a bit now and then, than she'd be
a living alone, and I'm not afraid of her; and I mean to do my best not
to vex her: and it will ease her heart, maybe, to talk to me at times
about Franky. I shall often see your father and mother, and I shall
always thank them for their kindness to me. But they have you and little
Mary, and poor Mrs. Hall has no one."

Anne could only repeat, "Well, I never!" and hurry off to tell the news
at home.

But Libbie was right. Margaret Hall is a different woman to the scold
of the neighbourhood she once was; touched and softened by the two
purifying angels, Sorrow and Love. And it is beautiful to see her
affection, her reverence, for Libbie Marsh. Her dead mother could hardly
have cared for her more tenderly than does the hard-hearted washerwoman,
not long ago so fierce and unwomanly. Libbie, herself, has such peace
shining on her countenance, as almost makes it beautiful, as she tenders
the services of a daughter to Franky's mother, no longer the desolate
lonely orphan, a stranger on the earth.

Do you ever read the moral, concluding sentence of a story? I never do,
but I once (in the year 1811, I think) heard of a deaf old lady, living
by herself, who did; and as she may have left some descendants with
the same amiable peculiarity, I will put in, for their benefit, what I
believe to be the secret of Libbie's peace of mind, the real reason why
she no longer feels oppressed at her own loneliness in the world,--

She has a purpose in life; and that purpose is a holy one.

CHRISTMAS STORMS AND SUNSHINE.

In the town of ---- (no matter where) there circulated two local
newspapers (no matter when). Now the _Flying Post_ was long established
and respectable--alias bigoted and Tory; the _Examiner_ was spirited
and intelligent--alias new-fangled and democratic. Every week these
newspapers contained articles abusing each other; as cross and peppery
as articles could be, and evidently the production of irritated minds,
although they seemed to have one stereotyped commencement,--"Though
the article appearing in last week's _Post_ (or _Examiner_) is below
contempt, yet we have been induced," &c., &c., and every Saturday the
Radical shopkeepers shook hands together, and agreed that the _Post_ was
done for, by the slashing, clever _Examiner_; while the more dignified
Tories began by regretting that Johnson should think that low paper,
only read by a few of the vulgar, worth wasting his