s it by this time, and whether
she gives it up or not, people will keep on thinking she uses it. You
always did give that girl too much head, I've told you so time and
again, and now you see you'd better have taken my advice."

Mrs. Morden had regained her calmness by this time.

"There is certainly some mistake," she said, coolly. "I will ask Silvia
about it when she comes in."

"You'll find it no mistake," said her visitor. "At least half-a-dozen
people were in Morris's this evening when she asked for the spittoon,
and then got mad with the clerk about something."

The explanation Silvia was compelled to make that evening, though it
acquitted her of the first charge, left a most painful impression upon
her mother that the habit of falsehood had grown upon her daughter.

"I will not add to your punishment by re-proof," she said, gravely,
"because I foresee the mortification that this is going to bring to you.
No explanation will convince half the gossips in town that you have not
the filthy habit of using tobacco, and the story will cling to you for
years."

"That's harsh and unjust!" Silvia cried, hotly. "It was a mistake
anybody might have made."

"Yes, anybody who pretends to know what you are ignorant of. There is a
strong likeness in the family of lies, and it is neither hard nor unjust
that we should be punished for them. Your humiliation I hope may prove a
salutary lesson."

It did. Silvia is rarely tempted now to her old pretences of superior
knowledge. The cuspadore story brought her such pain and mortifition
that the scars remain yet.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For the Companion.

IN THE BACKWOODS.
In Five Chapters.--Chap. I.

By C. A. Stephens.

We were boiling down "salts" that winter in Black Ash Swamp,--not epsom
salts, but an extract from the lye of wood ashes. The ashes were boiled
much as maple sap is boiled in order to obtain sugar.

I do not know whether the reader ever heard of such a thing. It was one
of many ventures which Edward Martin, Vet Chase and myself made when we
were boys up in the Maine backwoods in order to obtain a little money.

Black Ash Swamp was four or five miles up Mud Stream, a small tributary
of the Penobscot. It was situated on "wild" land, as it was called, and
was full of yellow ash, black ash and elm.

We had gone there early in November. Our first work was to fell the
great ash-trees and cut them up so that the wood