Geoffrey swooped at him, his long arm out to seize him-missed the cunning elf, who slid from under his very fingers and stood laughing at him-trod on a bit of that wretched orange-peel, slipped, and fell through the hatchway.

The system of Juggernaut is doubtless good in its way, but no system can be calculated to a nicety; there must be always a margin for accidents, and so a child and a bit of orange-peel had reduced Juggernaut to a failure; for though Geoffrey had neither dashed out his brains, nor broken a leg or an arm, he lay quite helpless down there, where Jack peered over at him fearfully and crying; and when the men lifted him he told them that he could not feel them touch his legs, which made them look at each other queerly.

Presently it was buzzed about New Bracket that the doctors had declared that it was a mere matter of time;" so is all life, but it seems that they intended a short time; say from three days to a week. Geoffrey at first refused all credence to such a theory till the hours brought

him so close to death that he felt the chill of his clutch; then he promptly sent for a lawyer

thought that this man, who lay sneering at them over Death's shoulder, might stand in need of a minister as well as a lawyer; and some of them ventured to hint as much; but Geoffrey only turned his face to the wall and lay there in sullen silence. He had very nearly done with life. True, there were yet more breaths to draw, but each more labored than the last, and bringing him closer to the end. Juggernaut had forsaken him. Justice had found him out at last, and accounts were balanced between them. "God's mills grind slow but fine."

To the windows of the house belonging once to Geoffrey Gryce crowd often the little rosy faces of the orphans for whom it is now a home. In the church-yard stands a slab, bearing the inscription: GEOFFREY GRYCE, AGED 45.

Roses cluster and blossom around the stone, trimmed and tended from year to year by the hands of Sybil Dallas and her children.

ES'M!"

and made his will-business first as always "YES

making New Bracket his inheritrix, heir to an orphan asylum; that done, "And now," said Geoffrey, "for the full, true, and particular account of that modern Joseph who put the silver cup in the sack of a Benjamin, meaning to send him to State Prison, the dying confession of one Geoffrey Gryce, who, on the night of the 24th instant, did feloniously and burglariously rob himself of five thousand dollars in gold and notes;" and though Geoffrey's tone was careless, there was no mistaking the purpose of his face. Mr. Deepdwell's astonishment was good to see, for he was a man running always in one groove, and devoutly believing that respectability was goodness, and that a man who was regular at church, and swore only in private, had all the Christian virtues; and a man slipped up on his theory is as funny in his way as a man slipped up on the ice. It was well that Geoffrey's account was terse, clear, and complete, not a link wanting; otherwise Mr. Deepdwell would have set it aside as the fancy of a man in delirium. You think now Geoffrey had repented. Not in the least. He loved Sybil, and he cared nothing for obituaries. He knew it would be useless to will that self-willed girl his estate or a portion of it, as she would inevitably donate it to the first charitable institution. Mainwaring Dallas could insure her future, but for that he must first be acquitted of the charge against him. Geoffrey debated the point long. He would have relished a posthumous vengeance on the man who had dared to rival him, and he gnashed his teeth at thought of that man's happiness. But he loved Sybil with a mighty love, Istronger than all the other impulses of his life; and so New Bracket was treated to the confession of the modern Joseph. "Tell Sybil Overton this is my bequest to her," he said at its close. After such a confession the good simple folk

BRAINS.

I turned with a start. I was quite alone, as I thought, and the fine treble of that odd little voice struck strangely upon my ear. I had been saying that I was tired of life, or some such repining specch, which I never allowed myself except in solitude, and this object at my knee answered me, "Yes'm!" I looked at her in amazement. She was a little morsel, scarcely so tall as a well-grown child of seven, but with a grave, mature, preternaturally wise face, which might have belonged to any age from fifteen to twenty-five. Was she goblin or mortal?

"Who are you ?" I asked.

"My name is Susan Mory, ma'am, but they mostly call me 'Brains.' They say I've an old head to be on such young shoulders." And she laughed, a small, fine, queer laugh, as uncanny in sound as her voice. I was hardly yet convinced that she was human.

"How old are you?"

"Twelve, ma'am, last birthday."

"And what do you want, Brains? How came you here?"

"I want to do your errands, ma'am. I heard you needed some one; and your door wasn't quite shut, so I came in. Excuse the freedom." And here she bobbed me a droll little courtesy, quite in keeping with her voice, and her laugh, and the quaint correctness and propriety of her conversation. It was true I wanted an errandgif; but what could this odd morsel of humanity do?

"What wages did you expect?" I asked, more from curiosity to see what estimation she put upon her services than with any serious intention of employing her.

"I heard you had been paying three dollars a week, and the girl boarded herself. I think I could earn as much."

"But she was a large girl," I said, in sur-ceived a fine-lady sort of education. I could prise." She swept and dusted my room, car-play and sing-with taste rather than with sciried home all my work, and shopped for linings ence. I danced well; I drew a little; I read and trimmings."

"Yes'm." She spoke with an acquiescent air, as if she thought the work I had mentioned was not at all too much for her. She seemed so ready and cheery that I couldn't bear to refuse her.

"Can you sweep?" I asked.

"If you'll try me, ma'am, I think my work will please you. If not, you know it's only to send me away again."

There was no room to dispute her assertion. I began to like the quaint, neat little creature, with her earnest, unchildish face. I would question her a little more, I thought.

"Have you a home?" I asked. live with your parents?"

"Do you

"With my mother. There are three of us -mother, and I, and Body-I mean my sister Jane; she grew so fast, and was so careless and thoughtless, that father always used to call her Body, and me Brains. When the war broke out he went for a private soldier, but he was shot the second summer. We have eight dollars a month, you know-mother's pensionbut that won't quite make us comfortable, and mother's delicate; and so I thought if I could do your errands, ma'am."

So she, too, had lost by the war-she in one way and I in another. The thought made my heart warm to her yet more.

"You may come to-morrow morning," I said. "Come at half past six, and ask the porter for the key of No. 10. You will find a broom in that closet behind the door, and you can get the room swept and dusted before the girls come to work."

"'Yes'm."

French; I could manage Italian enough for a song; but what one thing did I know well enough to teach it? Not one. And even if I had, there were fifty applicants for every vacant situation in the department of instruction. Clearly I must do something besides teaching. I could not sew fast enough to earn much in that way. What was I good for? My selfesteem went rapidly down to zero, when suddenly a new idea took possession of me. I had one endowment which I might make available as capital-taste in dress. I use the words in their highest sense. I not only knew what was pretty when I saw it-I knew what would be pretty before I saw it. I had original ideas. In the days when I had been a leader of fashion in my own set my dresses and my trimmings had never been servile imitations of French models. I had always invented something for myself, often for my friends. Schneider had said that my taste would be a fortune to any mantua-maker. It should be a fortune, then, to me.

I matured my plan and then communicated it to my mother. As I had foreseen, it vexed her sorely at first. But when I set matters before her in their true light, and she saw it afforded our only chance of comfort and independence, she began to look on the idea more favorably. She made only one stipulationthat I should not attempt to carry out my undertaking in New York. To this I was quite ready to accede. The supercilious patronage of all my former friends would have been a burden quite too heavy to be borne. I should feel more comfortable, even if I made less money, to begin elsewhere. My scheme was quite an

Another droll little courtesy, and she was ambitious one. I ignored the proverbs about gone.

small beginnings, little acorns, and so on. I
meant to storm success at the outset. I let the
house which we were occupying for a year, and
arranged to leave my mother with the new ten-
ants until I was ready to come for her.
I went to Boston.

Then

Then I went back to my thoughts again. They were a little less melancholy and selfcompassionate, however, for the diversion. Yet I had lost so much. Before the war began my father had been one of the wealthy merchants of New York. He did a large wholesale busi- I found vacant rooms in a building on Sumness, mostly with the South, and when the cri- mer Street, in which nearly all the up-stairs sis came it ruined him utterly. In the summer apartments were used by milliners and dressof 1861 we went to a little place in the country makers. I had no references, but I engaged to which belonged to my mother, and there he pay my rent monthly in advance; and having died. I think it was his trouble which brought paid the first month I arranged my rooms, and on the long, slow fever from which he never put my sign-"MISS MACGREGOR"-on my rallied. Then, in that fall after his death, I door, and down stairs at the lower entrance. had to decide upon my future. We had scarce- I had hired a dress-maker to go on with me from ly a hundred dollars in the world besides the New York-one who had been in the habit of little place which sheltered us, but which fn-going out by the day, and had often sewed for sured us only a roof over our heads. My mo- me on common dresses. She could fit exceedther was a delicate woman, accustomed ever since her marriage to be petted and waited on and tended. She was utterly broken down by her grief at the loss of my father. I must think for both and work for both.

I, too, had been accustomed to luxury, and never trained to any thing useful. I had re

ingly well, but she would have been utterly
wanting in the comprehensive ability necessary
to carry on a business, and she made no preten-
sions to taste about trimming. She was quite
satisfied to be hands and let me be head, and
would be contented with her weekly wages.
one of my rooms was a wardrobe bedstead,

In

Madam started at this with a gesture of alarm. | small one which happened about that time to "Do you not fit them on yourself?" she asked. "Even Lubec always did that."

There is no surer way to

fall vacant-so that she could be as retired as she wished. I completed this arrangement early in the winter of 1861, and for the two

"By no means. spoil one's power of adapting a dress to the fig-years between that time and the first appearure. I stand at a little distance, and see that an artistic effect is preserved."

By this time Miss Granger was pinning on the lining over the slight girlish form of the elder daughter. She could fit well, and they must have perceived it. I gave a few hints and directions, and the work was accomplished.

"Will you leave the trimming entirely to me?" I asked, as the mamma shook the lustrous, pearl-colored silk out of its folds, "or have you a choice?"

"Leave it her," I heard the younger daughter whisper-"I know by her own looks she has good taste."

ance of little “Brains” in my establishment, I had been prospering beyond my hopes. But I was not happy. Success brought, indeed, a certain kind of satisfaction; but I missed sorely the care-free life of the old days, the liberty to follow my own tastes and ways, and I did miss Horace Weir. I had heard of him incidentally. He had come home from France, and was now practicing his profession in New York. I would have given much to know whether he had thought of me, inquired after me, tried to trace me out. Vain enough it must have been if he had. I had given no clew to my present residence to a single old friend. Every one of them to the best of my belief had lost sight of me. I was wedded to a life very different from any of my early dreams. I had been successful, it is true, beyond my expectations. I was saving money. I could make my mother comfortable. I had little to do with the laborious details of my business. My task was to invent graceful fashions

So it was settled that I should make the dresses as I chose. No sooner had they left than I began my task. I had only two seamstresses engaged besides Miss Granger; but we all worked. A few other customers came in, and I put them off until these two dresses should be finished. When done, they were to be sent to Mrs. John Sturgis, Beacon Street; and I felt to suit colors to fair faces-to make charming that if they gave satisfaction I should have made as good a beginning as I desired. I trimmed them so differently that, though the silk was the same, the dresses were totally unlike, and yet equal in elegance. I sent them home the afternoon before the reception, and Miss Granger was kind enough to go with them and try them on, though that was not at all in her province. She came back and reported elegant fits and perfect satisfaction.

The next morning Mrs. Sturgis came for my bill. It was a matter on which I had bestowed some thought. I had questioned whether it would be the best policy to conciliate custom by the moderation of my charges, or to convey a sense of my own importance by their extravagance. One of my girls had formerly worked for Madame Lubec, who had stood at the head hitherto of Boston fashion. After a consultation with her I had made out my bill, charging perhaps two or three dollars on a dress more than Lubec would have done.

Mrs. Sturgis ran over the items.

"You are a little higher in your rates than is customary here," she said; "but I suppose we must be willing to pay something for your taste. My daughters' dresses were the loveliest in the Can you make them some more next week? They want some walking dresses, and I a dinner dress."

room.

"Not next week, I am sorry to say. I am more busy than when you came first. I think I might promise for the week after next."

toilets for girls living just such lives as I used to live once. God forgive me if sometimes I almost hated them-if now and then a mad rebellious impulse seized me, and I cursed fate in my heart, forgetting that fate was but another name for Providence.

After she went

I had been in one of these murmuring moods when little Susan Mory interrupted my meditations with her fine, small voice. away I relapsed into it only partially, and roused myself with determination at last, and went to my mother, to amuse her with an account of my droll little visitor. After all, mother had much more to bear than I. She had not even the diversion of business. She must sit through the long, slow days, remembering the past and all its good gifts and false promises-stung by its contrast with the empty-handed present. How much more she had lost, too! What was the sentimental regret of a young girl over a love that had never even been declared, to a wife's sorrow and longing for the household tenderness which had been hers for a quarter of a century? As I opened her door I reproached myself for all my repinings.

I was glad to perceive that she was really interested about "Brains." She wanted to see her on the morrow, and began planning about garments we could give her to make over for herself and her sister.

The next morning, curious to see whether my small handmaiden had arrived, I put on my dressing-gown a little before seven, and looked

I had decidedly made a hit. After that cus-into the work-room. I opened the door so quiettomers came fast enough; and a good many of them spoke of the dresses Aggie Sturgis and her sister had worn at the wedding. I was able, in two months from that beginning, to bring on my mother, and to take for her a third room-a

ly that she did not hear it. She had swept the room carefully, and now she stood in a chair dusting the window frames. It was very amusing to see her grave, womanly patience and care, and her queer expedients to accomplish the tasks

She dropped instantly from her chair, and Body." made me her droll little courtesy.

"Yes'm," she said, cheerfully, "I'm come. I've been trying to make it as clean here as usual." And she glanced at me interrogatively with her bright, thoughtful eyes, that looked so large and wistful in her queer, little, old-young face.

"Yes," I said, "you have made it very nice; shall get along nicely, and I will come to see I think you will please me." her as soon as I can make time-to-night, if not before."

Half an hour later there was a timid knock on the door, and in came a girl whom I had never seen before. I recognized her at once for the ten-year-old sister of my little errand-girl-recognized her, as one often does, by some mysterious family likeness, which seemed to vanish when I looked at her more steadily. This one Her gratitude touched me profoundly, for it was a real, actual child-large of her age, with seemed to me, even then, that she would never full, rosy cheeks, and eyes round as beads. She get any better; and it was so hard to think of came straight up to me, and delivered her mes- that poor little patient life going out so early, sage with the air of one who had been taught it quenched in its dawn. carefully.

"Do not be troubled by any fear of want. I It was just like "Brains"-the polite, careful shall pay Susy her wages just the same as if she message.