truest
        May be by thee, thoughtless, broke. 
    How much grief had been prevented,
        If man ne’er had sought to shrink
    From the right:-to naught consented,
        Until he had paused to think!

LITTLE NELLY.

Matilda was a fashionable girl,—­a young lady, perhaps, would be the more respectable name by which to call her.  She had been reared in affluence.  She had never known a want.  She had had wants, but she did not know it.  She had wanted many things that make a lady’s life indeed a life.  But Matilda never dreamt of such things.

It was n’t fashionable to love the outcast, and therefore she bestowed no pitying look on them.  It was n’t fashionable to give a few pennies even to a poor, lame orphan girl in the street.  So she pretended not to have noticed the plea of little Nelly, who had accosted her during her morning rambles.

“Little Nelly.”  I remember how she looked when at twilight she sat down on a curb-stone to count the money.  She looked sorrowful.  She was, indeed, worthy of pity; but little she got.  The crowd went hurrying, hustling on:  few thoughts came down to little Nelly, on the curb-stone.  It had been a gala day.  Red flags had flaunted on high poles, and there had been a great noise of drums and fifes, and everybody had seemed happy.  Why, then, should sorrow come, with its dark lantern, and look in the face of this little girl?

I will tell you.

There was a poor woman whose husband had been killed in Mexico.  She lived in one small room in a secluded part of the city, and by means of her needle, and such assistance as was given to her daughter, who diligently walked the streets, selling apples, she managed to live in a style which she denominated “comfortable.”  Thus, for upwards of one year, she toiled and lived, and was thankful for all her many blessings.

But sickness came; not severe, but of that kind that bears its victim along slowly to rest.  She was unable to do much.  She did not wish to do much; but she sat day by day, yea, night by night often, and diligently pursued the avocation that brought her daily bread.

Weeks passed, and yet she was ill.  One morning, she called her daughter to her side, and, taking her hand in her own, said: 

“Little Nelly, ’t is Independence day, to-day.  You heard the guns fire, and the bells ring, and the shouts of the happy children, this morning, before you arose.  I watched you as you lay listening to all these, and I asked myself, Will my little Nelly be happy? and I thought I heard my mother’s voice;—­she died long, long ago, but I thought I heard her voice right at my side, saying, ’We shall all be happy soon;’ and I wept, for I could not help it.

“But I’ve called you now, Nelly, to tell you that I’m much better this morning, and that, if you can get twenty-five cents to-day, we will have a happy time to-night.”