during
the winter advised him of the state of Lizzy's health. In the spring her
mother wrote to him--

"Lizzy is much better. The warm weather, I trust, will completely
restore her."

But the old gentleman knew better. He had been a deeply interested party
in a case like her's before. He _knew_ that summer, with its warm and
fragrant airs, would not bring back the bloom to her cheeks. In July
came another epistle.

"The hot weather is so debilitating for Lizzy, that I am about taking
her to the sea-shore."

Uncle Thomas sighed as he read this, permitted the letter to droop from
before his eyes, and sat for some time gazing upon vacancy. Far back his
thoughts had wandered, and before the eyes of his mind was the frail,
fading form of a beloved sister, who had, years before, left her place
and her mission upon the earth, and passed up higher.

"The doctor says that I must go South with Lizzy," wrote Mrs. Walton
early in December, "and spend the winter. We leave for Charleston next
Tuesday, and may pass over to Havana."

Uncle Thomas sighed as before, and then became lost in a sad reverie. He
had been to Havana with both of his sisters. The warm South had been of
use to them. It prolonged, but did not save their lives.

And so the months passed on--the seasons came and went--but health,
alas! returned not to the veins of the lovely girl.

It was an autumn day, nearly two years after that fatal cold, taken in
consequence of wearing thin shoes, that Mr. Walton received a letter
sealed with a black seal.

"As I feared," he murmured, in a low, sad voice, gazing
half-abstractedly upon the missive. He knew too well its contents. "Dear
child! I saw this from the beginning."

And the old man's eyes became dim with moisture.

He had not erred in his conjecture. Lizzy Walton was dead.

THE UNRULY MEMBER.

"In trouble again, I find! Ah, Flora! That restless little tongue of
yours is a sad transgressor. Why will you not learn to be more careful?
Why do you not place a guard upon your lips, as well as upon your
actions?"

"So I do, aunt, when I think myself in the company of tattlers and
mischief-makers."

"I do not think Mary Lee either a tattler or a mischief-maker," replied
the aunt gravely.

"Then why did she run off to Ellen Gray, and tell her what I had said?"

"She might have done so from far different motives than those you are
inclined to attribute to her," said Mrs. Marion, the aunt of Flora Mer