y aunt looked very much troubled.

"No one blames you, Aunt Rachel," said I. "Mary knows you didn't intend
wounding her."

"But why should she take a little word go much to heart? It must have
had more truth in it than I supposed."

"Did you know that Mary refused an offer of marriage from Walter Green
last week?"

"Why no! It can't be possible! Refused Walter Green?"

"They've been intimate for a long time."

"I know."

"She certainly encouraged him."

"I think it more than probable."

"Is it possible, then, that she did really jilt the young man?"
exclaimed Aunt Rachel.

"This has been said of her," I replied. "But so far as I can learn, she
was really attached to him, and suffered great pain in rejecting his
offer. Wisely she regarded marriage as the most important event of
her life, and refused to make so solemn a contract with one in whose
principles she had not the fullest confidence."

"But she ought not to have encouraged Walter, if she did not intend
marrying him," said Aunt Rachel, with some warmth.

"She encouraged him so long as she thought well of him. A closer view
revealed points of character hidden by distance. When she saw these
her feelings were already deeply involved. But, like a true woman, she
turned from the proffered hand, even though while in doing so her heart
palpitated with pain. There is nothing false about Mary Lane. She could
no more trifle with a lover than she could commit a crime. Think, then,
how almost impossible it would be for her to hear herself called, under
existing circumstances, even in sport, a jilt, without being hurt. Words
sometimes have power to hurt more than blows. Do you not see this, now,
Aunt Rachel?"

"Oh, yes, yes. I see it; and I saw it before," said the old lady. "And
in future I will be more careful of my words. It is pretty late in life
to learn this lesson--but we are never too late to learn. Poor Mary! It
grieves me to think that I should have hurt her so much."

Yes, words often have in them a smarting force, and we cannot be too
guarded how we use them. "Think twice before you speak once," is a trite
but wise saying. We teach it to our children very carefully, but are too
apt to forget that it has not lost its application to ourselves.

THE THANKLESS OFFICE.

"AN object of real charity," said Andrew Lyon to his wife, as a poor
woman withdrew from the room in which they were seated.

"If ever there was a worthy object she is on