a family
of crabs."

"Crabs!" cried the children laughing.

"Yes, pulling me up, and trying to make me walk two ways at once, like a
crab: very good fun for a crab, but it brought me flat, as you see, and
has nearly frightened out of my head a fine story I have heard, about
the consequences of an odd speech your friend Harry, the little old
gentleman in the story of Lillie, made to a poor little boy."

"Oh dear, do tell it!" they cried; "try to get it back in your head
again; we want to hear it so much."

"Well, will you get up and sit in chairs, and work like beavers at your
mittens, if I do?"

"Oh, yes! yes!" They sprang up, and in a surprisingly short time the
crochet needles were glancing in the gas light; while the mittens grew
wonderfully.

It was a new pleasure to hear a story directly from her lips, especially
as she had brought two or three pictures to illustrate it, which added
greatly to their enjoyment.

It was rather late to begin one, but the little mother for once
consented to let the small ones of the family sit up; and Aunt Fanny
began the wonderful story of

THE FAIRY BENEVOLENCE.

THE FAIRY BENEVOLENCE.

THERE never was a more loving son than little Mark. He was only seven
years old. Yet already he was of great use to his mother, who was a very
poor widow, as poor as could be, and she had to work, without ever
resting, from morning till night, to get food and clothes for herself
and her dear child.

Oh, that terrible stitch, stitch, stitching! It must never stop; for all
she got for making a whole shirt was ten cents, and with her utmost
efforts she could only finish two in a day.

At last, what with crying and sitting up half the nights in the cold to
finish her sewing, the poor widow fell very ill. What was to be done?
There was no money to pay a physician, the rent was coming due, and
little Mark was almost crazy with grief. He sat by his mother's bedside
and bathed her head, and did all he knew how to do.

They lived in a small hut, far away from the village, to which the poor
widow had to take her work every week, from which it was conveyed to the
great city of New York. There the shirts were sold for so much money,
that the man who got them made for the shamefully small price of ten
cents, rode in his carriage and lived in splendor. Ah! how I wish this
wicked man, who was starving many a poor woman in the same way, could
have been made to feel col