forehand, her own treasure had to be
expended.

"Oh, I did feel so bad when school opened and Nellie could not go,
because she had no dress," said Mary. "I told mother I wouldn't go
either, but she said I had better, for I could teach sister some, and
it would be better than no schooling. I stood it for a fortnight, but
Nellie's little face seemed all the time looking at me on the way to
school, and I couldn't be happy a bit, so I finally thought of a way
by which we could both go, and I told mother I would come one day, and
the next I would lend Nellie my dress and she might come, and that's
the way we have done this week. But last night, don't you think,
somebody sent sister a dress just like mine, and now she can come too.
Oh, if I only knew who it was, I would get down on my knees and thank
them, and so would Nellie. But we don't know, and so we've done all we
could for them--we've prayed for them--and oh, Miss M----, we are
all so glad now. Aint you too?"

"Indeed I am," was the emphatic answer. And when on the following
Monday, little Nellie, in the new pink dress, entered the schoolroom,
her face radiant as a rose in sunshine, and approaching the teacher's
table, exclaimed, in tones as musical as those of a freed fountain, "I
am coming to school every day, and oh, I am so glad!" The teacher felt
as she had never done before, that it is more blessed to give than to
receive. No millionaire, when he saw his name in public prints, lauded
for his thousand-dollar charities, was ever so happy as the poor
school-teacher who wore her gloves half a summer longer than she
ought, and thereby saved enough to buy that little fatherless girl a
calico dress.

OUR RECORD.

We built us grand, gorgeous towers
Out toward the western sea,
And said in a dream of the summer hours,
Thus fair should our record be.

We would strike the bravest chords
That ever rebuked the wrong;
And through them should tremble all loving words
That would make the weary strong.

There entered not into our thought
The dangers the way led through,
We saw but the gifts of the good we sought,
And the good we would strive to do.

Here trace we a hurried line,
There blush or a blotted leaf;
And tears, vain tears, on the eyelids shine,
That the record is so brief.

THE WIDOW'S CHRISTMAS

Mrs. Mulford was a woman who doted on ruins. Nothing in the present