ask if she is
happy. Such a laugh can come only from a truly happy heart.

MY FIRST PLACE.

My father died before I can remember any thing. My mother had a hard life;
and it was all that she could do to keep herself and me. We lived in
Birmingham, in a house where there were many other lodgers. We had only
one room of our own; and, when my mother went out to work, she locked the
door and left me there by myself. Those were dreary days. When it was
summer, and the bright sun shone in at the window, I thought of the green
fields that I used to see sometimes on Sundays, and I longed to be sitting
under a shady tree, watching the little lambs, and all young things that
could play about. When it was winter, I used to sit looking at the empty
grate, and wishing to see the bright blaze which never came. When mother
went away in the winter mornings, she told me to run about to warm myself;
and, when I was tired and began to feel cold, to get into the blankets on
the bed. Many long and wearisome hours I passed in those blankets;
listening and listening to every step upon the stairs, expecting to hear
mother's step. At times I felt very lonely; and fancied, as it began to
grow darker and darker, that I could see large, strange shapes rising
before me; and, though I might know that it was only my bonnet that I
looked at, or a gown of mother's hanging up behind the door, or something
at the top of the old cupboard, the things seemed to grow larger and
larger, and I looked and looked till I became so frightened, that I
covered my head with the blanket, and went on listening for mother's
return. What a joyful sound to me was the sound of the key put into the
door-lock! It gave me courage in an instant: then I would throw away the
blanket; and, raising my head with a feeling of defiance, would look round
for the things that had frightened me, as if to say, "I don't care for you
now." Mother would light the fire, bring something from the basket, and
cook our supper. She would then sit and talk to me, and I felt so happy
that I soon forgot all that had gone before.

Mother could not always get work. I was glad then; for those days were the
Sundays of my life; she was at home all day; and although we often had
nothing to eat but bread and potatoes, she had her tea; and the potatoes
always tasted to me at these times better than they did on other days.
Mother was not a scholar, so she could not teach me much in that way; but
s