n her heels, stood looking, with silent, significant glances, at
their mother. And O, mother that reads this, has there never been in
your house a drawer, or a closet, the opening of which has been to you
like the opening again of a little grave? Ah! happy mother that you are,
if it has not been so.

Mrs. Bird slowly opened the drawer. There were little coats, of many a
form and pattern, piles of aprons, and rows of small stockings; and even
a pair of little shoes, worn and rubbed at the toes, were peeping
from the folds of a paper. There was a toy horse and wagon, a top, a
ball,--memorials gathered with many a tear and many a heart-break! She
sat down by the drawer, and leaning her head on her hands over it, wept
till the tears fell through her fingers into the drawer; then, suddenly
raising her head, she began, with nervous haste, selecting the plainest
and most substantial articles, and gathering them into a bundle.

"Mamma," said one of the boys, gently touching her arm, "are you going
to give away those things?"

"My dear boys," she said, softly and earnestly, "if our dear loving
little Henry looks down from heaven, he would be glad to have us do
this. I could not find it in my heart to give them away to any common
person--to anybody that was happy; but I give them to a mother more
heart-broken and sorrowful than I am; and I hope God will send his
blessing with, them!"

* * * * *

From "Old-Town Folks."

=_306._= THE OLD MEETING HOUSE.

Going to meeting, in that state of society into which I was born, was as
necessary and inevitable a consequence of waking up on Sunday morning,
as eating one's breakfast. Nobody thought of staying away,--and, for
that matter, nobody wanted to stay away. Our weekly life was simple,
monotonous, and laborious; and the chance of seeing the whole
neighborhood together in their best clothes on Sunday, was a thing
which, in the dearth of all other sources of amusement, appealed to the
idlest and most unspiritual of loafers. They who did not care for the
sermon or the prayers, wanted to see Major Broad's scarlet coat and
laced ruffles, and his wife's brocade dress, and the new bonnet which
Lady Lothrop had just had sent up from Boston. Whoever had not seen
these would be out of society for a week to come, and not be able to
converse understandingly on the topics of the day.

The meeting on Sunday united in those days, as nearly as possible, the
whole