The Home Mission. Arthur Timothy Shay

years from the day of that unhappy separation, we find Mrs. Canning in the unobtrusive home of Aunt Hannah, who took the almost heart-broken wife into the bosom of her own family, after the passage of nearly a year had made her almost hopeless of ever seeing him again. No one knew where he was. Only once did Margaret hear from him, and that was on the third day after he had parted from her, when he appeared in the court-room, and made a most powerful argument in favour of the client whose important case had prevented his going with his wife to the assembly. After that he disappeared, and no one could tell aught of him. A liberal annuity had been settled upon his wife, and the necessary papers to enable her to claim it transmitted to her under a blank envelope.

      Five years had changed Margaret sadly. The high-spirited, blooming, happy woman, was now a meek, quiet, pale-faced sufferer. Lilly had grown finely, all unconscious of her mother's suffering, and was a very beautiful child. She attracted the notice of everyone.

      "Aunt Hannah," said Margaret, one day after this long, long period of suffering, "I have what you will call a strange idea in my mind. It has been visiting me for weeks, and now I feel much inclined to act from its dictates. You know that Mr. and Mrs. Edwards are going to Paris next month. Ever since Mrs. Edwards mentioned it to me, I have felt a desire to go with them. I don't know why, but so it is. I think it would do me good to go to Paris and spend a few months there. When a young girl, I always had a great desire to see London and Paris; and this desire is again in my mind."

      "I would go, then," said Aunt Hannah, who thought favourably of any thing likely to divert the mind of her niece from the brooding melancholy in which it was shrouded.

      To Paris Mrs. Canning went, accompanied by her little daughter, who was the favourite of every one on board the steamer in which they sailed. In this gray city, however, she did not attain as much relief of mind as she had anticipated. She found it almost impossible to take interest in any thing, and soon began to long for the time to come when she could go back to the home and heart of her good Aunt Hannah. The greatest pleasure she took was in going with Lilly to the Gardens of the Tuileries, and amid the crowd there to feel alone with nature in some of her most beautiful aspects. Lilly was always delighted to get there, and never failed to bring something in her pocket for the pure white swans that floated so gracefully in the marble basin into which the water dashed cool and sparkling from beautiful fountains.

      One day, while the child was playing at a short distance from her mother, a man seated beside a bronze statue, over which drooped a large orange tree, fixed his eyes upon her admiringly, as hundreds of others had done. Presently she came up and stood close to him, looking up into the face of the statue. The man said something to her in French, but Lilly only smiled and shook her head.

      "What is your name, dear?" he then said in English.

      "Lilly," replied the child.

      A quick change passed over the man's face. With much more interest in his voice, he said—

      "Where do you live? In London?"

      "Oh no, sir; I live in America."

      "What is your name besides Lilly?"

      "Lilly Canning, sir."

      The man now became strongly agitated. But he contended vigorously with his feelings.

      "Where is your mother, dear?" he asked, taking her hand as he spoke, and gently pressing it between his own.

      "She is here, sir," returned Lilly, looking inquiringly into the man's face.

      "Here!"

      "Yes, sir. We come here every day."

      "Where is your mother now?"

      "Just on the other side of the fountain. You can't see her for the lime-tree."

      "Is your father here, also?" continued the man.

      "No, I don't know where my father is." "Is he dead?" "No, sir; mother says he is not dead, and that she hopes he will come home soon. Oh! I wish he would come home. We would all love him so!"

      The man rose up quickly, and turning from the child, walked hurriedly away. Lilly looked after him for a moment or two, and then ran back to her mother.

      On the next day Lilly saw the same man sitting under the bronze statue. He beckoned to her, and she went to him.

      "How long have you been in Paris, dear?" he asked.

      "A good many weeks," she replied.

      "Are you going to stay much longer?"

      "I don't know. But mother wants to go home."

      "Do you like to live in Paris?"

      "No, sir. I would rather live at home with mother and Aunt Hannah."

      "You live with Aunt Hannah, then?"

      "Yes, sir. Do you know Aunt Hannah?" and the child looked up wonderingly into the man's face.

      "I used to know her," he replied.

      Just then Lilly heard her mother calling her, and she started and ran away in the direction from which the voice came. The man's face grew slightly pale, and he was evidently much agitated. As he had done on the evening previous, he rose up hastily and walked away. But in a short time he returned, and appeared to be carefully looking about for some one. At length he caught sight of Lilly's mother. She was sitting with her eyes upon the ground, the child leaning upon her, and looking into her face, which he saw was thin and pale, and overspread with a hue of sadness. Only for a few moments did he thus gaze upon her, and then he turned and walked hurriedly from the garden.

      Mrs. Canning sat alone with her child that evening, in the handsomely-furnished apartments she had hired on arriving in Paris.

      "He told you that he knew Aunt Hannah?" she said, rousing up from a state of deep thought.

      "Yes, ma. He said he used to know her."

      "I wonder"—

      A servant opened the door, and said that a gentleman wished to see

      Mrs. Canning.

      "Tell him to walk in," the mother of Lilly had just power to say. In breathless suspense she waited for the space of a few seconds, when the man who had spoken to Lilly in the Gardens of the Tuileries entered and closed the door after him.

      Mrs. Canning raised her eyes to his face. It was her husband! She did not cry out nor spring forward. She had not the power to do either.

      "That's him now, mother!" exclaimed Lilly.

      "It's your father!" said Mrs. Canning, in a deeply breathed whisper.

      The child sprung toward him with a quick bound and was instantly clasped in his arms.

      "Lilly, dear Lilly!" he sobbed, pressing his lips upon her brow and cheeks. "Yes! I am your father!"

      The wife and mother sat motionless and tearless with her eyes fixed upon the face of her husband. After a few passionate embraces, Canning drew the child's arms from about his neck, and setting her down upon the floor, advanced slowly toward his wife. Her eyes were still tearless, but large drops were rolling over his face.

      "Margaret!" he said, uttering her name with great tenderness.

      He was by her side in time to receive her upon his bosom, as she sunk forward in a wild passion of tears.

      All was reconciled. The desolate hearts were again peopled with living affections. The arid waste smiled in greenness and beauty.

      In their old home, bound by threefold cords of love, they now think only of the past as a severe lesson by which they have been taught the heavenly virtue of forbearance. Five years of intense suffering changed them both, and left marks that after years can never efface. But selfish impatience and pride were all subdued, and their hearts melted into each other, until they became almost like one heart. Those who meet them now, and observe the deep, but unobtrusive affection with which they regard each other, would never imagine, did they not know their previous history, that love, during one period of that married life, had been so long and so totally eclipsed.

      THE SOCIAL SERPENT

      A LADY, whom we will call Mrs. Harding, touched with