deposited the title-deeds of the nobility and the principal inhabitants of the provinces, ran great risks. Mademoiselle Delaroche, whom I was to marry, was obliged to take refuge with her relations; and I, after having by her desire collected all the most valuable papers which were in the study, retired to my father's; and my first care on arriving there was to bury the title-deeds which I had saved under the floor of our cabin. The horrible tempest, in which so many families and properties were wrecked, ceased at last; order was beginning to be re-established; peace and calm again returned; and there were no more proscriptions. Some even dared to claim their rights, and regain their properties; and the head clerk of M. Delaroche, upheld by public esteem, became a notary in his turn. Then it was that I felt happy at having overcome my youthful repugnance to the profession. I was able to offer a home to my aged parents and my sister. The comforts by which they were surrounded were all the fruit of my labour. Soon after, Heaven blessed my union with Adelaide; my sister married a rich farmer of Buseuil; and at last the moment arrived when, without neglecting my business, and without extravagance, I could have a library composed of my favourite books. I also had a cabinet of specimens of natural history; a hortus siccus, shells, birds stuffed by my own hands; and, to my great happiness, I soon was in correspondence with learned men, who condescended to think me worthy of sharing the pleasure of their discoveries. My son has as little taste as myself for the profession of the law. My fortune enabling me to allow him to choose, he became a physician; and, residing at Paris, he has distinguished himself amongst the learned men of that great city. He is a member of several learned societies, and will one day perhaps be in the Academy. But, like his father, his daily studies have reference to the profession he has embraced; so that his name is already celebrated in the annals of medicine. I can only repeat to you, Denoyer-an aim and a will! With these you may attain to anything."

"Yes, sir, when one is young," replied the gardener sighing; "but at my age, and when one has wasted time and fair opportunities

"The loss of time and fair opportunities is irreparable, is irremediable," replied M. Grandville. "You have now no other resource but to resign yourself to the obscure path which you have chalked out for yourself; but you may still, as I have already told you, render yourself useful to your master, and labour for your children's future good. It alone depends on you, Denoyer, not to be an ordinary gardener or groom. Study! Give but very little, indeed, of your time to books of mere amusement, that your children, guided by your example, may early wish to have an aim-may early feel the power of perseverance. If they are destined only for labourers, you will have at least the certainty that they will be good workmen, good characters, and happy

men. Good conduct always carries its reward with it; and the well-merited esteem of honest people lighten, even to the very poorest, the burden of each day. You will find it in your turn, Denoyer. You will then understand that in every rank general esteem may be obtained; and you will find that this general esteem is, to the man who possesses it, the best earthly source of innocent pleasure and moral strength.”

How far Jacque Denoyer profited by the lessons of M. Grandville may be judged of by his words to his son. "I was nearly forty years old when I entered his service; and at forty I was fit for everything, and good for nothing; and so true is this, that had not M. Grandville taken pity on us, and received us into his house, we should have all died of hunger. His kindness did not stop there; he made me examine my past conduct-he showed me that to change one's mind at every moment, if we may so speak, and to have no decided opinion, is the defect of persons who suffer themselves to be governed by passion rather than by reason; a defect which leaves them all their lives like so many grown children, and which proceeds from the want of the habit of reflecting upon what they see, and upon what they ought to do. It is in youth that this habit must be acquired; and then it becomes a safeguard against the commission of folly at an age when folly is inexcusable. Thus he taught me to reflect before I acted; and only from this day out was I a man. My son, an aim and a will, never forget that it is this which makes the man, which prevents him from being burdensome to any one, and which renders him useful to himself and to those who depend on him. You may one day be a father in your turn. Let your children learn from you what you now learn from me-that in order to attain the desired end, you must not wander from the path opened to you by your parents or friends; but that, on the contrary, you must concentrate on this one point all your faculties and all your powers: you must will one thing, and will it perseveringly."

STORIES OF AIMS AND ENDS.

SECOND STORY.

I.

IN the city of Nancy, in Lorraine, a district in the east of France, bordering on Germany, some time ago lived Hans Keller, a German by birth, who, after having spent some part of his life as a pedler, settled, with his wife Theresa, and his little daughter Florence. The family was obscure, and had few friends, but those who knew them respected them for their industry. By many they would have been considered poor; but poor is a wrong

term to apply to persons who work for their living, and owe no man anything.

When Hans first settled in Nancy, he was doubtful of what means he should resort to for a living, and he unfortunately, from the effects of rheumatism, was unable to undertake any very active pursuit. Where, however, there is a will, there is a way; and those who maintain a good character have seldom any difficulty in getting some one to help them forward. Hans could sew well, and so could his wife Theresa; to this accomplishment, therefore, they resolved, after some consideration, to look for subsistence. Making his desires known to a merchant with whom he formerly had dealings, he was recommended to a tailor as being an honest man, and from this person he and Theresa received employment. They were not, to be sure, intrusted with the principal articles of attire; but although they confined themselves to the sewing of vests, and other light articles, they found in that a means of decent livelihood.

Hans, as a German, knew the value of education, and he accordingly took care, even by pinching himself of comforts, to give his daughter Florence a little schooling. When we say that, with this good end in view, he actually gave up smokinga great sacrifice for a German-any one can judge of his anxiety to get his daughter forward. "Who knows," said he to his wife, "but Florence may one day be a credit to us. At all events, if she is not educated, she must be a drudge all the days of her existence, and I am determined to give her a chance of being something better than I am. Nothing like looking a little upward. Those who look down, run their head into the mire."

Theresa, a lively Frenchwoman, had an immense reverence for Hans's understanding, and cordially agreed in these wise observations. Hans, accordingly, had his daughter taught reading and writing at school, and he himself took pains to instruct her in arithmetic. He also spoke to her in German, so that, when only eight years of age, Florence spoke and read German and French with equal fluency.

Florence was a promising child, and took so readily to learning, that it was a pleasure to instruct her. Many a happy day did the father pass at his work, with his child by his side, conversing with her; telling her some of his old-world stories, or sounding the depths of her arithmetic lore, or trying to astonish her with the exhibition of his, by asking her to write for him in figures eleven thousand eleven hundred and eleven. The little girl tried till her father's smile told her she had succeeded. She had learned to sew, and thus was able to help her parents in their work; and by degrees occupations grew upon her, for, gentle and obliging, all her neighbours came to her to write letters for them to their friends, and in the evening she taught some children to read whom employment in the day prevented attending school. Every spare moment she had, she gave to any books she could

borrow from a neighbour, or buy for the very few pence it ever was her lot to possess.

II.

The time at length came when Florence required to go out into the world, and the question was debated what she should be. She was quite ready to do anything that her parents suggested. “I'll tell you what you must be," said Hans to her one day; "you must go as an apprentice to a mantuamaker. That is a respectable business; and if you conduct yourself well, and show good taste, there is no fear of you." Florence was delighted. She was apprenticed to a lady; but it was only as an out-door apprentice, and she still lived at home.

The duties of this situation were irksome; but what line of life has not its petty troubles? And the mind which shrinks from facing these troubles is good for very little. One of Florence's troubles was the poverty of her attire: the other apprentices affected to keep aloof from her on account of her not being so genteel as they were. Florence was fortunately able to disregard this silliness, and by her obliging and mild disposition made herself friends. Besides, she did not care much for keeping company with the giddy girls, her fellow-apprentices. Her resources for recreation were happily confined to a quiet walk with her parents, and a book. Had she had but a guide or encouragement-any one to put useful books into her hands-how profitable might have been her love for books! Nevertheless, under any circumstances, that love is a benefit. But whatever might have been the extent of the cultivation of her mental faculties, her affections had been fully developed; for in her home, poor as it was, reigned love, and peace, and family harmony. Poverty was not rendered doubly bitter by that which makes the stalled ox a far worse portion than the dinner of herbs where love is. Florence had not to witness the mutual reproach, the angry taunt, that is too often the salutation or the welcome of the endurers of the same hardships. She had never to crouch beneath the rude rough blow, too often the only mode known to the poor man of disciplining his child-a mode debasing alike to both. Her principles, too, were gradually forming. From earliest childhood she had seen temperance, persevering industry, and strict honesty, and knew that the sure ground, the strong motive, was the fear of God. She had seen suggestions to unlawful gain quietly and simply put away, as if such things were not to be dwelt upon for a moment. Such education as this is within the power, within the reach, of every parent. Let each try, as far as in him lies, to surround his child with an atmosphere of honesty, industry, truth, and love. Some parents speak of beginning the education of their children; who can tell how early it has been begun by circumstances? It has been well said

that "insensible education is to the intellectual and moral system the most important, as insensible perspiration is the most important to the physical system."

We have said that Florence's course of reading was too desultory to suffer her to make much progress in actual knowledge, but still her mind was more or less brought into play; and there was an intelligence in the expression of her countenance that drew from a lady, who saw her pass, the remark, "Would you not say that girl thinks?" The girl did indeed think. At that moment her thoughts were serious enough, for that morning she had found that her father's failing sight wholly incapacitated him from his usual work, and that her mother, weakened by illness, the consequence of daily increasing privation and anxiety, could no longer labour as formerly. She felt that she must now be their sole support. She had just completed her term of apprenticeship, and her employers were not very numerous, and the wages for a whole day's work was but eightpence; and as she left them for that day's work, her heart was heavy within her, and, with a feeling of utter despondence hitherto unknown to her, she cried, "Is there nothing but misery in the world?" She tried to dispel the thought by gazing after some young companions who passed her in gay laughter over some merry-meeting of the evening before, and the effort was successful. The happiness of her companions seemed like a hope for her. We are mistaken when we say "Look beneath thee, and thou wilt deem thyself happy." No more true consolation is in that belief in the existence of happiness which arises from seeing that there are more prosperous lots than our own. Florence felt what has been expressed in the old lines

"But though I am sad, not so cold is my sorrow,
That nature can't waken a smile in my eye;

And this still warm heart a pure pleasure can borrow,
From seeing another more happy than I."

Certain it is she was always sadder when she beheld any one more wretched than herself.

But Florence's beau ideal of happiness was not the merrymeetings of the young people of her own class. No: it lay rather in being able to learn everything that was in the books she daily saw in the hands of the pupils of a neighbouring school. If she had but money, she too might learn; but there was less hope of this every day, for every day things were growing rather worse. For one month she could get no work, and her mother was weighed down under the pressure of a debt unavoidably contracted during that month. One morning, as she passed by a hairdresser's shop, while pondering how she could relieve her mother from this burden, the idea occurred to her of selling her hair, of which she had a profusion. She entered the shop, but the owner did not want hair. However, he proposed