ther say when told that he had applied such epithets to a worthy old woman, her guest? As to his father nothing would tempt him to face his ridicule. And Helen? She would not know what to say. But there was Lucy; she knew all about it: he flew to her.

"I've gone to bed," she cried out, as he assailed her door.

"Get up, then, and dress yourself."

"Oh, Charles !"

"I sha'n't sleep a wink to-night, if you don't." Thus adjured, Lucy rose, threw on her dressinggown, and opened the door. He rushed in, candle in hand, and held up the paper before her eyes. On reading it, Lucy could hardly help laughing, but on the other hand she felt for Charles in his mortification.

"Between Miss Prigott and me, you fare pretty badly," she said.

"You! You are an angel compared with her! Was there ever any thing so mean? But I won't keep her old books! I'll lay them on the floor outside her door. If she falls over them in the morning and breaks her neck, it won't be my fault."

Lucy deliberated a little before she replied. From what she knew of Miss Prigott, she felt pretty sure

that she had sent the books as a peace-offering. It was mistaken kindness, certainly; but then, if kind. ness, it should be received as such.

"I am sorry for you," said she: "I know just how you feel. A box on the ear wouldn't be half so irritating. But I do believe Miss Prigott meant kindly. And if I were you, I would let it go at that.” "Do you call it kind to make a fellow feel like a fool?"

"But if she did not intend to make you feel so? And I do not think she did."

"How should you feel to be served so ?”

"I should feel badly; but I would try to make the best of it. To-night I would sleep over it, at any rate." Her friendly, kind tones soothed him somewhat. He took the paper and went back to his room in silence; and when he met Miss Prigott next morning, her unconscious face confirmed Lucy's suggestion, that she had meant it all in good part. In fact, on reading in her Bible that passage, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him," &c.; she had resolved to obey it literally; and while Charles was tossing impatiently on his sleepless pillow, she reposed peacefully on hers, in the blissful conviction that she had accomplished a deed as christian as it was ingenious and witty.

CHAPTER XII.

THE CONSEQUENCES OF A PRESCRIPTION.

Lucy found her position more agreeable now that something like an understanding was established between Miss Prigott and herself. Her uncle, too, became better known to her; and she had occasion to regret the hasty judgment she had formed against him at the outset. In his great anxiety to spare the feelings of his friends, he was continually exciting their prejudice; one needed to know him well in order to like him. While he was studying the best mode of doing you a favor without seeming to do it, Miss Prigott would hop on to the field with her little brisk figure, and force that same favor down your unwilling throat. Perhaps you are strangled in the effort to swallow it. But she'll never know it; so there's no great harm done.

"You must take a teaspoonful of this mixture every hour," Dr. Thornton said to Lucy on the next visit; and all that day she was asking some body what o'clock it was.

.

"She needs a watch of her own," thought her uncle.

"She ought to have a watch," likewise decided Miss Prigott. And while Mr. Whittier edged towards the subject by asking Lucy how she expected to manage in the night without one, and deliberately went from place to place in search of a particular, not expensive kind, Miss Prigott was hurrying through Broadway as fast as horses could carry her, and had selected, triumphed over, and put into Lucy's hands an article, expensive, ornamental, and every way unsuitable.

Poor Lucy's grateful heart ached with more than one emotion, and she needed nothing now to keep her awake that night. That such a sum should be expended for her by an almost stranger, was of itself a pain; but to own such a watch when her father even had none; when her mother stood in such pressing need of almost every thing money could purchase; when Rebecca and Hatty were going so poorly clad! She lay and thought what books could have been provided Arthur with a tithe of this expense; what a shawl she could have given the doctor's wife; what hosts of neat, comfortable garments for the children! And let no one deem this ingratitude. Her heart was more than full of

thankfulness; it only shrank from so much selfish pleasure. Of herself she did not once think. "This for mother, that for Arthur," was the sum of the matter. She passed the night in great perplexity, but towards morning, coming to the resolution to speak freely to her uncle on the subject, she grew easier and fell asleep. When he came to pay his usual visit before going out, she drew the watch from her pillow and placed it in his hand.

"Why, where did this come from?" he cried.

She told him, watching his face as she did so. It expressed any thing but approbation or pleasure. Lucy even fancied she heard him say something about "these officious old maids;" but she was not

sure.

"What shall I do about it, uncle?" she asked. "Oh, enjoy it," he returned.

"But how can I enjoy it, when"— she hesitated. In the middle of the night it had seemed the easiest thing in the world to open her heart to her uncle; but now it was quite another affair.

"Come, tell me the rest," said he.

"Dear uncle, I was thinking of the time when my father sold his watch, and how mother cried, because it had been her father's once; and then to