Back in the old place and among her loving sisters, the heart of Mrs. Parker felt once more the warm sunshine upon it—­the gentle dews and the refreshing rain.  But a year or two only elapsed before her husband determined to seek some better fortune in another place.  Without a complaining word his wife went with him, but her cheek grew paler and thinner afterward, her step slower and her voice even to the ear of her husband sadder.  But he was too much absorbed in his efforts to get along in the world to be able to see clearly the true condition of his wife, or, if he at all understood it, to be aware of the cause.

Their new location proved to be an unhealthy one, and the loss of another child drove them away, after a residence of a year.  Mrs. Parker suffered here severely from intermittent fever.  She was just able to go about when her husband declared his intention to leave the place on account of its being sickly.

“Where do you think of going?” she asked, raising to his her large pensive eyes.

“I have hardly made up my mind yet,” he replied.  “But I was thinking of R—.”

Rachel’s eyes fell to the floor, and a gentle sigh escaped from her bosom.  This was noticed by her husband.

“Have you any objection to R—?” he asked.

“Why not go back to the old place?” Rachel ventured to say, while her eyes were again fixed upon him, but now earnestly and tearfully.

“Would you rather live there?” he asked, with more than usual tenderness in his voice.

“I have never been happy since we left there,” the poor wife replied, sinking forward and biding her tearful face on his breast.

Parker was confounded.  He had never dreamed of this.  Rachel had always so patiently acquiesced in all that he had proposed to do, that he had imagined her as willing to remove from one place to another as he had been.  But now a new truth flashed upon his mind—­“Never been happy since we left there?”

“We will go back, Rachel,” he said, with some emotion.  “If I had only known this!”

And they went back.  But somehow or other Rachel Parker did not recover the healthy tone of body or mind that she had lost.  By strict attention to business and continuing at it for some years in one place, her husband got along well enough, though he did not get rich.  As for Rachel, she gradually declined and three years after her return was laid at rest.

THE SUM OF TRIFLES: 

Or, “A penny saved is A penny gained.”

By T. S. Arthur.

“Saving?  Don’t talk to me about saving!” said one journeyman mechanic to another.  “What can a man with a wife and three children save out of eight dollars a week?”

“Not much, certainly,” was replied.  “But still, if he is careful, he may save a little.”

“Precious little!” briefly returned the other, with something like contempt in his tone.