here he is earning enough to pay his board;
while she and her daughter take in what sewing they can obtain, in order
to lessen, as far as possible, the burden of their maintenance. Alas for
her that the father of those children should be a convicted felon!

I move about through S----on my round of duties, and daily there comes
to me some reminder of the events and changes of twenty years. I see,
here and there, a stranded wreck, and think how proudly the vessel
spread her white sails in the wind a few short years gone by, freighted
with golden hopes. But where are those treasures now? Lost, lost forever
in the fathomless sea!

Twenty years ago, and now! As a man soweth, even so shall he reap.
Spring time loses itself in luxuriant summer, and autumn follows with
the sure result. If the seed has been good, the fruit will be good; but
if a man have sown only tares in his fields, he must reap in sorrow and
not in joy. There is no exception to the rule. A bramble bush can no
more bear grapes, than a selfish and evil life can produce happiness.
The one is a natural, and the other a spiritual, impossibility.

A few days ago, as I was riding along on a visit to one of my patients,
I met Mr. and Mrs. Wallingford, with two of their children, driving
out in their carriage. They stopped, and we were passing a few pleasant
words, when there came by two persons, plainly, almost coarsely
dressed--a mother and her daughter. Both had bundles in their hands.
Over the mother's face a veil was drawn, and as she passed, with
evidently quickening steps, she turned herself partly away. The daughter
looked at us steadily from her calm blue eyes, in which you saw a shade
of sadness, as though already many hopes had failed. Her face was
pale and placid, but touched you with its expression of half-concealed
suffering, as if, young as she was, some lessons of pain and endurance
had already been learned.

"Who are they?" asked Mrs. Wallingford.

"Delia Floyd and her daughter," said I.

No remark was made. If my ears did not deceive me, I heard a faint sigh
pass the lips of Mr. Wallingford.

I spoke to my horse, and, bowing mutually, we passed on our ways.

"Twenty years ago, and now!" said I to myself, falling into a sober
mood, as thought went back to the sweet, fragrant morning of Delia's
life, and I saw it in contrast with this dreary autumn. "If the young
would only take a lesson like this to heart!"

In the evening, Mr. Wallingford c