reached her ears, and she fears that all is over with her poor friend, Her fears are indeed true, for the pure spirit of the young sufferer has taken its flight to that blest land where hunger and thirst are known no more.  Poor Annie! thy last earthly wish, a simple glass of ice-cream, was denied thee—­and why?  We need not pause to answer:  ye who have an abundance of this world’s goods, think, when ye are about to turn from your doors the poor seamstress or washerwoman, or even those less destitute than they, without a just recompense for their labour, whether the sufferings and privations of some poor creatures will not be increased thereby.

RETURNING GOOD FOR EVIL.

OBADIAH LAWSON and Watt Dood were neighbours; that is, they lived within a half mile of each other, and no person lived between their respective farms, which would have joined, had not a little strip of prairie land extended itself sufficiently to keep them separated.  Dood was the oldest settler, and from his youth up had entertained a singular hatred against Quakers; therefore, when he was informed that Lawson, a regular disciple of that class of people had purchased the next farm to his, he declared he would make him glad to move away again.  Accordingly, a system of petty annoyances was commenced by him, and every time one of Lawson’s hogs chanced to stray upon Dood’s place, he was beset by men and dogs, and most savagely abused.  Things progressed thus for nearly a year, and the Quaker, a man of decidedly peace principles, appeared in no way to resent the injuries received at the hands of his spiteful neighbour.  But matters were drawing to a crisis; for Dood, more enraged than ever at the quiet of Obadiah, made oath that he would do something before long to wake up the spunk of Lawson.  Chance favoured his design.  The Quaker had a high-blooded filly, which he had been very careful in raising, and which was just four years old.  Lawson took great pride in this animal, and had refused a large sum of money for her.

One evening, a little after sunset, as Watt Dood was passing around his cornfield, he discovered the filly feeding in the little strip of prairie land that separated the two farms, and he conceived the hellish design of throwing off two or three rails of his fence, that the horse might get into his corn during the night.  He did so, and the next morning, bright and early, he shouldered his rifle and left the house.  Not long after his absence, a hired man, whom he had recently employed, heard the echo of his gun, and in a few minutes Dood, considerably excited and out of breath, came hurrying to the house, where he stated that he had shot at and wounded a buck; that the deer attacked him, and he hardly escaped with his life.

This story was credited by all but the newly employed hand, who had taken a dislike to Watt, and, from his manner, suspected that something was wrong.  He therefore slipped quietly away from the house, and going through the field in the direction of the shot, he suddenly came upon Lawson’s filly, stretched upon the earth, with a bullet hole through the head, from which the warm blood was still oozing.