PRING was with us again-with its fulness of life and love, the bride of the year, with

swelling buds, crowned with youthful beauty, moving gracefully yet timidly forward to the ardent maturity of summer, and then both to sleep in the fruitful lap of Autumn.

I had engaged to pass a part of the warm weather with some dear Quaker friends, the Murrays, at their pleasant home in the valley of the Mohawk. I put away the city cares for two months, left my P. P. C. at the doors of various persons, and did not forget the kind old apple-woman who aided me in a moment of suffering. I stood chatting until the passers-by must have thought I was haggling for the stand, fruits and all. She had seen trouble ;who has not? But she was an honest soul, and I

really took pleasure in listening to her homely recitals of the ways and means by which she held on to the ravellings, not "the threads of life." She said:

"I'm poor, and I've always ben poor, and I s'pose I always shall be; but it comes harder now than it used to. I'm gittin old; but I've got two grand-children,-one, my daughter's child, and she's dead; and the father's followed the seas, and he's lost. She's pretty as a pearl, so pretty, I don't know what to do with her. 'Ta'n't safe. I've saved enough to put her to a trade. But settin' gives her an ugly pain in her side. And t'other one's a girl too. But she's helpless, out and out, as feeble as a broken-winged bird; with a hump on her back, that grows every day, and no help to her growth neither, poor child! As long as I live to take care on 'em, it'll do.

But when I'm gone,

what'll become on 'em I don't know."

"The Father of the fatherless," I suggested.

"Yes, yes," said the apple-woman, as she furtively dusted something from her eye with the cleverly patched sleeve of her gown. "I know all that talk,

but 'ta'n't sartin. Once, a great long time ago, I thought about and believed in sich things; but I've forgot 'em all now.

"I ha'n't no faith in nothin'. Lina has; and she teaches t'other one; and both them got faith. But I ha'n't. I'm poor, and I've always ben poor."

"By what name do they call you?" I asked, with increased interest.

"Becky Tollman," said she.

"Well,” said I, "Becky Tollman, you say yourself you don't know what they will do when you are gone. Is it not good, then, that you are spared to them? The good God does that.”

"Well, I s'pose He does," said Becky. "But I don't feel as though that was doing anything great, considerin'. I don't s'pose it's right; but that's how I feel."

"Oh," said I, "Becky, you must have faith. You will be much happier. Faith in God is blessedness in life. That faith alone can lead us through the valley of the shadow of death. I must go now; but I shall come and see you when I return. And here

is a nice, large umbrella, that I have brought to

shade you when the sun creeps round the corner, in these summer afternoons."

"Lord bless you, marm! I couldn't spare the money to buy one, and I said to myself, says I, 'It don't last long, though it does wilt you down. So, Becky, you'll get through it somehow.' But I never thought as anybody'd know how hot it is but me, and the others like me. And you, marm, how come you to think about a poor apple-woman? It almost makes me b'leve what you've ben saying a'n't all talk."

"Becky Tollman," said I, "trust my farewell injunction. Have faith in God! His goodness is always around you."

Becky enthusiastically kissed the handle of the umbrella, by way of farewell salute, as I turned the

corner.

Good-bye, Becky Tollman, benighted sister on the great highway! Years threescore and ten have whitened your head with sorrow, dried the sap of life within your bones, and left you old and shaking, yet hopeless of a future, ignorant of the Father's love! shall come to fruition.

Verily, the

germ

Nothing can be finally lost. Even you have your mission unto men. The reeking sweat on your wrinkled brow is borne but in fulfilment of the great law a part of the expiation for the first human error. It is as sure as life. Your poor table, with its scanty fruits, and slender fund, is greater, more precious than the money-changer's tables on the opulent Rialto, heaped with richest merchandise. None but He, the All-Father, can know the devious windings of your true but erring heart. He is your judge, Becky Tollman; and He knows that your every act but proves the existence of the very faith that your words deny.