life had woke up in the cottage only that another might go out from it, for Arthur's days were weaving up into six months when his father sickened and died.

He was a good-natured, kind-hearted manfarmer Crafts-without an enemy in the world, but sadly deficient in that practical foresight and energy which is so prominent a characteristic of his countrymen.

The broken-hearted wife and mother woke up from the agony of that bereavement to learn that her home, with the half acre of land which surrounded it, was all that her husband had left to her and her children. For two years they struggled on, then a situation presented itself, which Mary, now in the dawn of her seventeenth summer, was compelled to accept.

It was that of a sort of upper domestic in the family of a rich widow some twenty miles from the young girl's home; and so, reader, we have brought her to you, just as she is leaving it.

I wonder if you can understand all the suffering all the sinking of heart and sickening of the future, which the girl underwent in the next half hour; for if not, my telling you will not help the matter.

But she drew her vail aside before the tears were dried on her cheeks, and looked out as the stage rattled over the hill. There was the red school-house and the gray church, with the creepers running up its sides, and behind these were the mulberry-trees and barberry bushes, where she had passed so many of the bright afternoons of her childhood, while farther beyond she could catch a glimpse, only a glimpse, for the trees were many and her eyes were dim, of the little red chimney, with its curl of smoke, which was perched on the gable roof of her home.

Two months had gone by. They had been bright and brief ones to Mary Crafts, for her new home was a very pleasant one.

It was a large old house full of gables and angles, in front of which stood a half dozen pine-trees, whose branches made a low, solemn underswell of music round the great dwelling every night.

Mary loved those old pine-trees, for there was a vein of poetry in her glad, sunshiny nature; and when her light duties were done she liked to go out, and, sitting under the trees, listen to the deep, mournful psalm rolling along the keys, which that master musician-the wind-was striking.

Mrs. Hughes was very kind to Mary, though a little cold and stately, and never said, "My child!" still she had her sit with her every afternoon and eat at the table when there was no company, and did not treat her at all like a " common servant."

"Mary," ," said Mrs. Hughes one morning at the expiration of those two months, "I am expecting my brother and his family from New York to visit us. They will probably be here to-morrow, and will occupy the north chamber. I wish you to open the windows and dust the chairs and bedstead. Here are the keys to the bureau. In the upper drawer you will find a box containing a small roll of bank bills and a miniature of my brother; I wish to wear it to-morrow. When you come down bring me the miniature, and be sure

are the only one beside myself who has entered the room for a year."

And pleased with this proof of Mrs. Hughes's confidence, Mary received the keys and went up stairs humming a sweet tune and thinking of her mother and Arty.

The chairs and bedstead had been carefully dusted, and Mary stood at the drawer looking at the miniature of Mrs. Hughes's brother and admiring the rich setting.

It was a bright June morning, and suddenly the wind that had been rumpling the meadow grass and scampering through the wheat, throwing it up till it looked like white lines of foam in the distance, struck up a chant in the pine

I wish you could have seen her as she stood there, her head leaned half out of the window, and the wind blowing the brown hair about her face. It was a fair vision, and if you have an artist soul it would have lithographed itself there, as, alas! my pen never can do it. The rosy cheeks, the blue, sparkling eyes, the happy smile dimpling the parted lips-O Mary! Mary! if they could have seen you then, surely they could not have believed. But my pen is playing truant.

Now, any body knows that ever tried it, that nothing will carry off an hour or two faster than listening, in a half dreamy and wholly forgetful mood, to the slow magnetizing murmur of wind among pine-trees.

Mary had no idea she had stood at the window more than five or ten minutes, but she had three quarters of an hour. She returned to the bureau, hastily seized the miniature, locked the drawer and then the door, and hurried down stairs.

"I had occasion to go to my drawer in the north chamber this morning, and I made the discovery that the roll of bank bills which I left there had disappeared. Do you know any thing about them?"

"I-I, Mrs. Hughes; how should I know any thing about them! O surely you do not, you can not think-" Mary's white lips could not complete the sentence, but shaking in every limb she sank into the nearest chair.

Seeing, as she honestly believed, only fresh evidence of guilt in the girl's wild glance and pallid face, Mrs. Hughes answered, fastening her eyes sternly upon her, "Mary, you know I am not to be trifled with. That box, to which you alone had access, contained three hundred dollars, which have disappeared. It is not possible that any other person can have removed them. I find I have trusted you only to be deceived.

"For the sake of your mother, however, if you will restore the money I will send you home and conceal the matter; otherwise I shall go immediately to my brother and inform him of your crime."

"But I haven't the money. O believe me, believe me, Mrs. Hughes, I would sooner have died than taken it—”

"Mary, none of this acting," sternly interrupted the lady as she drew away the folds of her dress from the hands that had clasped it so entreatingly.

"I am not to be tampered with in this manner, and as you do not choose to acknowledge you are a thief, I shall immediately put my threat in execution and you must abide the consequences."

And that word of shame fell into the little coward heart of Mary Crafts like a blow that strikes out all the strength, and light, and hope of one's life. She did not turn though, she only sank down upon the floor with a low groan and covered her face with her hands.

Now, Mrs. Hughes was, in reality, a good and kind woman, but she had not that discriminating knowledge of human nature which, after all, is more an intuition than any thing else; and, like all other persons who are deficient in this faculty, she had, during her life, been flagrantly deceived in those whom she had trusted. This had tended to make her somewhat severe and suspicious of her kind. But her childless, widowed heart had been strangely won by the gentle sweetness of Mary, and she had of late even entertained thoughts of adopting her into the place of the daughter God had taken from her.

And now to think how she had been deceived! The widow's feelings hardened doubly toward the poor girl when she thought of this. Still, when Mrs. Hughes's hand was laid upon the door-knob, she glanced at the drooping form by the sofa, and there was something of hopeless anguish in the whole posture which smote her heart.

She turned, walked back, and laying her hand on the girl's shoulders said earnestly, entreatingly, "Mary, it is not too late yet. Tell me what you have done with the money and I promise you not to reveal a word of this to a human being. For your own sake do it, Mary."

And Mary lifted her white face from her knees and answered, "Mrs. Hughes, I never touched that money; God in heaven hears me, I never touched it."

She spoke quietly then, for the shock had almost bewildered her senses, and amazed at her "sullen hardness," as she mentally termed it, Mrs. Hughes went out and told her brother.

'Squire Harding was a coarse, blustering sort of man, well meaning enough, but with a strong love for petty conspicuousness, and a double portion of his sister's obtuseness in penetrating char

acter. His profession, too-he was a lawyerhad brought him in frequent intercourse with the lowest exhibitions of human nature, and he had witnessed so much guilt and audacity united to so much apparent innocence and honesty, that he "was proof," as he termed it, against all the "stage acting" of the watch-house and court

room.

I do not love to dwell upon his interview with Mary. He met her in the full belief that she had stolen and secreted the money, and nothing short of ocular demonstration would have altered his opinion.

In vain she wildly asserted her innocence and prayed him to have mercy upon her. In vain she related all that had transpired that morning in the chamber, and how she had left it to hearken to the wind moaning among the pines.

"Stuff and nonsense," sneered the unpoetical 'squire. "Come, young woman, have done with this acting or I'll have an officer after you, and you'll be lodged in the county jail before night, that you will."

Mary did not answer him, she only sank down, weak and tearless, upon the floor. And the 'squire, rendered still more irascible by Mary's obstinacy, went out, and before his sister comprehended his intention, he executed his threat.

"No, William, bad as she is she shall not go to jail; I will lose half my fortune first. Send the officer away and the girl shall go home tonight to her mother," pleaded Mrs. Hughes with tears in her eyes.

“Nonsense, Myra, on this womanishness," bluntly answered the 'squire. "One night's experience up there will bring the girl to her senses, and she'll acknowledge the whole to-morrow morning. I've had plenty of just such cases before, and I tell you there's nothing like scaring them a little.

"Of course there's no proof that she took it, and I s'pose it would be a hard case to get her into prison, though a term there is just what she needs.

"At any rate, I'll pledge you my word to have her out to-morrow or the next day. I understand all the quibbles of law, and it'll be an easy matter to do this and save her good name into the bargain, which, without legally proving her innocence, would not be so easy now the officer is here.

"I only want to frighten her into acknowledging where she's secreted the money, that's all, and she'll tell us as soon as she comes out, you may depend upon that."

"

“What have you done with my child?" she cried out again in tones which would have melted the stoutest heart. 'They tell me you have carried her to jail-my gentle, timid, loving Marycarried her to jail! why didn't her dead father rise up from his grave to defend her, when in her life he never let the rough winds visit the head of his darling! O, Mrs. Hughes, you knew she was fatherless, and you promised to be a friend to her; and you took her-her who never had a harsh word in her own home, and you accused her of a crime she never would so much as thought of, and you sent her, my child, to jail, and there she passed the long night with nobody to whisper a kind word in her ear-she who was so tender, so afraid of the dark. God will hold you responsible for the wrong you have done to my child."

And Mrs. Hughes wondered if Mary, with that crime on her soul, felt more like a culprit than she did at that moment.

The next day Mary was released. There was no proof that she had stolen the money, and as the matter was not prosecuted farther, it was believed that Mrs. Hughes was satisfied that she was innocent, and her character was saved from public opprobrium.

Of course, in the opinion of the 'squire and his sister, she was still guilty; but, to use the words of the latter, "if every dollar of the three hundred had been a thousand, she would rather it should go than endure the suffering which the last two days had brought her."

So Mary and her mother went home. They had a short interview with Mrs. Hughes, but it was very painful on both sides; for each felt they had been wronged by the other. Mrs. Hughes still entertained a hope that, now she had spared Mary's good name from reproach, she would acknowledge her crime; and when the girl vehemently asserted her innocence at the last moment, the lady replied coldly, "Well, Mary, it is useless now to say any thing more about the matter," and with a brief “good-by" she left them.

A week had passed. It was a fair July morning, and the wind came down cool and fragrant from the distant mountains, and murmured its low, summer rhymes through the clover and the ripening rye-fields.

'Squire Harding and Mrs. Hughes, won by the rare beauty of the morning, were strolling over the grounds, while the children of the formertwo merry-hearted boys-sported gleefully around them.

The 'squire was a widower, and he was wealthy and indulgent to his children; so when the elder of these espied two half-ripened peaches on a tree that stood near the house, he forthwith made known his intention of procuring them.

"Well, Albert, now let your aunt and me see what sort of a squirrel feat you can perform," said the fond father as his son prepared to ascend the tree.

Stimulated on one hand by the fruit, whose rich, golden coloring lay in beautiful contrast to the dark slender leaves, and on the other by the loving eyes of the trio that watched his progress, the boy was not long in ascending the tree.

"See, papa, aunt Myra, Willie, all of you, how high I am," said the child, gleefully shaking the branches over their heads.

Something suddenly fell at the feet of Mrs. Hughes. She picked it up. It was a small roll of bills. She recognized them in a moment.

her brother's arm, "Mary Crafts was innocent. Here is the money. O God! forgive us all for the fearful wrong we have done her!"

They saw it all then-how Mary's story was corroborated by witnesses that could not lie-saw how, when she was listening to the murmur of the pines, a quick gust of wind had come and carried up in its strong arms the light roll of bills among the branches; for these brushed the window by the side of which the bureau stood. "O that poor, poor girl!" said Mrs. Hughes as her tears dropped unheeded upon the roll of bills.

"Well, come, Myra, don't feel so bad about it," said the 'squire, who was, in reality, as I said, a well-meaning man. "I was more to blame than you, but it can't be helped now. We'll go down to the girl's and make all the acknowledgment and reparation in our power. I'll have the carriage ready in less than ten minutes," and the 'squire hurried away.

The carriage stopped before the little cottage, and Mrs. Hughes sprang out before her brother could assist her to alight and hurried up to the house.

Mrs. Crafts met her at the door, and her face grew pale with apprehension as her guest eagerly seized her hand and entered uninvited the little parlor.

But the mother's heart was anxious but a moment, for her ear caught the glad words, “Mrs. Crafts, we have found the money. Your child was innocent, and we have come to entreat her forgiveness."

"Thank God! thank God! I knew you would see it yet; my poor Mary!" The mother murmured the words amid sobs of joy.

"But I must see Mary this very moment. Where is she?" Mrs. Hughes looked eagerly around the room.

"She is up stairs," answered her mother. "She hasn't been up to-day. Somehow she's seemed so crushed and broken-spirited ever since we came home that I haven't had the heart to look at her. It is a terrible thing to accuse the innocent, Mrs. Hughes."

How the lady's heart echoed the mournful words as she followed the mother up stairs! Mary sat by the window. What a change that one week of suffering had wrought in the young, sweet face!

She sprung up, white and trembling, as Mrs. Hughes hurried toward her. "Mary, my dear child, we have found that you were innocent. The money was blown into the old peach-tree.

There was a loud shriek; the joy was too sudden. Mary would have fallen to the floor had not Mrs. Hughes caught her.

'Squire Harding's strong arms carried the girl to that bed from which she never arose. For four days she lay there, body and mind the victim of a fierce brain fever, which her "much suffering" had induced.

All that wealth or the highest medical skill could effect was done by night and by day. Mrs. Hughes watched over the sick girl, outdoing almost the distracted mother that hung over her.

The tears, too, of the stout-hearted 'squire dropped like a child's on the brow of the unheeding girl as she clasped her hands and prayed them not to take her to jail, for it would kill her, indeed it would; and if she lived she should never be able to look her mother and Arty in the face again.

And then she would eagerly repeat her former denial of never having touched the money, and shriek out that the 'squire and the officer were following hard after her, and they would have no pity—no pity-how mournfully she repeated it!

One day it was just at nightfall, and the fading sun filled the sick room with its faint, golden smile-Mary opened her eyes and knew them all. How rejoiced they were; for they gathered round her bedside and repeated the story of the recovered money; and what promises were made—what a dazzling future was painted that sunset for the little cottage-girl!

And she listened, and smiled quietly and meekly, and whispered a "God bless you" to them all, and then said she would turn over and sleep.

Her physician was not there, but an hour later glad faces met him at the cottage door with the story of Mary's restoration, and the sweet slumber that followed it.

And they could not see, because it was in the gloaming, how his face darkened as he said hastily, "Let me go up and see her."

And he went to her room. Mary was indeed "sleeping," but it was a sleep from which no physician, no love, no tears could ever awaken her.

They made her a grave in a green, shady spot, where the wind murmured through the trees the stories she had loved in her lifetime; and so the young victim of a mistake" waited for His coming." But of the living. Nothing which wealth and watchful attention could do for the mother and

She lived to witness Arthur's brilliant career at college to find him honored and beloved by his fellow-men, but her mind was subject to seasons of melancholy which no circumstances could remove; and at all these times she would drop her face suddenly in her hands and cry out in a voice, whose sharp anguish those who heard it could never forget, "But, Mary! O Mary! how my heart mourns for her!"

And now, reader, will you lay up in your heart the lesson that my story teaches, remembering "it is better the wicked go unreproved than the innocent suffer wrongfully?"

DOMESTIC HABITS OF OUR ANCESTORS.

RASMUS, who visited England in the early part of the sixteenth century, gives a curious description of an English interior of the better class. The furniture was rough; the walls unplastered, but sometimes wainscoted or hung with tapestry; and the floors covered with rushes, which were not changed for months. The dogs and cats had free access to the eating-rooms, and the fragments of meat and bones were thrown to them, which they devoured among the rushes, leaving what they could not eat to rot there, with the draining of beer vessels and all manner of unmentionable abominations. There was nothing like refinement or elegance in the luxury of the higher ranks; the indulgences which their wealth permitted, consisted in rough and wasteful profusion. Salt beef and strong ale constituted the principal part of Queen Elizabeth's breakfast, and similar refreshments were served to her in bed for supper. At a series of entertainments given in York by the nobility, in 1660, where each exhausted his invention to outdo the others, it was universally admitted that Lord Goring won the palm for the magnificence of his fancy. The description of this supper will give us a good idea of what was then thought magnificent; it consisted of four huge, brawny pigs, piping hot, bitted and harnessed, with ropes of sausages, to a huge pudding in a bag, which served for a chariot. Quite in contrast with our method of dress, also, was the dressing by the people a hundred or two years since. Coat sleeves at one time in the reign of George I fitted skin tight, and at another time dangled with their folds nearly to the ground; and waistcoats once cut so short as to be near the arm-pit, were at another time so long as to reach to the knees.