ck to their every-day
plodding life with vacant brains and unexpanded souls, while Archibald
Mackie, in his non-suggestive hovel, gathered big thoughts and exalted
ideas, and grew majestic in intellect, even as he was diminutive in his
outward frame. Not a stone upon the waste before him but could tell him
its thrilling tale of weary heads pillowed thereon, when all other
resting-places failed; of scanty meals spread out upon them for lack of
a social board; and of forlorn and forsaken ones, sighing out their
bitter plaints unto these flinty auditors for want of more attentive
hearers. Not a block in the noble structures all about but could bear
witness to many a sorrowing soul whose drooping body was sustained only
by the thought of the needy ones at home, whose wants gave energy to
every effort. Not a child amid the group that frequented the common
play-ground near but spoke to him, either of blessed ties, and hallowed
sympathies, and tender care, and watchful training, or of a broken
circle, and chilled feelings, and an utter destitution of interest or
culture. But these were all wearisome to him compared to the splendors
that were revealed from the heavenly creation, where his gaze was so
lovingly fixed on this evening, after meeting Mrs. Fay and her little
daughter Kittie.

He could remember his mother more by the endearing fondness lavished
upon him from his birth, than by any distinct impression of her
features, but this night her face took the form of the strange lady's in
his imagination, and made him sadder than ever as he looked upward to
meet it.

"Wherefore, oh! wherefore wert thou taken from me, my mother!" said he,
as he bowed still lower before God, as if crushed beneath the weight of
so mighty a sorrow. "How can I be any thing without thy gentle guidance,
and with none to help me out of my ignorance and nothingness?"

"With God nothing is impossible!" came the answer from his mother's
Bible, which he had opened to the place that her own hand had marked,
and Archie lifted up his heart and his head, and went out at the summons
of his grandmother.

CHAPTER II.

"What can I do for you, my darling?" said Mrs. Lincoln, as she bent over
a languid form that was extended upon the sofa in front of an open door.
The perfume of rare flowers was wafted to them from the cultivated
borders without, and the rich foliage cast a soft shade upon the lawn,
shutting out the intensity of the summer sun, and mak