ch had been steeping by the fireside
ever since twilight.

"God bless you, child," said John Inglefield, as he took the cup from
her hand; "you have made your old father happy again. But we miss your
mother sadly, Prudence, sadly. It seems as if she ought to be here
now."

"Now, father, or never," replied Prudence.

It was now the hour for domestic worship. But while the family were
making preparations for this duty, they suddenly perceived that
Prudence had put on her cloak and hood, and was lifting the latch of
the door.

"Prudence, Prudence! where are you going?" cried they all with one
voice.

As Prudence passed out of the door, she turned toward them and flung
back her hand with a gesture of farewell. But her face was so changed
that they hardly recognized it. Sin and evil passions glowed through
its comeliness, and wrought a horrible deformity; a smile gleamed in
her eyes, as of triumphant mockery, at their surprise and grief.

"Daughter," cried John Inglefield, between wrath and sorrow, "stay and
be your father's blessing, or take his curse with you!"

For an instant Prudence lingered and looked back into the fire-lighted
room, while her countenance wore almost the expression as if she were
struggling with a fiend who had power to seize his victim even within
the hallowed precincts of her father's hearth. The fiend prevailed,
and Prudence vanished into the outer darkness. When the family rushed
to the door, they could see nothing, but heard the sound of wheels
rattling over the frozen ground.

That same night, among the painted beauties at the theatre of a
neighbouring city, there was one whose dissolute mirth seemed
inconsistent with any sympathy for pure affections, and for the joys
and griefs which are hallowed by them. Yet this was Prudence
Inglefield. Her visit to the Thanksgiving fireside was the realization
of one of those waking dreams in which the guilty soul will sometimes
stray back to its innocence. But Sin, alas! is careful of her
bondslaves; they hear her voice, perhaps, at the holiest moment, and
are constrained to go whither she summons them. The same dark power
that drew Prudence Inglefield from her father's hearth--the same in
its nature, though heightened then to a dread necessity--would snatch
a guilty soul from the gate of heaven, and make its sin and its
punishment alike eternal.

HOW OBADIAH BROUGHT ABOUT A THANKSGIVING[16]

BY EMILY HEWITT LELAND.

The Waddle fam