was silent.  He moved the door, but nothing stirred within.  Then he entered.  His purse lay upon the floor where he had thrown it; that was the first object which met his sight.  The next was the ghastly face of death!  The wretched drunkard had passed to his account; and his body lay upon the bed.  Close beside was the form of her who had been to Mr. Grim, in early years, as a tender sister.  She was in a profound sleep; and on the floor lay the child, also wrapped in deep forgetfulness of the misery with which she was surrounded.—­

“And this is the work I have been doing!” sighed the distiller; whose mind could not lose the vivid impression made by his dream.

A little while he contemplated the scene around him, and then taking up his purse he silently withdrew.  But ere returning home he made known to a benevolent person the fact of the unhappy death which had occurred, and, placing money in his hand, asked him to do all that humanity required, and to do it at his expense.

Few men went about their daily business with a heavier heart than Mr. Andrew Grim.  He felt that he was the possessor of ill-gotten gain; and felt, besides, a sense of insecurity.

“Wealth is the representative of use to society.  It comes, or should come, as a reward for serving the common good,” he repeated to himself, in the words he had heard in his dream.  “And how have I served the common good?  What good have I performed that corresponds to the blessings I have received and enjoy?  Ah, me!  I wish it were otherwise.”

With such thoughts, how could the man be happy!  When night came round again he feared to trust himself in the arms of sleep; and when exhausted nature yielded, painful dreams haunted him until morning.  Weeks elapsed before the vivid impression he had received wore off, and before he enjoyed any thing like a quiet slumber.  But, though he had a better sleep, his waking thoughts ceased to be peaceful and self-satisfying.  A year went by, and then, fretted beyond endurance at his position of manufacturer of death and destruction, both natural and spiritual, for his fellow men, he broke up his distillery, and invested his money in a business that could be followed with benefit to all.

THE RUINED FAMILY.

PART FIRST.

“HOW beautiful!” ejaculated Mary Graham, as she fixed her eyes intently on the western sky, rich with the many-coloured clouds of a brilliant sunset in June.

“Beautiful indeed!” responded her sister Anna.

“I could gaze on it for ever!” Ellen, a younger and more enthusiastic sister remarked, with fervent admiration.  “Look, Ma! was ever anything more gorgeous than that pure white cloud, fringed with brilliant gold, and relieved by the translucent and sparkling sky beyond?”

“It is indeed very beautiful, Ellen,” Mrs. Graham replied.  But there was an abstraction in her manner, that indicated, too plainly, that something weighed upon her mind.