attentions with gentle patience, yet it was evident the child's heart had elected Diantha as its refuge, and poured upon her those fountains of affection which had been arrested and turned back to their source by the desolating wreck of the Stella.

One evening, about a week after the crisis had passed, and when Diantha was holding the little girl in her arms, that she might see a beautiful sunset, she asked, abruptly,―

"What is to be done with me, Miss Howell, when I get strong?"

Although this question of the child had often presented itself to Diantha's thoughts since love for the clinging, belpless orphan had crept into her heart, yet she was quite unprepared with an answer, and could only say, "There will be time enough to think of that when you are strong. God will provide a home for you, my dear child."

"O, Miss Howell, do you think, if you ask Him, He will let me live near you?"

"We will both ask Him every day to keep us in a home together, or very near each other. I think my little girl is almost as dear and as necessary to my happiness as I am to hers."

"You do love me?" asked the child, in an eager tone and with pleading eyes.

For answer Diantha only drew the little girl more closely against her heart, and kissed the quivering lips and questioning eyes.

"You must not allow any anxiety about your future to steal into your brain at present. Leave everything to the good God who has said that 'not even a sparrow falleth to the ground without His notice;" and a human soul is of more value to Him than many sparrows. Do you feel strong enough to-night to tell me something about your life before I found you?"

"If it tires me to talk I need not go on; and I'd like you to know all about me." Edna paused a few minutes, looking wearily out upon the fading sunset clouds and the white sails in Hanthrop harbor, as if collecting her thoughts; and when she spoke again, it was in a low, quiet voice, that expressed stronger and more delicate sensibilities than were natural to her years.

"It must have been five or six years ago that papa was teaching in New York, and grew very pale and weak, and the doctor said a sea voyage and a warm climate might do him good. We went in the Silver Swan a sailing packet to Smyrna, because papa knew the captain, and he let us go for less money than other captains asked. When we got there, papa hired two rooms in a porter's lodge, quite a long way out of the city; and we had plenty of grapes, oranges, and figs; and such a pretty view of the domes, mosques, and minarets of the city! and lovelier than all was our view of the harbor. Then papa grew better, and he used to walk away down to the city, and teach a few English children; and papa taught me, and we all learned to speak French. I think I can speak it quite as well as I can English," added the little girl, with a slight touch of pride in her tones, as if her accomplishments reflected honor on the dear parents whom her new friend could never know.

She leaned silently for a few minutes against Diantha's supporting arm, with such grief and loneliness depicted on her pale face, and with tears dropping slowly from eyes which seemed to look yearningly back into the past, that, for a moment, Diantha regretted having encouraged her to speak of herself. But she wisely inferred that Edna, in recalling the past, would be more than compensated by the feeling that a living friend knew enough of her buried joys to sympathize with her present sorrows. And in a

broken, tremulous voice, the child took up the thread of her narrative.

"I think we were very happy for two or three years, though we knew very few people, and had but little money. Then mamma got sick, and a little baby came that was always crying, and that worried both papa and mamma. We called the baby Paul: but he only lived a few weeks, and we buried him in a shady corner of the English cemetery. Soon after baby died, my sister Nora, a dear little girl with blue eyes, and short brown curls, and the sweetest voice, grew sick and died; and she was laid away under a cypress tree by the side of the baby. Papa was never strong enough to teach after Nora was taken; and when our money was all gone, and we had sold everything to the Jews that they would pay money for, we went to the English hospital. They were very kind to papa there; but he died very soon after. I think he grieved so much for Nora that he could not live without her, though he was very, very sad to leave mamma, and Nathan, and me."

Edna's tears flowed silently, and her quivering voice forbade speech for several minutes; and when she spoke again, it was only to tell of their daily walk to the wharves for weeks, in search of an American captain who would be willing to give them a passage to their native land, and trust to the charity of some friends, whom Mrs. Shreve was hoping to find, to pay him. She finished her recital by saying,

"I shall never forget the day we found Captain Ashmead, nor his kindness to mamma and Nathan; and I should like to show him how much I love him, and how grateful I am. Is he still in the hospital?"

"Yes, one of his feet was so badly frozen in that terrible storm, that Dr. Howell was obliged to take it off; and

It will be several weeks before he can walk about, even

with a crutch."

"O, I'm so sorry!

Please ask Dr. Howell to tell him how grieved I am. Is there any one to talk with him, and amuse him at the hospital?"

"Father visits him every day; and there are the nurses, and Mr. Moore, the assistant surgeon, is agreeable. I dare say they all try to amuse him. Then you know I go in two or three times a week, and write letters for him, and sometimes read."

"Do you think, when I am able to ride, Dr. Howell will take me to see him?"

"I can promise you he will, and leave you there for an hour every day to entertain your friend. I've no doubt you'll do the captain a vast amount of good, and you must let that hope encourage you to get strong."

66

May I ask, Miss Howell, where I shall get a gown, and a cloak, and a hood to wear when I am strong enough to ride?"

"Mrs. Bartlette and I have been planning and working for you, and we know just where a neat, comfortable little wardrobe is coming from."

A soft tinge of color flushed and paled on Edna's cheeks, and her delicate lips trembled with emotion; but she only said,

"Dear Miss Howell, I shall try to get well, so that I may show how much I love you."

"Indeed, you must try to get well for a great many better and wiser reasons than that. Now I shall forbid your talking any more this evening, and I shall leave you with Mrs. Bartlette while I go down to welcome your friend the doctor."

THE

PROPERTY

What He would have this evil do for me.
What is its mission? What its ministry?
What golden fruit lies hidden in its husk?"

"I HAVE pleasant news for you, Captain Ashmead," said Diantha, one January day, when she came into the captain's room almost as noiselessly as the snow that was slowly sifting from the heart of the gray clouds; and though her presence brought that sense of purity, peace, and rest which belongs to a quiet fall of snow, it brought a sunny cheerfulness also, more in harmony with the verdure and warmth of summer.

"Your face is the herald of good tidings, Miss Howell, and you've brought them to a willing ear; I am as tired of my own thoughts and fancies to-day, and as hungry for the sound of a pleasant human voice, as a man can be.”

"If that is your mood, my news will be particularly agreeable to you, as it promises a bright little visitor for you on the first pleasant day. Edna Shreve has been gaining so rapidly for the past week, that father has promised to bring her here to spend an hour with you every day, so long as you need her."

"Ay, that is pleasant news, indeed; she will be a welcome guest, and I hope will do me good. I have been wondering all the morning what is to become of the poor child. The letter you wrote to her mother's cousin in