His wife opened the little bedroom door adjoining her room, and taking the candle, set it down on the top of a bureau there; then from a small recess she took a key, and put it thoughtfully in the lock of a drawer, and made a sudden pause, while two boys, who, boy-like, had followed close on her heels, stood looking, with silent, significant glances, at their mother.  And O, mother that reads this, has there never been in your house a drawer, or a closet, the opening of which has been to you like the opening again of a little grave?  Ah! happy mother that you are, if it has not been so.

Mrs. Bird slowly opened the drawer.  There were little coats, of many a form and pattern, piles of aprons, and rows of small stockings; and even a pair of little shoes, worn and rubbed at the toes, were peeping from the folds of a paper.  There was a toy horse and wagon, a top, a ball,—­memorials gathered with many a tear and many a heart-break!  She sat down by the drawer, and leaning her head on her hands over it, wept till the tears fell through her fingers into the drawer; then, suddenly raising her head, she began, with nervous haste, selecting the plainest and most substantial articles, and gathering them into a bundle.

“Mamma,” said one of the boys, gently touching her arm, “are you going to give away those things?”

“My dear boys,” she said, softly and earnestly, “if our dear loving little Henry looks down from heaven, he would be glad to have us do this.  I could not find it in my heart to give them away to any common person—­to anybody that was happy; but I give them to a mother more heart-broken and sorrowful than I am; and I hope God will send his blessing with, them!”

* * * * *

From “Old-Town Folks.”

=_306._= THE OLD MEETING HOUSE.

Going to meeting, in that state of society into which I was born, was as necessary and inevitable a consequence of waking up on Sunday morning, as eating one’s breakfast.  Nobody thought of staying away,—­and, for that matter, nobody wanted to stay away.  Our weekly life was simple, monotonous, and laborious; and the chance of seeing the whole neighborhood together in their best clothes on Sunday, was a thing which, in the dearth of all other sources of amusement, appealed to the idlest and most unspiritual of loafers.  They who did not care for the sermon or the prayers, wanted to see Major Broad’s scarlet coat and laced ruffles, and his wife’s brocade dress, and the new bonnet which Lady Lothrop had just had sent up from Boston.  Whoever had not seen these would be out of society for a week to come, and not be able to converse understandingly on the topics of the day.