them but for one other, whose love will bind me to earth so long
as she is spared."

"And she?" exclaimed Mr. Amory, with an eagerness which Willie,
engrossed with his own thoughts, did not observe.

"Is a young girl," continued Willie, "without family, wealth, or beauty;
but with a spirit so elevated as to make her great--a heart so noble as
to make her rich--a soul so pure as to make her beautiful."

Mr. Amory's fixed attention, his evident waiting to hear more,
emboldened Willie to add: "There lived in the same house which my
grandfather occupied an old man, a city lamplighter. He was poorer even
than we were, but there never was a better or a kinder-hearted person in
the world. One evening, when engaged in his round of duty, he picked up
and brought home a little ragged child, whom a cruel woman had thrust
into the street to perish with cold, or die a more lingering death in
the almshouse; for nothing but such devoted care as she received from my
mother and Uncle True (so we always called our old friend) could have
saved the half-starved creature from the consequences of long exposure
and ill-treatment. Through their unwearied watching and efforts she was
spared, to repay in after years more than all the love bestowed upon
her. She was then miserably thin, and plain in her appearance, besides
being possessed of a violent temper, which she had never been taught to
restrain, and a stubbornness which resulted from her having long lived
in opposition to all the world.

"All this, however, did not repel Uncle True, under whose loving
influence new virtues and capacities soon began to manifest themselves.
In the atmosphere of love in which she now lived she soon became a
changed being; and when, in addition to the example and precepts taught
her at home, a divine light was shed upon her life by one who, herself
sitting in darkness, casts a halo forth from her own spirit to illumine
those of all who are blessed with her presence, she became, what she has
ever since been, a being to love and to trust for a lifetime. For
myself, there were no bounds to the affection I soon came to cherish for
the little girl, to whom I was first attracted by compassion merely.

"We were constantly together; we had no thoughts, no studies, no
pleasures, sorrows, or interests that were not shared. I was her
teacher, her protector, the partner of all her childish amusements; and
she was by turns an advising and sympathising friend. In this