CHARLEY'S BONFIRE.

BY LETTICE THORPE.

HARLEY BOND'S prevailing passion was mischief. It grew with his growth, and strengthened with his strength. It nourished and sustained him. It relieved and inspired him. At the age when other boys are lean and angular, he became rounder and sturdier, and more dimpled than ever. But it led him into constant trouble and innumerable scrapes. He no sooner tumbled out of one, than he was ready to tumble into another. He kept his friends always in a state of nervous excitement, expecting that something really dreadful would finally happen to him. As it was, he was seldom seen without a bandage either on his head or hands. He nearly cut off two of his fingers, and chiselled a large piece out of his wrist, while experimenting upon an elegant new bookcase, that was sent home one day during his mother's absence. Whenever any sudden noise or commotion was heard about the house, some anxious voice would inquire: "What is Charley about now?" If he was very still for an unusually long time, the conclusion always drawn from it was: "Charley must be in mischief, he is so quiet."

Of course the young rogue had to be punished severely and often, and in all manner of ways, and it really demanded considerable ingenuity to devise new plans and methods for bringing his spirit under subjection. He would persist in setting his dog on to little pigs, although he had been tied to the bed-post time and time again for so doing; his only excuse for such improper conduct being that, "'Twas such jolly fun to see the pigs run, and hear them squeal like sixty." He would pull the cat's tail whenever he had a chance, although the scratches upon his hands and face bore painful evidence that she defended herself with all the spirit of her valiant race. The punishment usually resorted to by his mother was that of close confinement in a closet; but he became very tired of it, and one day when he had been deporting himself in a very naughty way, and she said to him, "Now, Charley, I shall have to punish you," he replied in a voice of pitiful pleading, “O mother, give me a whipping this time; please don't shut me up!" And, of course, so modest a request received the attention it deserved.

It was not often his father took him in hand; but sometimes, when his misdemeanors were of such a very heinous character that feminine jurisdiction proved tame and profit!ess, Mrs. Bond would call in the aid of her husband to subdue the young rebel.

One day he was intent upon finding a gopher's hole, that he suspected was somewhere about under the new and finely-growing potato-plants. Pursuing, with eager enthusiasm, his researches into the animal kingdom, he recklessly pulled up the plants, tossing them hither and thither to assist him in his explorations. His father had corrected him repeatedly for his persistent meddling with the vegetable-garden, so this time he led him up into his own room, preparatory to a severe castigation, in the way of moral discipline.

"Won't you let me say my prayers, first, papa ?" pleaded the weeping child.

"Certainly, my son," replied his father. "I am very glad to see that you are anxious to atone in some way for having been so naughty."

Holding up his hands, the little fellow began at once," Please bless my papa; my good, kind papa."

The paternal heart was melted by this appeal, and, lifting the child into bed, he kissed him, saying, "Charley, I will not whip you this time, as I see that you are really sorry for your fault; but you must try hard and not err in the same way again."

It was not very long after this, when Mr. Bond was again called upon to correct the incorrigible boy. He took him up to his room, and with the tears streaming down his cheeks, Charley made the same request as before.

"Papa, may I not say my prayers?"

"No, my boy, that will not do a second time. I shall have to administer the whipping first, and then I hope you will pray to be made better and more obedient than you are now."

Charley's great ambition was to build a bonfire. That, to him, seemed the height of all earthly happiness; and he had coaxed and pleaded and begged for permission to build "one great, big, bully bonfire." No, his father would not permit anything of the kind until he was thirteen years old. Five years was a long time to wait; but Charley was constantly making the most elaborate preparations for the blissful fulfilment of his dreams. He had a tremendous pile of old sticks and boards and broken pails and baskets collected together behind the barn, that would have served of itself to make quite a respectable Fourth of July. Every few days he would be seen lugging off an old boot, or hat, or broken piece of furniture, and to him it was an actual delight to see anything break about the house. Indeed, there were rumors afloat that he sometimes helped, in a sly way, to produce these breakages. He would bring great pieces of bark and wood from a weary distance, to increase his pile; and, really the hard work he did to accomplish his own mischievous ends was quite astonishing.

One morning, bright and early, his parents went away upon a visit, intending to be gone all day, and Charley was left at home with an elder sister and one servant. In the afternoon his sister also went out to call upon a friend, and the little boy was left pretty much to his own devices; for of the good-natured Irish girl in the kitchen he did not stand much in awe. All at once the thought flashed upon him, that now he might make a bonfire, and no contrary-minded person would be any the wiser. He sat and debated the question for a long time, his wishes and his fears alike contending for the mastery; but his wishes, as usual, gained the battle; he quieting his conscience with the assurance that he would only make a little wee fire.

So he selected an open space pretty near the barn, and commenced with a few small boughs and sticks; but as the fire burned brighter, his courage grew stronger, and, forgetting his first

precautions, he brought larger boughs and longer sticks. Then he rolled into it a big barrel, and the way it hissed and fumed and crackled filled his heart with the wildest enthusiasm. His spirits were a little subdued, however, when a neighbor passing by, called out, "Charley take care that you do not set the barn on fire." That idea was rather an appalling one.

A few moments afterwards, one of those sudden gusts sprang up that render our climate so charmingly uncertain and variable, and the bonfire began to assume quite an alarming appearance. It seemed very much inclined to embrace the fence, and innumerable tongues of flame leaped furiously towards it; but it was not until the boards were actually on fire, that Charley was really and thoroughly frightened. Then he screamed in his est tones," Bridget! Brid-get!"

The girl came running out, and seeing what the trouble was screamed in her turn-"Fire! fire! Murder! murder!" and the neighbors came from every direction.

"That's Charley's work-the young rascal!" growled a cross old man, who disapproved of children generally, and of Charley in particular.

"Won't you catch it when your father comes!" jeered a little urchin, who looked as if he might be in the habit of "catching it" quite frequently

himself.

"Are the horses in the barn?" inquired another voice.

"Oh, my pony!" exclaimed Charley, and glad to escape from the group of reproving faces all about him, he ran into the stable. Fortunately there was a back door, and, leading his pony through it, he tied him to a fence at some little distance. There was a pump in the barn-yard, and hose also, so that the men, going heartily to work, soon subdued the flames. The barn did not catch fire, but the fence and cow-shed were badly damaged. When the young culprit saw the devastation he had caused, his heart sank within him, and he concluded as many have done before, that prudence was much the best part of valor, so, slipping quietly away, he never stopped until he reached the house of his uncle, who lived about a mile from there.

When Mr. and Mrs. Bond returned their first inquiry was for Charley.

"He got into trouble, and has gone, I suspect, to spend the night at uncle's," replied his sister. "We came near having a conflagation here." "Did he build a bonfire?"

"Yes, sir."

"The little rascal! I shall have to punish him severely."

"Poor child!" exclaimed his mother; "how frightened he must have been! He is feeling unhappy enough now, I know, to punish him for his disobedience."

"He will be punished more, however," replied her husband. "I am getting very tired of his mad pranks."

So poor Charley was brought back the next morning in disgrace, and he was known afterwards to remark, that he "didn't think so very much of bonfires, after all."

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THE EMBROIDERED SLIPPERS.

BY MRS. C. H. FORD.

OW shrill the storm whistles around the corners of the streets, or howls down the chimney; and hark to the sleet pattering furiously against the casement! Oh! the poor-what sufferings must be theirs on such a night as this."

The speaker was one in whom such language would have seemed to common ears strange. He was attired with great nicety, almost amounting to foppishness, and his broad forehead and handsome face betrayed none of the furrows of care. Rich, courted, and as yet a stranger to sorrow, Charles

Harcout had still a heart open to the miseries of his less favored fellow beings, and now, as he sat before the cheery fire in that luxurious parlor, his thoughts turned involuntarily to the houseless out casts who might be wandering the streets. His words were partly in soliloquy, and partly addressed to a lady who sat opposite him on the sofa, her delicate foot buried in the soft Turkey carpet, and her jewelled hands resting ostentatiously on the arm of the seat beside her. She was dressed fashionably, and with exquisite taste. Her face was lovely, surpassingly lovely, with regular features, and eyes, and eyebrows, and forehead of unrivalled beauty. A small chain of gold crossed her brow, fastened in front by a diamond of great price,

which blazed and flickered like a star. It was evident from the look with which Harcout turned towards her that his heart had been touched, if not overcome by her beauty. She returned his fond look and replied:

"Yes! poor wretches-I fear enough has not been done for them this winter. You don't know, Mr. Harcout, how my heart has bled, during the explorations I have lately been making among the lanes and alleys of the suburbs. Such scenes of destitution and sickness, oh, I shudder to recur to them," and she covered her eyes with her hands, as if to shut out some disagreeable object. Harcout's fine eyes expressed deeper admiration at this evidence of her sympathy; and had they been alone perhaps his feelings would have hurried him into the declaration he had been long meditating. But there was a third person in the room, whom we have hitherto forgotten, though to be thus postponed to her cousin was the usual fate of Edith Melville. And yet, when one came to look at her, the causes of this neglect seemed doubtful. True she was not as splendidly beautiful as Clara, but her soft, dove-like eyes shone with an expression which seemed more angelic than earthly; and her whole countenance impressed the beholder with feelings of purity and awe. She was sitting at a table, a little apart, busily plying her needle; and seemed to take no part in the conversation, though when her cousin answered Harcout, she started and looked up, first at her and then at him, and catching the expression on his face, she turned deadly pale. Bending over her work to hide her feelings, she remained silent and almost unconscious of what was going on, until Harcout rose to take his leave.

"You have been quite still to-night, Edith," he said, "but I attribute it all to that beautiful pair of slippers you are working. I never knew before you loved embroidery."

Edith, unlike her cousin, was not an heiress, for the little pittance left her by her deceased parent barely sufficed for her almost necessary wants; and had not her uncle offered her a home, her scanty annuity would have been insufficient even for these. Thus though her heart was as open as day charity, she had no means of relieving the necessitous, unless by the embroidered slippers, on which she had been working that evening. These were intended, as her words implied, to relieve the wants of a sick, and perhaps dying old servant, who had formerly been a nurse in her father's family, and who was now in the lowest depth of poverty.

Our readers have already suspected the state of Edith's heart. Her love for Harcout had grown up insensibly to herself. He had long been in the habit of visiting at her uncle's, and for a while his attentions had been equally divided between Clara and her cousin. And his warm heart, high intellect and extensive acquirements rendered him just the person to win the heart of such a girl as Edith.

She would sit whole evenings listening to his eloquent conversation, never speaking unless spoken to, but busily plying her needle. Nor did she become aware of the nature of her feelings for Harcout until the increased particularity of his attention to Clara, awakened her to the fact that she loved him. Then she strove against her passion; but alas! it had become so interwoven with her gentle heart that only death could remove it.

Clara had long desired to become the wife of Charles Harcout, for his standing in society was high, and his fortune almost of a millionaire. She had early seen that he wavered between her cousin and herself, and all her arts had been exerted to win the prize. She, therefore, assumed feelings she did not entertain, as in the conversation we have just recorded; and, at length, by such duplicity, united to her extraordinary and striking beauty, she succeeded so far as to regard her ultimate

"They are not for myself."

Harcout colored, and it was evident from his manner that what he heard was, from some cause disagreeable to him. He looked inquiringly at Clara, and then answered:

"Whoever the person is, Miss Edith, he has great reason to be proud, and would be even more so if he knew how devoted you have been to your work," and without waiting for a reply, he bowed to both ladies and left the room, without noticing the flash of triumph in Clara's eyes. The instant the door closed on him Edith sprung from her seat, and left the parlor, burst into tears, and hurrying up stairs locked herself in her room. Then flinging herself passionately on the bed she wept as if her heart would break.

"O! cruel, cruel," she sobbed, "to tell me I am working the slippers for another, when only he is in my heart. He little knows that I am embroidering them to raise a few dollars to assist nurse in her poverty. And Clara! heartless Clara! to talk about her sympathy for the destitute when she will do nothing for our almost second mother, who is now sick and in poverty. Could Charles only know the truth!" and she wept afresh.

the exulting laugh with which she saw Edith depart from the parlor.

Next day Charles Harcout called, and invited the cousins to go with him to a beneficial concert that evening. Edith would have declined, but had no sufficient plea, besides, her uncle, who was present, insisted on it. After the concert there was an address for the poor, to be followed by a collection. The speaker was one of the most eloquent men in the city, and on the occasion he surpassed himself. The enthusiasm he awoke was perceptible when the plates were passed through the assembly. Many who had left their purses at home, took off their rings and threw them down for alms. Among these persons was Clara, who drew a valuable diamond from her finger, and thus gave it away. Harcout saw the action and mentally resolved to wait on the committee in the morning and redeem the ring, and with this determination glanced at Edith to see what would be her offering. Ignorant of her pecuniary situation he saw with disgust that she merely bowed and suffered the plate to pass on, though a deep blush mantled her cheek.

"How mean!" was the inward ejaculation of Harcout; "well have I chosen between the two. But, selfish as she is, she has yet the feeling of

JBRARY

RCANTI

shame." Edith caught the look and understood it; and when she returned she spent the night in tears.

But Charles Harcout might have been seen sitting in his room at a late hour that night, his arms folded across his chest, his neglected newspaper lying on the floor beside his chair, and his eyes gazing fixedly into the glowing grate. He was in a brown study, and the principal occupants of his thoughts were the two cousins whom he had just left. And out of the glowing coals there seemed to rise a beautiful vision-the vision of a lady in snow-robes, with orange blossoms in her hair, and sparkling jewels on her bosom; and the face of this apparition disclosed the lovely features of Clara Townley.

SEE ENGRAVING.

"Yes," muttered the young man to himself, "It had better be Clara, if it is either of them. I had hoped it might be Edith, but what I have recently noticed convinces me that she is selfish, if not positively heartless."

who preferred patronizing a benevolent institution or buying elsewhere. This society was the one whose concert she and Clara had attended the night before, and when she entered the saloon, Harcout was, by chance, in an inner apartment, where he had been shown while the ring which he had come to buy had been sent out to be valued by a jeweler. He was listlessly reading a newspaper, when his attention was arrested by a voice in the outer shop.

"Can you buy these slippers?" said the voice to the shopwoman. A pause ensued as if the woman was examining them, and came then the reply. 'Why, Miss, they are not finished."

"I know that, I know that," quickly said the other, in emotion, "but I am in want of the money for purposes of charity. The comfort, perhaps the life of an aged person, is at stake. If you will advance me the money now I will finish the slippers."

"It is from nurse," she said; "she has got the poor woman who waits on her to write it. She is failing fast, and wishes, dear Clara, to see you; for, she says, she has not forgotten when we were both in her arms together."

"I cannot go," said Clara, peevishly, "the carriage is in use this morning, and the snow is a foot deep on the ground. I wouldn't walk out in the suburbs, to the dirty den where she lives, for anything. Besides, how unreasonable she is? Did I not send her five dollars when she was first taken sick?".

"But that was a month ago."

"And what if it was?" said Clara, sharply, "one isn't made of money."

"But for our old nurse."

"For our old nurse!" said she, mimicking Edith, "why I can't see what peculiar claims she has on me. I shan't go to see her that's certain; and as for giving her any more money, I can't afford it. I gave away a ring last night worth a hun| dred dollars, and shan't give a cent again for years. The county takes care of the poor, and we all pay taxes for them. Let Aunt Betty go to the poor-house."

Edith sighed, but said nothing. She took the slippers, and wrapping them in paper, was about to leave the room. But with her hand on the door she turned and said hesitatingly :

"Aunt Betty doesn't ask you, dear Clara, for money-she only asks to see you; it would be such a comfort to her, she says, before she dies." Clara turned round, for she was looking at the fire, and with an angry tone answered,

"Do shut that door-the chill air of the entry makes me shiver. If you are fool enough to go out on such a bitter day as this, go, but assuredly I shan't go with you."

With a sad heart Edith departed, and arraying herself warmly, and in partial disguise, left the house. She first went to the rooms of a society which purchased fancy articles from indigent females, and resold them to those wealthy persons

your name and residence."

There was a pause, as if a struggle was going on in the other's breast; then she asked for a piece of paper to write her address.

"Miss Edith Melville," said the matron, in some surprise," I have often heard of her, though I do not know her personally. Surely, Miss, there is some mistake here. That lady is, if I mistake not, the niece of Mr. Townley."

But Harcout had risen from his seat, for now recognizing the voice of Edith, he was about to enter the shop. He checked himself, however, but the matron hearing him rise, fortunately left the shop to see if he wished her. In a few hurried words he told her to buy the slippers, placing his purse in her hand. He then waited until Edith had left the shop, when he followed her at a safe distance, until she entered a narrow lane, and cautiously opening the door, saw her approach the bedside of an invalid old woman.

"God bless you, dear Miss Edith," she fondly said, " your visits are the only comfort I now have. But where is Miss Clara? won't she come once to see her old nurse!-I thought I heard a second step on the stairs."

"No, it was only the echo of mine. Clara can't come to-day, but I have brought you my little purse to buy a few comforts for you. You know it is a scauty one, but all I have you are welcome to."

"I know it, I know it. God bless you, for an angel as you are. And Clara is not well, else surely she would have come to see me, after my dying request."

Edith avoided an answer, which Harcout noticed, though the invalid did not. He had seen enough and gently withdrawing from the door was soon in the street.

"How I have misjudged this angel! And Clara, oh! how I loathe her hypocrisy. I cannot believe she is sick, but I will go at once and see.".

Harcout found Clara at home, and to an inquiry about her health, she declared she had never been better in her life. Convinced of her duplicity he