hardly knew her. She looked straight, and solemn, and cold. She
did not even ask them in; but they went in and seated themselves.

Grace said, "You didn't come yesterday to try on the dress, and
thinking you might be ill, we brought it here."

"But I did go, ladies. I went an hour earlier than you asked me, to
beg that the dress might be cut perfectly plain, without upper skirt or
flounce. The girl seated me in the hall, and while I sat there, I was
forced to hear myself and my son ridiculed and turned to scorn in a way
I could not believe possible.

"I have done nothing to merit this. I never begged of you, nor sought
your sympathy in my sorrows, and I cannot understand why I am made the
butt of your scorn."

"Oh, Mrs. Horn," cried Lucy, "we were only in sport! I hope you will
forgive us."

"Is it sport to cast contempt on an aged woman who has been walking for
years in a fiery furnace upheld and comforted by God? Is it sport to
ridicule an unfortunate boy who has a continual warfare with pain to
keep up this poor home?"

"Oh, don't speak of it again!" said Grace blushing deeply and
half-ready to cry, as she untied the package in her hand, while Lucy
unpinned the paper that held the bonnet.

"Put them up, please, young ladies. I cannot look on them, and I never
could wear them. When you first came, I told Walter that I felt as if
a sunbeam had come into the house and remained behind you. Last night
I told him that my new sunbeam had an arrow concealed in it."

"But you _will_ take the things, after all our trouble?" implored
Grace, with tears dropping from her eyes.

"No, never; I can hear the Gospel in my old clothes. I should take no
pleasure in these; they are associated with too painful thoughts. I
hope God will bless you, children, and save you from an old age of
poverty, and give you what He has given me,--a full trust in His love
and tenderness. Good-by."

You can imagine the feelings of those young girls when they left that
poor room in tears.

Respectful treatment is more to the sensitive poor than gifts of food,
garments or money; and nothing is so likely to harden the hearts of the
young as the habit of getting sport out of the sorrows and infirmities
of others.

[Illustration: decoration]

MISS SYDNEY'S FLOWERS.

However sensible it may have been considered by other people, it
certainly was a disagreeable piece of news to Miss Sydney, that the
city authorities h