Ligonier Banner., Volume 14, Number 50, Ligonier, Noble County, 1 April 1880 — Page 3

Che Ligonier Banuer, . 3. B. STOLL, Editor and Proprietor, LIGONIER, : : : INDIANA.

T 0 AN EARLY VISITANT. Sweet star-flower, from your couch of green You lift a face of modest mien; You wear no robe of lordly red, E : You’re not the violet garlanded, You vaunt not purple’s regal hue Nor smile with ¢harms of heaven{y blue— Your slenderstem is only dight o ‘With one fair whorl of purost;, white. And suits your humble hue the place : To which you lend such lightsome-grace, For not on garnich lawn or height ‘Opens your bosom to the light, ; Buwt where the foot-path windeth lone Down craggy clitfs with mosses grown; Where fern leaves wave and lichens creep, Hiding the visage of the steep, I Ando’er the lood that hasteneth by The old oaks litl%their arms on high— There doth it please you still to dwell, Deepin the dim, sequestered dell. Erect you stand in clusters sweet, ' -And nod and turn aglance to meet; Yet shyly trembles all your frame, As fearing e'en a'glance to claim, And fain to veil your bashful eye From curious gaze of passers by, Yet fain tostay, on all who come To pour the treasures of your bloom, Oh, may we all as gently live, : Content, whatever fortune give; If not enthrened on worldly height, | Then making some dim valley bright { By showing free to all, to each, That checrfulness the star-flowers teach. —B. S. Tlimes.

AUNT MONA. My Aunt Mona, if her own words might be believed, had hardly been well for a day throughout her life, certainly not for one during the last tweénty years. She walked the earth a bundle of unstrung nerves, an incarnation of aches and pains, a living sufferer of all the disorders that poor mortals are liable to, a specimen of utter misery and living martyrdom. From the erown of her smooth brown head down to the pretty feet, there was no sound health in her. - So she would assure us ten times a day. . How is it, I wonder, that people who have every essential good in life to make them comfortable must create discomfort for themselves? Some do it. One will seek it in fretfulness, another in jealousy, a -third in wearing anxiety about nothing. Isuppose that, as a certain amount of suffering is and must be the lot of all while they inhabit this world, those upon whom Heaven has not inflicted it, must needs inflict it upon them. Aunt Mona found it in health. That-is, you understand, in the lack of health. . : And she might have been so bright and happy. ‘The wife of Thomas Butterfield, substantial yeoman and farmer, whgse erops never seemed to fail, and whose ihouse was filled with plenty, Aunt Mona had every substantial good, in their plain way, that she could have. Her children were hearty —her friends true. But that health of hersruined everything. Any husband less sunny tempefed than Uncle Butterfield, would have become morose ere this. Mr. Whale, the parson, talking of it “one evening to my father, ‘When%‘]e had called in and stayed ‘to supper, and they became contidential, declared he should have shaken her long ago were she his wife, and been fit to turn her out of doors afterward. R :

Aunt bona did not sit patiently down and epdure her suffering; she had too much spirit for that. %don’t believe there was a doctor within a hundred miles who had not heard the dismal story of her manifold and ever increasing ailments. B She had tried allopathy, homaepathy, hydropathy; she had consulted various kinds of practitioners—botanic, eclectic, magnetic and mesmeric. She once traveled to London to consult a renowed spiritual ‘medium. She had full{l tested all the patent medicines of the day, including Holloway’s ointment and Cockle’s pi%ls and Mrs. Winslow’s scothing sirup and somebody’s chest expanders, and yet—here she was still, not cured; worse than ever. Papa would call heéron the sly ‘“ My sister Moaner.”” \ But now a: wondérful thing occurred. There came into the village hard by a man of medicine, and he set up his tent there for a day or twe. - He called himself ‘the great < Physio-Eclectic-Mag-netic Healer,”” and he came heralded by a mi%hty flourish of trumpets and by bills as large as life, professing to cure everything. Aunt Mona was in a flutter of hope; she wrote to him to say she was coming, and she took me with her. Her own children were not old enough, and Uncle Butterfield would as soon have paid a visit to the moon. The great Magnetic Healer was a tall man with a black beard. He solemnly bowed aunt into a big chair and me to a smaller one. '

“I have enjoyed poor health for twenty years,” began Aunt Mona, in a sighing tone, while the great doctor, sitting before her, looked and listened attentively. ‘‘Some of the medical men' have consulted say it must be the lungs, others the liver, ‘others, again, say it is the heart.; 1 .say it is all three. They cannét find out any organic disease, they tell ma, and they only recommend proper diet, air and exercise. One of them went so-far as to say that all I wanted was cheerfulness. I know better. And so would they if they felt as I feel. I told old Stafford so, our doctor, the other day. My opinion is that [ have a complication of diseases; my lungs are weak, my liver does not act, and lam often terribly pressed for . breath, as my niece here, Ailiss Arkright, can testify to. That, of course, must be the heart.”” b ' “Of course,” murmured the great Magnetic Healer. ““Go on, madam.”’ “I am troubled perpetually with theumatic and neuralgic pains, and I have something drea.dfilll & my back. The spine, no doubt. One minute the blood will gallgf up and down my veins like a streak of lightning, the next it seems to freeze as if it were so much ice. I have shiverings, and I have bad nights, and I have headache—and altogether I am sure no poor woman was ever so afflicted. Can you-do anything for me, sir? I believe the heart’s the “worst.”” i ' ; ‘ Madam,”” said the great Magnetic ‘Healer, pompously, ¢ that particular form of Ega.rt disease has been of frequent occurrence in my practice, and I have been invariably successful in its treatment. Scientifically speaking, your

complaint is malformation of the right auricle, and—there may be—something a little amiss with the left ventricle. 1 think perhaps there is. You feel out of spirits, now don't you, often, especially in damp, gloomy weather, and a sort of distaste to everything?” | ¢ Why, doctor, no one before ever told me this!”’ exclaimed Aunt Mona, in'ecstacy. It is exactly how Ido feel.” ' ““Yés, yes, my dear madam, I could describe - your every sensation just as well as though I myself were the sufferer. How is your appetite.” ~ “Well, it isnotto be relied on; butit's 'mostly very poor. Some days I eat well enough; others I can’t touch a thing, and Ilive theén upon strong green tea, or perhaps coffee, and toast and butter.” ‘A most deleterious practice, my dear madam. ¢Ovder is Nature’s first law,’ and it behooves us to be regular in our diet. This capriciousness of appetite arises from the ’derangemex%l speak of, and can be easily remedied. Do you sleep well?” . ““Good graciQus! no, doctor; not as a rule. How can you expectit? And if I do sleep I dream. The other nilght I bhad a dreadful dream. I thought Isaw the ghosts of my two dead brothers who were drowned "ten years ago. They were beckoning to me. I awoke in the worst frigcht possible, screaming and crying.”’ : ““And had you gone to bed supperlessp ’t’hat night—upon nothing but green tea:

““Well, no. That night I had managed to eat a morsel of supper, and drink a drop of our old ale. Hot {)ork chops and apple fritters we had, I remember.”’ The doctor coughed. b ““Yes, they beckoned to me distinctly,”” continued Aunt Mona, returnin§ 3‘%“(’) the ghosts of her two brothers. ‘lt as a sign, I know, doctor; a Warnin% that I must soon follow, I feel that am not long for this world.” ‘“My dear lady, do not despair, I implore you. A fife valuable as yours must not. so early be lost to the world; a sun so brilliant must not go down ere it has attained its meridian splendor. In the hands of an ordinary pll)lysician your case would, indeed, be hopeless; but my skill may Eerhaps avail, even for you. I fear, madam, that you are inclined to hysteria. In simpler phrase, that you are nervous.” ~ . ““No, doctor, I cannot say that I am. I should be if I gave way to my feelings, but that.is what I never allow myself to do. My husband at times tells me that I am hysterical, but when I'm dead and gone he’ll know better. He will realize then that 1 was the patientest, uncomplainingest mortal woman that éver breathed. Being so hearty ‘himself, he cannot understand that ‘other people have ailments; and so—and so—all that I know is that T am frightfully ill and get no sympathy.” And with the last words Aunt Mona covered her face with her handkerchief and sobbed aloud.

Much affected, the great Magnetic Healer turned away, as if to conceal his emotion. Then, returning to his chair, he spoke in a consoling tone. : “Dry your tears, dear lady. I have the gift of prescience, which assures me that you will live and not die. Although my great reliance in the cure of disease is my wonderful mesmeric and maguetic power, yet in addition to these, Ib am possessed of an unrivaled medicine, the secret of whose preparation was communicated to me while in the spiritual trance state by the great Galen himself. Take heart. It shall cure you.”’ ¢¢Oh, if it could!” cried aunt, dropping her handkerchief. ‘¢ What medicine is it?"” “It is called the ‘Elixir of Life and Universal Panacea.” This small bottle of meédicine which I will gf;ive you,” he added, producing a little white vial filled with a lemon colored liquid, ‘‘is sufficient to cure any mortal disease, and"—— ; “It don’t look much of it,”’ interrupted aunt. : ““ My good lady, it will last you your life time. You may take one drop on rising in the morning, one drop at noon, and one drop before retiring at night. Continue this course for a fortnight, then one drop every other day until you are cured will be sufficient.” Pocketing his fee of two guineas the renowned Magnetic Healer bowed us out, my aunt cTa.sping the treasured bottle. : ‘“What a mercy I went to him!"’ she cried. ¢‘lf he had but come here a few years ago! -What do you. think of him, Maria?’ : : Now, the truth was I did not think much of him. My impression was he had been fit to burst -out laughing all the time, but it would not do to say so. ¢lf it cures vou, Aunt Mona, it will be a good thing.” ; Uncle Butterfield took an opportunity of tasting the ¢Elixir,” ang privately assured his friends, ‘amid bursts of laughter, that he.could testify to the truth of its being Elixir—Paregoric Elixir, much diluted and flavored—but that, and nothing else. But now a dire misfortune befel the golden remedy. Some few days later ohnny, the youngest of the little ones, aged seven, saw t%:e vial on his mother’s dressing table, got hold of it and drank the whole at a draught.

‘Neo evil ensued to Johnny, but his mother was frightfully put out and Johnny got a whipping. This wonderful Elixir, could not have failed to cure her, and now it was gone! The great Magnetic Healer was also gone, which made things the more distressing. Our village haE not patronized him as he might have expected, considering the wonderful announcement bills, and he had packed up his traps and started, the good genius that presides over the interests of traveling quack doctors alone knew where. For three days I?.unt; Mona sat on the hearth-rug- so{ing. ‘lt would have been.the saving of my life. 1 see it; .I_,gl«]ael and know it. I had confidence in ‘that Elixir. And it must be next to- a miracle that that wicked Johnnfy is not dead. I wasso much better for the few days I took it. And now I must bear the return of all my old ailments and die. @'Woe’s me!”’ And the old ailments did return, as Aunt Mona said, and she made life a ‘burden to herself and to everybody about her. : o Upon the morning of one of those

gerfeet days—cloudless, serene and' almy—which only the month of June can bring to earth, I took my sewing and started over to my Aunt Mona’s. We lived nearly half a mile distant, in the old Manor House. As I tripped lightly over (green meadows, past frai;ra.nt orchards and blooming gardens, aden with the perfumes of *‘incensebreathing June,” I said to myself, ‘¢ Surely, upon such a day as this;*even Aunt Mona must be well and happy.” Ah, vain delusion! The idea of health and happiness connected with Aunt Mona was simply ridiculous. ¢ Mamma is never happy unless she is perfectly miserable,” said her eldest daughter one day—saucy Kate—and no words of ‘mine could better express the state of

things. Passing through the garden I found Louisa and Kate sitting under the arbor of roses and honeysuckles, shelling a dish of early green peas for dinner, and chatting and laughing very merrily. Phillis, the dairymaifi, was churning in the outhouse and keeping time with the rise and fall of her churn-dasher with the most blithesome of soft melodies. The eatlayin the warm sunshine purrin with satisfaction; the canary chirpe% gleefully in his cage, and little Johnny came running to meet me with sparkling eyes and a merry laugh and a handful of June roses. All this peace, this rural content, this bright happiness, found an echo in my own heart. . ‘ Where is your mistress?’’ 1 said to Sarah, who sat in the best kitchen, for I had gone in the back way. “Groaning and moaning somewhere about, as she always is, Miss Maria,”’ replied the old nurse, who had lived with them for years and had a habit of | saying what she pleased. , In a little room opening from the dining Farlor I found Aunt Mona, an old woolen shawl around her shoulders, and crouching disconsolately over the grate, in which roared a fire more befitting January than June. i fiow do you do, aunt?’’ I said. ‘¢ Are you any worse than usual?”’ | She turned toward me a face of despair and woe. Really it was enough to give one the blues only to look at it. ¢ Ah, my dear, don’t ask. I am miserable.”’

¢« But what makes you so?” Aunt Mona gave a deep sigh and bent over the fire again. On the trivet stood a porcelain saucepan, whose contents she was languidly stirring with a spoon. ‘“ Why, aunt, what are gou going there? Isthat a witch’'s caldron?” ‘“ltis a decoction of herbs, to be taken inwardly,”” meekly sighed she. ‘I got the recipe from the old herb doctor. I sent for him here yesterday, and he gave it me. lam going to try it,” she added, resignedly; ‘*and if it does not cure me, I shall just give up medicine, and lie down and die.” ‘““Give up medicine, and arise and live,” I answered. 1 firmly believe, aunt, that medicineis killing you; medicine and groaning together.” This aroused Aunt Mona. ¢ Maria, how can you talk so, when nothing but medicine has kept me alive these twenty years?’ she exclaimed, in righteous indignation. " “You have lived in spite of medicine, Aunt Mona, and because your constitution isgo thoroughly good. Papa says

“I don’t wantto hear what your papa says, Maria. Brothers always choose to be rude; even when I was a child he’d hurt my feelings. He is so healthy himself that he has no pity for me.” ‘“You have no pity for yourself, Aunt Mona. Who but you would sit over a fire this lovely June day?”’ - _¢“] am coid. Maria.” ‘“Get up then, aunt, and run about out of doors in the sunshine.” ““It’s cruel of you to talk so,” she whined. ‘“How can I stir that awful spine in my back? I can stand it from your uncle—he talks to me so like your papa—but I can’t from you. Mecn are so hard hearted! Don’t you e¥<r marry one of them, Maria.” - She tapped her fout on the ground, and stirred on and sighed. Chancing to look out at the window I saw Uncle Butterfield coming down the garden path with that pretty widow Mrs. Berrow, who was one of aunt’s great friends and had no patience with her. Aunt looked up also. - ““There’s your uncle, Maria, with that widow Berrow, as usual! If he is settling up her husband's *property 'it’s no reason why she should be running after him always. If I wasn’t the most unsuspecting woman on earth I should be jealous. But I shall not be in the way long—that’s one comfort.” - A Dburst of clear, ring'm% laughter at this moment reached us. It was soon followed by that most comely woman's entrance, ‘‘fair, fat and forty.”” As she stood by Aunt Mona’s side, rosycheeked, bright-eyed, in the exuberance of health and the prime of a beauty which time had improved rather, than impaired, the contrast was too painful. I think my uncle must have felt it for he sighed as he turned away. : ¢ Mrs. Butterfield,” said the widow, in her soft, musical voice—that ¢ excellent thing in' woman’’—¢¢ I was hoping, upon this beautiful' morning, to find you better.” . : '

Aunt Mona gave noimmediate reply, save a glance that was not a friendly one. It said as plainly as glance could say, ‘‘ You don't hope anything of the sort; you want me to die and be out of the way.”’ “My wife. seems to be growing worse,”’ said Uncle Butterfield. ¢ That two soverei%ln fee, paid to the great ;magnetic what-d'ye-call-him, a month ago, didn’t seem to do you much good, did it, Mona? It had better have been put in the church poor box.” - ‘ A kind, loving husband ought not to speak of money paid to relieve the sufferings and to save the life of his poor, 'dyin% wife,’’ replied Aunt Mona, reproachfully. ‘¢ Youknow that Johnny, dreadful chifll, drank the elixir up. But I shall not be a trouble or expense to you'long, Thomas. I feel that my days are numbered.” , ‘“They have been numbered ever since I knew you,”” smiled uncle. ‘“The days of all of us are, for that matter,” ‘ | ' His wife did not condescend to notice the words. Every now and then she had these mournfulrgts and liked to talk them out. v ‘¢ And when lam gone, Thomas, you can magg}some strong; healthy woman, ‘whose ailments won’t trouble you. One

that's got money, too,” she added, significantly and spitefully. ¢ Yes, money to n,x’ake up for all you’ve had to pay for me. : ; ““] am glad to see you in so desirable a frame of mind,”’ said Mrs. Berrow, laughing merrily. ¢ You show a truly noble, unselfish nature in providing, even before your death, for your husband’s second marriage.”’ ** Now, Caroline Berrow, I think you had better not say more,’”’ spoke aunt. “] know how unfeeling you can be. It is not the first time you have made | %ame of my illness. As to jyou, ’homas, you can be looking out for somebody to replace me. I and my sufferings wid soon be released from this world of trouble.”’ ‘

““ Have you any particular person in view?’ asked uncle, gravely, -‘‘any one you would like as a mother to your childs;‘enP Of course I should have to think a little of them in choosing a second wife.” I don’t much think Aunt Mona expected the ready acquiescence; she looked startled. Mrs. Berrow ran out to Kate and Louisa, who were coming in with the basin of peas, and uncle followed her. Presently the two girls came in. * Aunt Mona was then growing hysterical. - ‘¢ Listen,. children,” she cried—and proceeded to tell them what had passed. ““You see your father is so anxious on your account,”” she added, sarcastically, ‘‘that he can’t even wait for me to die before providing you a stepmother. 1 will let you choose. How would you like Mrs. Berrow?” ‘¢ Very much, indeed,”” said Kate.

“I think she is just as good and sweet and pretty as she can be!” cried Louisa. ¢ Mamma, I like Mrs. Berrow almost as well as I like you. But I suppose this is all nonsense,’” broke off the girl, laughing. ‘ - ““To tell you the truth, Mona,”’ interposed my uncle, who had again come in, ‘‘l have thought of Caroline Berrow. It is impossible to keep such ideas away when one’s wife is in your state .of health,” he added, with deprecation, ¢ She would make a most excelent stepmother.” ‘““Yes, I see you have been thinking of her,” returned Aunt Mona, risin% from her chair in a fever of hysterica 'an%er. ““You have got your plans well laid out, husband, and you have infected the children with them. Oh, that I should live to be insulted like this! Maria, you are a witness to 'it. It is cruel, cruel! And I will live a hundred years if I can, just to spite you.” ' With the tears streaming down her still pretty face Aunt Mona, leaving her decoction of herbs to its fate, sailed away. I felt most uncomfortable. The young girls must have been jesting, but for the first time I thought my uncle heartless. Mrs. Berrow, standing now outside the open window, had partly heard what passed. ‘“ Mona only told me yesterday that she could not livé a week,”” quoth she. ‘“She kissed me last Sunday when I was %'oing to chureh and said she should not live to see another,”” spake uncle.

¢t Yes, and she has not yet bought us new dresses, or hats, or ribbons this summer,’’ chimed imiKate. ¢¢She said it would be useless, wWe should so soon have to go into mourning for her. It is too bad for mamma to be so melancholy.” ' ‘¢ And now she is going to live a hundred years,” sighed Mrs. Berrow, in anything but a pleasurable tone. ¢ But I must wish*you all good mornini. I have,a, not ordered my dinner at home yet. ’

‘¢ Uncle Butterfield,”” I said, feeling indignant, as the echo of her light footsteps sounded on the path and the"two %i,rls ran after her, ‘‘l—l have no right, know, to speak so, but do you not think you are heartless to Aunt Mona--unfeeling?”’ ' ]am sorry for it if I am,” replied my uncle, ‘“but I'm only takin% your wnt at her word. For years she has been telling me she was going to die and that I had better be looking out for a second wife. I don’t see that I could choose a nicer one than Mrs. Berrow.” ¢ Has she bewitched you, Unele Butterfield P : “I don’t think so, my lass. All the world recognizes her fZ)r a delightful woman. %‘llllle children must have a mother if their own is taken from them What should I do without a wife in a house like this? As to planning out beforehand, you must thank your aunt for that.” 2 : He set off down the garden with his long strides to -overtake Mrs. Berrow. Sending the girls baek, he accompanied herhhome. lglcould ‘have beaten them both. )

Up stairs ran I, somehow not caring to face the girls, to Aunt Mona's room, expectin% to find her drowned in hysterical tears and sorely in need of consolation. Not a bit of it. She sat before a mirror, arranging her still abundant and beautiful hair, which, during these years of illness, real or imaginary, she had worn plainly tucked under a cap. There was a fire in her eye, a flush upon her cheek and a look of determination in her face; which’ augured anything but well for the prospects of the Widow Berrow. “I've heard every word you have been saying below,”’ she exclaimed, glancing at the open window. ‘1 thank you for taking my part, Maria. You seem to be the only friend 1 have. The idea of that mean, low-lived, contemptible Widow Berrow being here in my place and the mother of my children! . If I were dead and buried and she came as Thomas’ wife I'd rise from my grave and haunt her. But, I’'m not dead yet; no, and I don’t intend to be while that miserable jade walks the earth. I suppose she ga,ints and powders to make herself look Youngl and fair, for she’s every day as old as I-am, and when we were girls together she was not half as handsome as I was. Mark you that, Maria.’’ * ¢‘She does not paint or use powder, aunt; I am sure of that, though she does look so fresh and younéi.” *‘She is eight-and-thirty this summer, and she does not look - eight-and-twen-ty,” snapped Aunt Mona. ‘‘And I, with my years of suffering, look eight-and-forty.” ~ “Yes, aunt, and gour perpetual sufferings ix'a.ve, brought on the look of age. If I were you I'd throw them off and grow young again. You m’i%lht if you would. Iremember how fresh and

retty. %ou used to be and how proud %ncle homas was of you.’_’ : ¢ I will be so again,” cried aunt, resolutely, in an excess of temper, ¢if it’s only to disagpoint that upstart woman. I'll throw off all my ailments, though I die in the effort, and be as young as sheis.’! : : ‘¢ Aunt—Aunt Mona—l want to ask‘3 you not to be offended at some glaini truths lam going to tell you. Your illness, during all these years, has been more imaginary than real; your natural nervousness has rendered you an easy prey to quack doctors and patent medi--cine venders, who have had no re%\a.rd to your health, but only to your husband’s money. You have given way to your fancies and gone about like an old woman, the greatest figure imaginable. Look at your gown this morning; look at the cap you have now Fut off! You might be well if you would.” : ‘‘Perhaps, after all, old Stafford may be right when he tells me I have no organic disease,” said she, sadly. § “Yes, indeed he is, and now I want you to promise me never to take another drop of medicine unless prescribed by him.” : ] never will.? ;

¢« And oh, Aunt Mona, try to be cheerful, and to make home a happy;})lace for your husband and children. Think how terrible it would be to lose their love.” ' ¢“lt seems to me that I have lost their( love,” was the despairing reply. ; *“No, I hope not; no, indeed, Aunt Mona. They are just a little tired of your constant complainings, and I must say I don’t wonder at it. iven the servants are tired. Think how long it is since you had acheerful word upon your lips or a smile upon your face! If you "would only be the loving wife and motheragain, things would come right.” « All the. same, Maria, you cannot deny that Caroline Berrow has turned out a deceitful crocodile. Think of herdisplay of friendship for me, up to this very morning! Think of her setting ‘her ugly widow’s cap at your uncle before 1 am dead ! ‘‘ But you know, aunt, you have been as good as dead—in speech. Tellin%_* them, week in, week out, that youshall be in your coffin the next !” “Wyell, child,’”’ she said, rather faintly, ¢‘l have been ill; I. have suffered.” “Put your sufferings off, aunt; you can, I say, if you like, and circumvent -~pardon the word—the widow and her cap-setting. Think how much youowe to God for all the many blessings He has showered down upon you—and how ungrateful it is to return Him nothing but repinings.”’ e i - {

Aunt Mona, brushing out her still beautiful hair, paused. A flush stole over her face. ‘I never thought of it in that light, Maria,”’ she softly said. I will think of it; I will try.” ‘ And she began forthwith. . That very evening she dressed herself -up and went to the penny reading concert,itaking Kate and Louisa. Uncle Butter-field-was there, sitting beside Mrs. Berrow. My mother, all unconscious of the treason, crossed the room to sit with them; I went to Aunt Mona. We all went home together as far as our several ways led us, and thoufh uncle did see the widow home aunt did not begin moaning again. . - How weonderfully from that time her appearance and manner changed; you would hardly believe. She grew you again; she grew cheerful. Cheerf?fi and more cheerful day by day. Her dress was studied; her servants, household ‘and children were actively cared for. She took to visit again and to go to church on Sundays; she invited friends to little parties at home., The pills, and herbs, and physics and decoctions were pitched away, and the bottles sold by .old Sarah. Uncle Thomas was qharmin%']ly sunny tempered in the house, as he always had been; but he did not give up his visits to the Widow Berrow. ¢« But he will in time, Maria,”’ said aunt, privately to me, a world of confident hope in her voice. ¢ Only yesterday he smoothed my hair down with his gentle hand and said I looked as young and pretty in his eyes as I did the day we were married.” ; ' ¢“Yes, aunt, you are winning him back, you see. I knew it would be so.”’ ¢« And oh, child, I am so much happier than I used to bg, with all my pains and my nerves and m;? lowness of spirits gone!’ : | . It was a month or two after this, all things havinF been %loin%u on in the nicest possible way, that Mrs. Berrow one colg morning, for December had come in, presented herself in Aunt Mona's parlor, a smile on her ever pleasant face. I was there, helping ‘Aunt with the things intended for the Christmas tree. She had not had a tree for years. Not been <#‘able’’ to have one, she used to say. Uncle Thomas had told her laughingly this year not to spare the money over it. Mrs. Berrow, coming in, I say, with her bright face, went straight up to aunt and kissed her. Aunt Mona did color a little at that. - . . ] am come to ask you to my house for the 6th of January,”’ she said, ¢ you, Mona, and your husband and the two girls. Your mamma has already her invitation, Maria, and yours, too,’’ she added, nodding at me. S ' ¢Js it a tea party?’’ Yuestioned Aunt Mona, stiffly. *No; a breakfast. And I hope you will attend e to church beforehand—and see me married.” 5 ¢« Married!” I cried, staring at her. ¢ Yes, my dear. I have been engaged these many months past,’’ she answered, with equanimity. It is to my cousin Stanton—a very distant cousin, as you know. We should have been married before but for that business which took him to Spain. And when he got- there he found he was’ obliged.to go on to Valparaiso. There he was ‘%eta‘ined agaln. Altoiether it is mearly six months since‘he left England, but he is back now.”’ e ‘“ And—you have been enga.ged to marry him all that whilel’”” gasped aunt, in her surprise. B o ¢« All that while, and longer. Since last April. Your husband has known it from the first. ; e ¢ Oh, Caroline!” a 0 ¢ Aud has been transacting all kinds of business for us both preparatory to the marrisge.”‘ Nt s SRR ~ oWhy did younot tell meP” ~ Caroline Berrow laughed.

‘ Then—was that—that nonsense that you and Thomas talked together—about—about your succeeding me & jolte?? _ i “Why, of course it was, you silly thi_n%. As if your husband could have cared for me or I for him—in that way. He has never cared, he never will care, for any one but his wife, Mona.” ‘Aunt Mona burst into happy tears and put her face down upon her old friend’s neck to sob them away. We all went to the wedding on the 6th, and Uncle Butterfield, looking so bright and sunny, gave the bride away. But neither of them told Aunt Mona what I learned—that the plot was concocted between them to gring her to her senses. ; ~ And it did it, as you have seen. And ‘there never was a woman more iree from ‘‘nerves’” and imaginary aches and fiains than Aunt Mona is now. ‘I thank God for it every day of my life, Maria,”’ she. whii{)ers to me sometimes. And I think we all do.—N. .Y. Herald.

SCHOOL AND CHURCH. —The Presbyterian Church of England requires its foreign missionaries to come home once every seven years. —Connected with Mr. Spurgeon’s church in London are twenty Sundayschools, five hundred teachers and five thousand eight hundred and fifty-three scholars. e ' ot ~ —The Baltimore Methodist Conference, one of the oldest Methodist Conferences in the country, has just concluded its annual session. It reports 33,784 members and 4,268 probationers, 179 local preachers, and 358 churches valued at $2,472,050, on which there is, an indebtedness of $330,000. : ——A grandson of the late Rev. Dr. Armstrong, one of the first missionaries of the American Board to the Sandwich Islands, was christened recently at Saybrook, Conn.; ¢ Kulani,”” a Hawaiian name (signifying ¢‘From the skies,’’) chosen by Kingfialakaua 1., whowas a playmate of the child’s father. —The receipts of the American Board for January amounted to $51,160. For the first five months of the financiak year the donations aggregated $131,569.26; the legacies $35,860.87, a total of $167,430.13. * This is an advance beyond the average for the corresponding months during the preceding three years of about twenty per cent.

—The number of Protestants in France does not exceed 650,000. Of this number 560,000 belong to the Reformed Church, 80,000 to tfie Lutheran, and 10,000 to other bodies. Ir GermanAustria there are 367,000 Protestants, of whom 249,000 are Lutherans and 118,000 of the Reformed Church; but these figures represent only ten per cent. of the population of ‘that country.

—Good use is made of converts in China as colporteurs and teachers. In the presbytery of Shanfung several approved men have spent the entire year, others several months, itinerating and circulating books and tracts in regions extending over from two hundred to three hundred miles inland. They received and expected no compensation beyond the plainest food, mot exceeding in cost $3 per month for each person. —The Bishop of Manchester said at an ordination service, the cther day, that it was better to be experts in godliness than in controversy. He said he was not ashamed to confess that he could not get up any interest in many of the questions of the day. He cared little for the shape or color of vestments, the form of bread used in communion, candles on the altar lighted or unlighted, or anything of the sort. They did not concern the weightier matters of the gospel. et —-A year or so ago aDr. E. W. Kirby, of Philadelphia, organized a new branch of Methodism, calling it ‘‘The Methodist Church.” The conference was composed of some ten or twelve ministers, and there were several conegations. At the second meeting of fi:e conference, held recently, several of the ministers and delegates, representing four churches, together with the secretary, left the conference, because of dissatisfaction with the rulings of the President, Dr. Kirby, and orga.nized as an association of independent Methodist churches in correspondence with the Maryland association. . —Germany, with a population of 42,000,000, has 60,000 schools and an attendance of 6,000,000 pupils; Great Britain and Ireland, with a population of 34,000,000, has 58,000 schools and 3,000,000 pupils; Austria-Hungary, with a flopulation of 37,000,000, ‘has 30,000 schools and 3,000,000 gupi_ls; France, ‘with a population of .37,000,000, has 71,000 schocls: and 4,700,000, pupils; Spain, with a population of 17,000,000, has 20,000 schoof; and 1,600,000 pupils; Italy, with a ,po}l)ulati'on of 28,000,000, has 47,000 schools and 1,900,000 pupils; and Russia, with a population of 74,000,000, has 32,000 scgools and 1,100, 000 pupils. . e

—A thankfgiving service has been -held at Isandula, in Natal, and at other places where there are Anglican churches. =At Isandula, the scene of the great disaster to the English troops, the burial office was said and the communion administered by the Bishog, who said he had three objects in holding that service at Isandula: (1) That the bodies of Christian men should not be left without one word of peace and love being said over their %':ves; @) that the protecting hand of Providence might be recognized, and (3) that a practical outcome of the work might be the establishment of a mission. It is proposed to erect a church on the spot where the service was held. i

A Mother-in-Law in Earnest. About two months ago an industrious jgoung man living in the south part of Fall River took to himself a wife. The weeding pair shared the home of the bride’s mother. At the end of the week the mother demanded the cu;todfi of her son-in-law’s earnings, ' whic were immediately ' surrendered to her by the young man. This continued for a few weeks, when the son-in-law began to think the mdther's exactions were unreasonable. Trouble in the family was the result. The young husband hired a tenement nearer the center of the city, where he has resided for about three weeks, keeping bachelor’s hall, as the bride will not leave her mother,— Providence Journal. .., . -