books. He always stood at the head of his class in all their studies. He did not, perhaps, learn more easily than several other boys of his age, but he was diligent. He took his books home with him every night, and studied his lessons in the evening, when the other boys were at play.

"Come, Joe," said William to him one night after school,

"let us go to the long-pond to-night, and have a good time at skating."

"I cannot do it,” replied Joseph.

"6 "Why not?"

"Because I cannot get my lesson if I do. Mr. Hedges told us he wanted us to learn the lesson he gave us out as soon as we could."

"Can't get your lesson!" said William, in a tone of contempt; "what good will getting your lessons do you, do you think? Nobody likes you any better for your fuss about your lessons, and a great many do not like you so well. John," said he to another boy, "will you go to the pond to-night ?"

"I am agreeable," said John, imitating the manner, as he had copied the words, of a lounger at the tavern, whose wit was the admiration of all the young candidates for ruin in the place.

Several other boys were asked, and consented to go. The prospect of a skating party on a bright moonlight night was very tempting to Joseph. He loved skating very much, but not so much as he loved his books. He hastened home, carried in the wood, and took care of the sheep for the night, and sat down to his lesson. He soon mastered it, at least so far that he could see through it. He then took his skates, and ran to join the party who were going to the pond. They had assembled, but had not yet started. "There comes Joe," said one.

"I asked him to go," said William, "and he would not go, and now he sha'n't go."

As William was somewhat of a bully, none of the boys liked to enter into a dispute with him. Besides, Joseph paid so much attention to study and reading that he did not associate very much with the boys, and was not regarded as one of them. They therefore made no objection to William's authoritative declaration, and so poor Joseph had to go home and forego the pleasure of trying his new skates on the glassy ice. Some reproachful and insulting words were uttered by William, but he paid no attention to them, and went home and comforted himself with his book.

We pass over an interval of twelve years.

Joseph had continued to cherish his love of knowledge. He had completed his collegiate course, and had pronounced the valedictory on the day of his graduation. He had become a teacher in a distinguished seminary, and was regarded as one of the most promising young men in the country.

He was on his way to visit his parents. He left the steamboat at P, where he was to take the stage-coach. "Shall I take your trunk?" said a red-faced, scantilyclothed young man, of about his own age.

"I am going in the stage to M," said Reed. "I am the driver that takes you there."

He shouldered the trunk, and secured it on the stage, and then held open the door of the coach while Reed entered it. As he was closing the door, Reed recognised in the driver his old schoolmate, William Marsh. He had become what he told the schoolmaster he intended to become, a stage-driver. He was a poor, drunken, profane stage-driver!

I am not acquainted with the particulars of his downward course. His father wished to have him continue to work on the farm, and promised to give him a portion of it as soon as he was twenty-one; but farming was too dull a business for him. So he ran away when he was about seventeen, and went into a neighbouring state, where he procured employment; at first as an ostler at a tavern, and then he soon reached the height of his ambition, as the driver of four horses before a stage-coach. He soon formed intemperate habits; and on one occasion, when he was intoxicated, he suffered the horses to run away with the stage. There were no passengers in at the time, or they would certainly have been killed; for the coach was overturned, and fell down a ledge nearly twenty feet high. He jumped from his seat just before the coach went over, and escaped with a sprained ancle and a bruised face.

He was then dismissed by his employer, and was obliged to return home. His father received him kindly, and tried to get him to go to work on the farm, but in vain. He

spent his time at the tavern in the village, till the landlord, partly to get rid of him, assisted him to a situation as a driver in a line of stages running through the village. He was in that situation when Joseph Reed landed at P―, and took the stage for his native place.

My young reader, what do you intend to be when you are a man? What you will be, depends very much on the purpose you now form. If you cherish low aims, and make no effort at self-improvement, you will never secure an honourable standing among your fellow-men. Whether you hope to be a minister, teacher, or respectable and happy working man, be diligent now in employing all the opportunities of improvement which God puts within your reach, else in the end you may find yourself no better than William Marsh, the drunken stage-driver. - New York Observer.

TWO KINDS OF RICHES.

A LITTLE boy sat by his mother. He looked long in the fire, and was silent. Then, as the deep thought began to pass away, his eye grew bright, and he spoke: "Mother, I wish to be rich."

66

'Why do you wish to be rich, my son?" And the child said, "Because every one praises the rich. Every one inquires after the rich. The stranger at our table yesterday asked who was the richest man in the village. At school there is a boy who does not love to learn. He takes no pains to say well his lessons. Sometimes he speaks evil words. But the children blame him not, for they say, he is a wealthy boy."

The mother saw that her child was in danger of believing wealth might take the place of goodness, or be an excuse for indolence, or cause them to be held in honour who lead unworthy lives.

So she asked him, "What is it to be rich?" And he answered, "I do not know. Yet tell me how I may become rich, that all may ask after me, and praise me!

The mother replied, "To become rich is to get money