to a secretary in your room. As I passed into the room and opened the drawer, I addressed some little question of kindness to you, but there was no answer.

"In a few moments you looked up and very pleasantly said:

"Mr. R., we did not speak, because we were saying 'Our Father!' I always say 'Our

Father,' when I go to bed!"

"I stood looking over my papers. I could not speak, 'Our Father,' rang in my ear. Soon the low breathing indicated the quiet slumber of childhood. I took up my leger and returned to the counting-room.

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"Our Father,' echoed the walls of my office. I, too, was a father, had worked hard to get a fortune. Notes and bonds, stocks and payments, were familiar words, but I remembered nothing of 'Our Father!'

"My accounts were in confusion, and after vainly attempting to adjust them, I returned home. On the way, past scenes came up-my

mother's voice-my little crib the child's prayer, came floating up from forgotten years.

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Why should I be an orphan? I cried out upon the world alone. I must say, 'Our

Father,' too.

"The Holy Spirit wrote upon my heart the blessed words, and I learned to say, 'Our Father!'- My Father.

"That little lisping of your childish voice drew me back to my Father's arms!"

CHAPTER XXI.

WHAT IS THAT TO ME?

"So, old Captain Hall is dead. How suddenly he paid the debt of nature!" said Squire Martin, to his neighbor.

"Yes, I have been thinking of that great property; I suppose he has willed the whole estate to his wife. How much he thought of her, and not a child in the world! Well, that is the way with us all-work hard and acquire property, and just as we get comfortably settled for life, we die, and leave it all."

"That is the course taken, by God, to show us, that this is not our rest; but we should seek another, even an heavenly."

That noble stone mansion, which stands on the knoll of ground overlooking the town, is

now occupied by the widow.

A munificent

inheritance, with its beautiful grounds in rich cultivation, carriages, horses, servants, conveniences, and luxuries.

Capt. Hall was highly respected and beloved, a man of influence in public places; his unlimited hospitalities attracted visitors and friends, who shared his hearty welcome and generous confidence. But a sudden stroke of apoplexy numbered him with the dead.

For a while, the poor widow was inconsolable. The solitary grandeur of the deserted mansion was terrible to bear. Time, the soother, however, dried away the tears, and visitors again were seen in the princely house, and among them an old friend of her early acquaintance, who was struck with sudden admiration, at the delightful residence and its surroundings.

The friends had not met for years; but the easy grace and polished exterior won upon the youthful widow, and to the infinite amazement

of numerous friends, neighbors, and acquaintance she was suddenly married!

Gossip busied herself a while, the gentleman was established, to his heart's content, in the old mansion, and all the possessions of the good Captain descended to the new propri

etor.

Both parties seemed mutually pleased, and dreamed that all was well.

A short time had passed after this new change in the widow's circumstances, when one morning, as they sat at breakfast, the frontdoor bell rank. The sheriff entered, followed by a notary, commissioned to take inventories. Both seated themselves in the hall, while the hospitable hostess looked inquiringly in the face of her new husband, whose agitation could not be concealed.

The sheriff presented an execution, made out in due form, amounting to the full value of the fine house, land, furniture, equipages, carriages, horses, all.

Her spendthrift husband had accumulated