“Oh no, dear! you will not leave us,” said her father, in a trembling voice.

“Yes, dear mother! dear father!  I must go.  But you will not let any one take little Mary from you?”

“Oh no—­ever!  She is ours, and no one shall ever take her away.”

Mrs. Fenwick then closed her eyes, while a placid expression settled upon her sweet but careworn face.  Again she looked up, but with a more serious countenance.  As she did so, her eyes rested upon Mrs. Martindale.

“I am about to die, Mrs. Martindale,” she said, hit a calm but feeble voice—­“and with my dying breath I charge upon you the ruin of my hopes and happiness.  If my little girl should live to woman’s estate,” she added, turning to her parents, “guard her from the influence of this woman, as you would from the fangs of a serpent.”

Then closing her eyes again, she sank away into a sleep that proved the sleep of death.  Alas! how many like her have gone down to an early grave, or still pine on in hopeless sorrow, the victims of that miserable interference in society, which is constantly bringing young people together, and endeavouring to induce them to love and marry each other, without there being between them any true congeniality or fitness for such a relation!  Of all assumed social offices, that of the match-maker is one of the most pernicious, and her character one of the most detestable.  She should be shunned with the same shrinking aversion with which we shun a serpent which crosses our path.

THE RETURN; OR, WHO IS IT?

“IT’S nearly a year now since I was home,” said Lucy Gray to her husband; “and so you must let me go for a few weeks.”

They had been married some four or five years, and never during that time had been separated for a single night.

“I thought you called this your home,” said Gray, looking up with a mock-serious air.

“I mean my old home,” replied Lucy, in a half-affected tone of anger.  “Or, to make it plain, I want to go, and see father and mother.”

“Can’t you wait three or four months, until I can go with you?” asked the young husband.

“I want to go now.  You said all along that I should go in May.”

“I know I did.  But then I supposed that I would be able to go with you.”

“Well, why can’t you?  I am sure you might, if you would.”

“No, Lucy, I cannot possibly leave home now.  But if you are very anxious to see the old folks, I can put you in the stage, and you will go safely enough.  Ellen and I can take care of little Lucy, no doubt.  How long a time do you wish to spend with them?”

“About three weeks or so?”

“Very well, Lucy, if you are not afraid to go lone, I have not a word to say.”

“I’m not afraid, dear,” replied the wife in a voice hanged and softened in its expression.  “But are you perfectly willing to let me go, Henry?”