rs, and ask
from life no higher prize; may I not hope for that?"

"I will think on it but for the present let us change the subject."

* * * * *

"Do you think Jeanette is happy? She seems so different from what she
used to be," said Miss Tabitha Jones to several friends who were
spending the evening with her.

"Happy!" replied Mary Gladstone, "don't see what's to hinder her from
being happy. She has everything that heart can wish. I was down to her
house yesterday, and she has just moved in her new home. It has all the
modern improvements, and everything is in excellent taste. Her furniture
is of the latest style, and I think it is really superb."

"Yes," said her sister, "and she dresses magnificently. Last week she
showed me a most beautiful set of jewelry, and a camel's hair shawl, and
I believe it is real camel's hair. I think you could almost run it
through a ring. If I had all she has, I think I should be as happy as
the days are long. I don't believe I would let a wave of trouble roll
across my peaceful breast."

"Oh! Annette," said Mrs. Gladstone, "don't speak so extravagantly, and I
don't like to hear you quote those lines for such an occasion."

"Why not mother? Where's the harm?"

"That hymn has been associated in my mind with my earliest religious
impressions and experience, and I don't like to see you lift it out of
its sacred associations, for such a trifling occasion."

"Oh mother you are so strict. I shall never be able to keep time with
you, but I do think, if I was off as Jeanette, that I would be as blithe
and happy as a lark, and instead of that she seems to be constantly
drooping and fading."

"Annette," said Mrs. Gladstone, "I knew a woman who possesses more than
Jeanette does, and yet she died of starvation."

"Died of starvation! Why, when, and where did that happen? and what
became of her husband?"

"He is in society, caressed and [ ed?] on by the young girls of his set
and I have seen a number of managing mammas to whom I have imagined he
would not be an objectionable son-in-law."

"Do I know him mother?"

"No! and I hope you never will."

"Well mother I would like to know how he starved his wife to death and
yet escaped the law."

"The law helped him."

"Oh mother!" said both girls opening their eyes in genuine astonishment.

"I thought," said Mary Gladstone, "it was the province of the law to
protect women, I was just telling Miss Basanqu