, and he would find employment
for her. But, after he got her there, he left her, and ran off; and
poor Mary wandered about, quite heart-broken, till finally she found
some coarse work to do, for which she was paid a trifle. She worked on
with a brave heart, from day to day, for some weeks, till her employer
died; and then, poor Mary knew not what to do,--nobody would employ
her; and wicked people came and tempted her to sin, but Mary was good,
and would not listen to them; and so she had to sell her clothes, one
after another, as poor people do, till she had nothing left but the
calico dress she had on. Even her under-clothes were gone, to pay the
woman where she lived for her lodging. Alas! then poor Mary said,
despairingly, "It is of no use for me to try to be honest any
longer,"--and wicked people came again and tempted her, and nobody
said, "Mary, struggle on, and I will help you; I will give you work to
do." No; nobody said _that_; and everything looked dark and gloomy, and
she forgot the little prayer she used to say at the old farmhouse, and
made her home with wicked people; and the sweet, innocent look faded
out from her soft blue eyes, and her heart grew hard--and wrong seemed
right to poor Mary.

But sometimes Mary would wake at night, when all was still, and think
of her childhood's home, under the linden trees; and of her good old
father sitting in the porch, with the Bible on his knee, and the soft
wind gently lifting the gray hair from his temples. Then she thought of
the old church-yard, where her mother lay buried; and then she would
press her hands tightly over her eyes, as if in that way she could shut
out the torturing picture.

Mary could not bear such thoughts; they drove her almost wild. So, she
drank wine (when she could get it) to drown her misery, and passed from
one place of shelter to another, till at last she was glad of a home in
the wretched garret where I found her.

When I spoke to Mary, she would not answer me; but looked me in the
face as if she had been a stone image. She seemed to be afraid of the
old man with whom she lived in the garret. Finding, after many earnest
attempts, that I could do Mary no good, I left her; and soon after I
heard that the old man had died, and that Mary had found a great many
dollars in gold and silver, hid away in the garret, that he had earned
picking up old rags.

So, Mary had all the old miser's money. But did it bring back the
sweet, innocent loo