rsake us."

He moved impatiently from under her arm; but as he did so, she dropped
a roll into his bosom and turned toward her chair.

"Lucy! Lucy! what is this? Where did you get it?"

All was wild with excitement. Each child laughing, sobbing, shouting,
but one glance from that strong but gentle mother quelled the
confusion, and she replied,--

"It is our children's offering, and is sufficient to make up the
needed sum. I persisted in going away this morning against your wish,
because I saw no escape. We cut the straw last night--many willing
hands made quick work; I sold it, and their braid added to it, with
what was already due them, completed the sum."

Those who witnessed that scene will never forget it; Dr. Mason with
his arm around his wife, and both in tears, calling her all happy
names; the children clinging about their parents, so joyful that home
was saved, and they had helped to save it.

"Put Charlie into the wagon, quick. If he fails me not, the six miles
between here and M---- will be the shortest I ever rode. I shall be
home before bedtime to thank you all. I cannot now. I hope we shall
never come so near ruin again."

And they never did. In two years the last dollar was paid, and then
Dr. Mason resolved he would never again owe any one a cent. He kept
his resolution.

It is easy enough to be pleasant
When life flows by like a song,
But the man worth while is the one who will smile
When everything goes dead wrong.

A GOOD LESSON SPOILED

A darkened room, spacious and handsomely furnished--being, in fact,
the chamber of Mrs. Wilcox, the mother of the little fellow who
occupied the wide bed. He lay there in lugubrious state, the rosy face
stained with much crying, just showing above the edge of the
counterpane; his tangle of yellow curls crushed upon the bolster.
Below these was a white mound, stretched along the middle of the bed,
just the length of Robby, aged seven and a half, the youngling of the
Wilcox family. Two big blue eyes, glazed with tears, wandered from one
to another of the two faces gazing at him from opposite sides of the
horizontal pillory. Both were kindly, both loving, both sad. They
belonged to the parents of Robby, and he had been convicted,
sentenced, and punished for telling a lie.

His mother had sent him to the fruit-store with twenty-five cents and
an order for two lemons. The tempter, in the form of a "street-boy,"
waylaid him at the