Ten years had she lived a very angel in their home; that else so cheerless house, where want and every discomfort were so well known. Her smile was like a sunbeam, shining through the little windows, and her voice, gentle and low, the sweetest melody to the hearts which so well loved to hear it-a patient child, on whom heavy care was laid all too soon; & loving girl, who bowed her own will always to that of others, meek, submissive, and affectionate.

Young as she was, Alice had already proved herself an efficient aid to her mother about the house; and to her father, the hard-working and industrious man, her welcoming smile when he came home at night almost stupid from his day of wearisome labour, was really a joy invaluable. And whose fingers were so nimble in covering Alick's and John's new yarn balls? | Who could so neatly paste Walter's paper kite? Who could tell such nice stories to Dick, and explain them all as she went along so patiently to stupid little Benjamin, as the dear, sweet Alice, friend of everybody, slave of everybody, I had nearly said?

It was a sad and anxious day when the doctor was called to prescribe for her; and when he stood beside her bed, and felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, and shook his head so solemnly, they all felt that her doom was sealed. Day after day she continued growing worse; then she became delirious, and did not know any of them when they called and spoke to her; and on the ninth day she died.

It was a pleasant, sunshiny afternoon, in which they buried her. But Pierce and Agnes Dean felt that they were hiding away their choicest gleam of sunlight in the grave, when the dead Alice, in her coffin, was laid in the ground.

The day after the funeral, a long and most dreary day had it proved, Pierce turned from the busy scenes of the city-it was growing dark, he must return home. Cheerless, and unaccountably lengthened seemed the familiar walk to him-the distance once was nothing; for then a welcome, and a delight which never failed him, awaited. Before he had nearly reached home, it grew quite dark, the sky was cloudless and starlit, but there was no moon; deep and heavy lay the frozen snow upon the ground; and there was a solemn, oppressive, and, as it seemed, momentous silence settling over the earth, such as oftentimes precedes a coming storm.

The labourer sought his cottage with a desponding heart. He could have wept as he entered the narrow, desolate street where he

weakness even to himself. All his lifetime, Pierce Dean had been unfortunate. Fate seemed to have really set her face against him; she resisted all his desperate attempts to better his condition; and in all his advances made in the hope of conciliating her favour, she had treated him with the greatest apparent contempt. This state of things seemed to the poor man very hard and very strange; for while he had by the sweat of his brow, and desperate wear of limb, simply been able to supply his family with bread to eat, and clothing of the simplest kind, some of his neighbours had taken rapid strides towards fortune; and other some, remembered as poor boys when himself was young, had far outstripped him in the race of advancement, while despite all his endeavours, he stood in just the same position (socially) that he had held when a pauper child. This was not the fault of Pierce, nor indeed of his wife; he was not given to intemperance, nor she to improvidence; but somehow they never knew the time when their means proved to be in advance of their wants.

To-night the father's cup of sorrow and trouble seemed really overflowing. His long and necessary absence from the factory, had lost him a very good place; for in the town in which he lived, there was never any lack of workmen. And all that day he had spent in looking out for employment of some kind, but with no success; and almost in despair, Pierce had set out on his return. As he approached home, his step grew slower and slower, for the husband dreaded breaking the intelligence of this increase of bad fortune to his wife; for he loved her, though she was indeed no fairy to look upon, and notwithstanding he had never been very lavish with vows and protestations of attachment.

There was not a vestige of those good looks of which, when young, she might possibly have boasted, traceable in the care-worn, sicknessmarked countenance of Agnes Dean. Altogether graceless was her bent, skeleton-like form; but the beating of the heart within was true, its blood was warm. Hardship and privation had made the woman thoughtful, and of few words, and seldom were smiles to be seen in her face; but her voice was kind, the fountains of her sympathizing tears were not dried up; she was a watchful, careful, loving wife and mother, and Pierce prized her to her worth. Therefore the idea of adding to the sorrow with which she mourned her lost child, was very grievous to him.

But, with his long delay in reaching home, Pierce was almost frozen; he was forced to quicken his pace, for he could see the fire-light through the windows, and he knew that supper

awaiting him, as well as the evening meal. Another daughter, an infant, had come to take the place of the little departed one; and joy, and thankfulness, with a troubled looking into the future, made tumult in the heart of Pierce, as he watched that night over the mother and the child.

Towards morning, doubts and fears which took far flights into the future, increased his heaviness of spirit; scalding tears, that would no longer be kept back, filled his eyes. The wailing of the babe sounded like a foreboding, warning cry, that told of evil days to be. The poor man had never been so mastered by conflicting emotions before, and as he by degrees lost all control over himself, fearful that his wife should see his emotion, Pierce with hasty steps arose, and walked from the house. The peace and the solemn quiet of the night which had on his return home so oppressed him, were soothing to him now. Inexpressible calmness, and contentment, and resignation, took the place of the darkness which had tortured him with its fell shades. Involuntarily, as in times of sudden peril and joy the soul lifts itself to heaven, he turned his gaze above.

And what think you?

Pierce was a man of plain sense, never led astray by his imagination, not wont to indulge in any flights of fancy; yet did he stand spell'bound, and without a doubt of its reality, before the vision which was then revealed to him.

Over the whole northern sky, troops of spirits were moving with a velocity which wearied thought-speeding one moment to the zenith, and the next in beauteous swift motion starting back and reappearing in new and fantastic forms, and, as it seemed, holding high revelry amidst the silent, august stars.

In his admiration and awe, the poor man forgot all his despondency; for the first time in years, he stood forgetful that there were such things in the world as hardship, weariness, and bereavement. And as he watched in delight and amazement, while the brilliant forms in the realms above were reflected so clearly in the snow, a spirit, brighter, fleeter, and apparently more exalted than the rest, sped to the heights of heaven, then pausing and bending down, she whispered-Pierce heard her quite distinctly

"Name thy child Aurora!" and the other spirits heard the word, and with solemn silvery voices sang they, "Yes, name thy child Aurora!"

Awed, and half afraid, he stood and gazed, and wondered, while unmindful of his presence and curiosity, the dance of the spirits was continued. An hour passed on, but the mortal

once he remembered that Agnes might need his care, but some invisible agency seemed to hold him bound to that place where he stood, gazing up into the great skyey halls in the vast distance.

At last came up above the horizon, from the unknown, unseen lands, a lesser fairy; the great company having disappeared, she stood before the earth-man quite alone. With timid and uncertain step she passed through the magnificent corridor, then bent as her predecessor had done, but still more humbly, as she said,

"Father, I am your little Alice, that died! Do not weep for me, I am so happy. ́ Name the little baby Aurora,-then I shall be her guardian angel, for they call me Aurora here. Though, father dear, you must always call me Alice, when you and mother talk of me."

Then with the swiftest step the sprite sped back to the obscure beyond. Pierce knew the enchantment was over then, and with a hasty step he returned to the house, where his wife, in fear and wonder, occasioned by his long absence, awaited him.

With a relieved heart, when he at last ap, peared, did she question him about his long absence, but Pierce did not answer her. Taking up the infant, he said in a voice so glad and gay that Agnes began to tremble for his reason,

"Now we'll have a fine christening, a noble christening of our little girl; wife! Say, what shall we call her?"

"Give her to me Pierce, you talk like a crazy man. If I hadn't lived with you fifteen years, and didn't know you better, I should think you'd been drinking.”

"No, but tell me first, what shall we name this little one?"

The answer to this repeated query was a flood of tears, and when the good man saw that, he did not delay obeying his wife any longer. Sitting down quietly beside her he said,

"But tell me, wifey, what shall we name her?"

"There's no need of such haste, Pierce. If there was, I should say, name her—”

"Would you have it Alice? Shall it be the name of the dear child we buried yesterday, Agnes?"

"That was in my head, but don't call her so yet. I couldn't bear it."

"Wait then-you needn't! Let me tell you, we must call her Aurora," he said gently whispering, "Alice said we must!"

Agnes raised herself in the bed as Pierce said this, and anxiously scanning her husband's face for a moment, she sunk back again exclaiming, "Pierce, you are crazy!"

"Don't say that again," answered he, but not impatiently, and rising from his seat he stood before Agnes and said,

"Just now, when you were thinking I stayed away so long, I saw something strange, and heard something strange too. Little Alice was up in the sky with other spirits, and she said her name was Aurora now, and that we must call the little baby Aurora. I didn't tell her we had another daughter, she knew it herself; so, Agnes, we will call her Aurora, and that will be naming her after our darling."

"Yes," said the mother softly, in awed wonder, expressing neither doubt nor fear. "Yes, we will call her Aurora, for she has made light in the darkness," and she turned her face towards the infant, and wept silently most grateful tears.

And Pierce, he wrapped himself up in a blanket and laid down to sleep! Very pleasant was his slumber, though another child to feed and to clothe was added to his household; and very lovely were his dreams, though his employment was gone, and the morrow and all succeeding days spread before him a rather barren path. For a voice, only think of it! a voice so like the voice of little Alice (only the words seemed too wise for a child's utterance) said to him in his dream, "Do not despair, for the morning is dawning; you and yours shall neither starve nor freeze, only be true to yourself, be active and hopeful, and He who hears the young ravens when they cry, will keep watch over you."

In the morning, light of heart, Pierce arose early, strove to make the dependent little household comfortable, prepared breakfast himself, kissed the baby Aurora, spoke cheerful words to Agnes, bade her be hopeful of the future, and without making known to any of them his loss of place, set out for the business part of the city, there to seek for work.

And it was with the confidence of one who knew he should find profitable employment, that the man went his way. The blessed dreams of the last night were not to be doubted; he too should at last be happy and prospered on earth.

And his presentiments of good did not prove idle. Better days, even from the dark night of adversity, had dawned on Pierce Dean. The sunbeams of fortune at last deigned to smile on him, as well as on his neighbours.

And not only in the man's fortune, but in himself, there was visible improvement. The thoughts he cherished towards the great world were more charitable, he became more mild, and forgiving, and affable; and with the capability of aiding others, the strong desire to do so, increased. The blessing of God had the happy, but alas! not the common effect, to make

him humble, grateful, and mindful of the mercies extended to him. Often the care-worn, and anxious visage was then relaxed with smiles, the jealous and morose disposition was softened, the step became less heavy, and the stooping figure was elevated with the joyous thought that he was no more to be looked upon as a mere beast of toil. Tokens of increased prosperity by degrees were made visible in his dwelling, and it soon became very evident that the good people living there were "stealing the march" on their old persecutor, Want.

In the course of years Pierce found himself the possessor of a considerable sum of money, enough to purchase a small farm that lay up further in the north, in the region where the childhood of himself and Agnes had been passed. And as they grew older, the desire grew stronger and stronger every day, to go to that quiet place away from the city,--they both so longed to see the wide green fields spreading about them; the freedom of the forests was better than the pent-up city life.

The will made the way for accomplishment of this darling hope of Pierce and Agnes Dean. They bought the wild farm, and removed to it. The sons of the family were growing up to be fine, stalwart boys, and as they increased in stature and strength, their parents began to cherish great hopes for them. John, the eldest, was such a fine, manly fellow, and took to farming so lovingly and heartily. Walter and Alick were such beautiful and dutiful sons, so honourable and upright; and Dick and Ben were so merry and full of fun; for all of them, the father and mother were full of hope, and with thankful hearts they recognised the mercy of God, which had given them assurance in their increase of prosperity, that the darling little ones should not be compelled to labour in the factories or mines.

But for the daughter, the little Aurora, she had come, a child of promise as it were (for a blessed, though unspoken, promise had with her birth been given, a promise of inward peace and prosperity, which future years has sustained). But the mysterious appearance which had decided the girl's name, had never been made known to her-why, I know not. Pierce and his wife had always hesitated about speaking to her of the dead sister, other than as one wholly dead; perhaps they feared the effect of such revelation on the young, fragile creature, whose delicate, sensitive, spiritual nature, seemed to them not able to bear the strange tidings they had it in their power to communicate.

As to Pierce himself, intercourse with his departed child seemed never for a day suspended or interrupted, after that night succeeding her burial, when, as a spirit of light