from her eyes. The happy mother wept long for
joy. With her trembling hand she wrote a reply, and urged him, by the
tenderest and most sacred considerations, to keep to his good
resolutions.

At the end of a year Peyton examined his affairs and found himself
freed from debt; but for nearly one hundred dollars of his wages he
could not account. He puzzled over it for two or three evenings, and
made out over fifty dollars spent foolishly.

"No doubt the rest will have to be passed to that account," said he at
last, half angry with himself. "I'll have to watch closer than this.
At the end of the next year, I'll not be in doubt about where one
hundred dollars have gone."

It was but rarely, now, that you would hear the name of Peyton
mentioned. Before, everybody said he was a "fine, generous fellow;"
everybody praised him. Now, he seemed to be forgotten, or esteemed of
little consideration. He felt this; but he had started to accomplish a
certain end, and he had sufficient strength of mind not to be driven
from his course.

In a few years he entered into business and succeeded beyond his
expectations. He provided a home for his mother, and no one who saw
her during the remaining ten years of her life would have called her
unhappy.

I know Peyton still. He is not now, by general reputation, "a fine,
generous fellow." But he is a good and respected citizen, and was a
good son while his mother lived with him. He has won the means of
really benefiting others, and few are more willing than he is to do
it, when it can be done in the right way. He is still "generous"--but
wisely so.

CONSOLATION.

"Unto those who sit in sorrow, God has sent this precious word:
Not an earnest prayer or impulse of the heart ascends unheard.
He who rides upon the tempest, heeds the sparrow when it falls,
And with mercies crowns the humblest, when before the throne he
calls."

CAUGHT IN THE QUICKSAND

Victor Hugo gives the following impressive description of a death in
the quicksand off certain coasts of Brittany, or Scotland. He says:--

It sometimes happens that a man, traveler or fisherman, walking on the
beach at low tide, far from the bank, suddenly notices that for
several minutes he has been walking with some difficulty. The strand
beneath his feet is like pitch; his soles stick to it; it is sand no
longer--it is glue.

The beach is perfectly dry, but at every step he takes, as soon as he
lifts his foot t