a fine and lofty fibre of loyalty which could never condescend even to parley with a thought derogatory to its object; was lifted above all consciousness of the possibility of any other course.  This is a sort of organic integrity of affection, which is to those who receive it a tower of strength, that is impregnable to all assault except that of death itself.  It is a rare type of love, the best the world knows; but the men and the women whose hearts are capable of it are often thought not to be of a loving nature.  The cheaper and less lasting types of love are so much louder of voice and readier of phrase, as in cloths cheap fabrics, poor to wear, are often found printed in gay colors and big patterns.

The day before they left home, Mercy, becoming alarmed by a longer interval than usual without any sound from the garret, where her mother was still at work over her fantastic collections of old odds and ends, ran up to see what it meant.

Mrs. Carr was on her knees before a barrel, which had held rags and papers.  The rags and papers were spread around her on the floor.  She had leaned her head on the barrel, and was crying bitterly.

“Mother! mother! what is the matter?” exclaimed Mercy, really alarmed; for she had very few times in her life seen her mother cry.  Without speaking, Mrs. Carr held up a little piece of carved ivory.  It was of a creamy yellow, and shone like satin:  a long shred of frayed pink ribbon hung from it.  As she held it up to Mercy, a sunbeam flashed in at the garret window, and fell across it, sending long glints of light to right and left.

“What a lovely bit of carving!  What is it, mother?  Why does it make you cry?” asked Mercy, stretching out her hand to take the ivory.

“It’s Caley’s whistle,” sobbed Mrs. Carr.  “We allus thought Patience Swift must ha’ took it.  She nussed me a spell when he was a little feller, an’ jest arter she went away we missed the whistle.  Your father he brought that hum the same v’yage I told ye he brought the blue crape.  He knowed I was a expectin’ to be sick, and he was drefful afraid he wouldn’t get hum in time; but he did.  He jest come a sailin’ into th’ harbor, with every mite o’ sail the old brig ‘d carry, two days afore Caley was born.  An’ the next mornin’,—­oh, dear me! it don’t seem no longer ago ’n yesterday,—­while he was a dressin’, an’ I lay lookin’ at him, he tossed that little thing over to me on the bed, ‘n’ sez he,—­”

“T ’ll be a boy, Mercy, I know ‘twill; an’ here’s his bos’u’n’s whistle all ready for him,’ an’ that night he bought that very yard o’ pink rebbin, and tied it on himself, and laid it in the upper drawer into one o’ the little pink socks I’d got all ready.  Oh, it don’t seem any longer ago ‘n yesterday!  An’ sure enough it was a boy; an’ your father he allus used to call him ‘Bos’u’n,’ and he’d stick this ere whistle into his mouth an’ try to make him blow it afore he was a month old.  But by the time he was nine months old he’d