topped
for a moment, and then coming back, he said, with a quivering voice,--

"Mary, I don't know how you'd feel about it, but there's the drawer full
of things--of--of--poor little Henry's." So saying, he turned quickly on
his heel, and shut the door after him.

His wife opened the little bedroom door adjoining her room, and taking
the candle, set it down on the top of a bureau there; then from a small
recess she took a key, and put it thoughtfully in the lock of a drawer,
and made a sudden pause, while two boys, who, boy-like, had followed
close on her heels, stood looking, with silent, significant glances, at
their mother. And oh! mother that reads this, has there never been in
your house a drawer, or a closet, the opening of which has been to you
like the opening again of a little grave? Ah! happy mother that you are,
if it has not been so!

Mrs. Bird slowly opened the drawer. There were little coats of many a
form and pattern, piles of aprons, and rows of small stockings; and even
a pair of little shoes, worn and rubbed at the toes, were peeping from
the folds of a paper. There was a toy horse and waggon, a top, a
ball--memorials gathered with many a tear and many a heartbreak! She sat
down by the drawer, and leaning her head on her hands over it, wept till
the tears fell through her fingers into the drawer; then suddenly
raising her head, she began, with nervous haste, selecting the plainest
and most substantial articles, and gathering them into a bundle.

"Mamma," said one of the boys, gently touching her arm, "are you going
to give away those things?"

"My dear boys," she said, softly and earnestly, "if our dear, loving,
little Henry looks down from heaven, he would be glad to have us do
this. I could not find it in my heart to give them away to any common
person--to anybody that was happy; but I give them to a mother more
heart-broken and sorrowful than I am; and I hope God will send his
blessings with them!"

Mr. Bird returned about twelve o'clock with the carriage. "Mary," said
he, coming in with his overcoat in his hand, you must wake her up now.
"We must be off." Soon arrayed in a cloak, bonnet, and shawl that had
belonged to her benefactress, poor Eliza appeared at the door with her
child in her arms. When she got seated in the carriage, she fixed her
large dark eyes on Mrs. Bird's face, and seemed going to speak. Her lips
moved, but there was no sound; pointing upward with a look never to be
forgo