ollars, were now unrolled, and a couple of handsome chintz dresses,
of dark rich colors, suitable for the winter season, displayed. It
was with difficulty that Ellen could restrain a sigh, as she looked
at these comfortable things, and thought of how much she needed, and
of how little she had to hope for. Jane felt that such thoughts must
pass through her sister's mind, and she also felt much pained that
she had undesignedly thus added, by contrast, to Ellen's unhappy
feelings. When she returned home, she put away her new dresses and
her blankets. She had no heart to look at them, no heart to enjoy
her own good things, while the sister she so much loved was denied
like present comforts, and, worse than all, weighed down with a
heart-sickening dread of the future.

We will not linger to contrast, in a series of domestic pictures,
the effects of industry and idleness on the two married sisters and
their families,--effects, the causes of which, neither aided
materially in producing. Such contrasts, though useful, cannot but
be painful to the mind, and we would, a thousand times, rather give
pleasure than pain. But one more striking contrast we will give, as
requisite to show the tendency of good or bad principles, united
with good or bad habits.

Unable to get any employment in the village, Thorne, hearing that
steady work could be obtained in Charleston, South Carolina, sold
off a portion of his scanty effects, by which he received money
enough to remove there with his wife and child. Thus were the
sisters separated; and in that separation, gradually estranged from
the tender and lively affection that presence and constant
intercourse had kept burning with undiminished brightness. Each
became more and more absorbed, every day, in increasing cares and
duties; yet to one those cares and duties were painful, and to the
other full of delight.

Ten years from the day on which they parted in tears, Ellen sat,
near the close of day, in a meanly furnished room, in one of the
southern cities, watching, with a troubled countenance, the restless
slumber of her husband. Her face was very thin and pale, and it had
a fixed and strongly marked expression of suffering. Two children, a
boy and a girl, the one about six, and the other a little over ten
years of age, were seated listlessly on the floor, which was
uncarpeted. They seemed to have no heart to play. Even the
elasticity of childhood had departed from them. From the appearanc