DGE.

BY DORA HOPE.

"The late Miss Ella!"

"When are you going to turn over that new leaf you spoke of, my
daughter?"

"There's a little coffee left, but the bacon is quite cold."

These were the exclamations that greeted a tall bright girl, as she
entered the breakfast room one morning.

"I am very sorry, papa. I really meant to be down in time, but I suppose
I must have gone to sleep again after I was called." And being really
vexed with herself for having so soon broken her good resolutions,
formed for the hundredth time the day before, Ella Hastings accepted the
cold bacon meekly, and even turned a deaf ear to the withering sarcasms
of her two schoolboy brothers, who were leisurely strapping together
their books, and delaying their departure till the last moment.

"There is the postman coming up the garden; run and get the letters,
Hughie."

A solemn-looking boy of six years old climbed down from his chair, in
obedience to his father's request, and soon came back with a handful of
letters, and settled himself patiently by his father's side to wait for
the empty envelopes, which formed his share of the morning's
correspondence.

An exclamation of surprise from Mr. Hastings caused his wife to look up
inquiringly from the letter she had just opened, and he handed her
silently a telegram which had been forwarded, with other papers, from
his office, where it had evidently been delivered late the previous
evening. Kate, the eldest daughter, leaning over her mother's shoulder,
read aloud the short notice:--

"Mrs. Wilson dangerously ill; letter follows."

Mrs. Wilson was Mr. Hastings' only remaining sister. His mother had died
when he was almost an infant, and this "sister Mary" had slipped into
her place as mother, teacher--everything, to her little brothers and
sisters; never leaving them, till the father having died also, and her
young charges being all old enough to settle in life for themselves, she
had rewarded the faithful waiting of her old lover, and they had settled
down together in a quiet village a few miles from the noisy town where
his business lay. Her happy married life lasted but a short time,
however, and for the many years since her husband's death she had
preferred to live entirely alone with her two maids and a strange medley
of pet animals--finding employment and interest for her declining years
in her books and her garden.

From being so long alone she had grown eccentric in her wa