h Mrs. Martindale, who had called in, were gathered round
her bed, in a state of painful and gloomy anxiety, waiting for, yet
almost despairing again to see her restored to consciousness. All at
once she opened her eyes, and looked up calmly into the faces of
those who surrounded her bed.

"Where is little Mary?" she at length asked.

The child was instantly brought to her.

"Does Mary love mother?" she asked of the child, in a tone of
peculiar tenderness.

The child drew its little arms about her neck, and kissed her pale
lips and cheeks fondly.

"Yes, Mary loves mother. But mother is going away to leave Mary.
Will she be a good girl?"

The little thing murmured assent, as it clung closer to its mother's
bosom.

Mrs. Fenwick then looked up into the faces of her father and mother
with a sad but tender smile, and said--

"You will be good to little Mary when I am gone?

"Don't talk so, Mary!--don't, my child! You are not going to leave
us," her mother sobbed, while the tears fell from her eyes like
rain.

"Oh no, dear! you will not leave us," said her father, in a
trembling voice.

"Yes, dear mother! dear father! I must go. But you will not let any
one take little Mary from you?"

"Oh no--ever! She is ours, and no one shall ever take her away."

Mrs. Fenwick then closed her eyes, while a placid expression settled
upon her sweet but careworn face. Again she looked up, but with a
more serious countenance. As she did so, her eyes rested upon Mrs.
Martindale.

"I am about to die, Mrs. Martindale," she said, hit a calm but
feeble voice--"and with my dying breath I charge upon you the ruin
of my hopes and happiness. If my little girl should live to woman's
estate," she added, turning to her parents, "guard her from the
influence of this woman, as you would from the fangs of a serpent."

Then closing her eyes again, she sank away into a sleep that proved
the sleep of death. Alas! how many like her have gone down to an
early grave, or still pine on in hopeless sorrow, the victims of
that miserable interference in society, which is constantly bringing
young people together, and endeavouring to induce them to love and
marry each other, without there being between them any true
congeniality or fitness for such a relation! Of all assumed social
offices, that of the match-maker is one of the most pernicious, and
her character one of the most detestable. She should be shunned with
the same shrinking aversion with