“I feel that I was too hasty, Nicholas.  I should have tried you longer.  But at least I may repair my injustice.  I have enough for us all.  You shall come and live with me.”

“I can only accept your generous offer on one condition,” said Nicholas.

“And what is that?”

“That you will be my wife!”

A vivid blush came over Miss Hetty’s countenance.  She couldn’t think of such a thing, she said.  Nevertheless, an hour afterwards the two united lovers had fixed upon the marriage day.

The house does not look so prim as it used to do.  The yard is redolent with many fragrant flowers; the front door is half open, revealing a little girl playing with a kitten.

“Hetty,” says a matronly lady, “you have got the ball of yarn all over the floor.  What would your father say if he should see it?”

“Never mind, mother, it was only kitty that did it.”

Marriage has filled up a void in the heart of Miss Hetty.  Though not so prim, or perhaps careful, as she used to be, she is a good deal happier.  Three hearts are filled with thankfulness at every return of miss Henderson’s Thanksgiving day.

THE FIREMAN.

By miss M. C. Montaigne.

In one of the old-fashioned mansions which stand, or stood, on Broadway, lived Alderman Edgerton.  Nothing could have induced Miss May Edgerton to reside six months in the old brick house had it not been inhabited by her grandmother before her, and been built by her great-grandfather.  As it was, she had a real affection for the antiquated place, with its curiously-carved door-knocker, its oaken staircase, and broad chimneys with their heavy franklins.  She was a sweet, wild, restless little butterfly, with beauty enough to make her the heroine of the most extravagant romance, and good as she was beautiful.

Little May had never known a sorrow, and in fact existence had but one bugbear for her—­that was, the fates in the shape of her parents, had decreed that she should not marry, nor engage herself positively, until she had met a certain young gentleman, upon whom like commands had been imposed by his equally solicitous parents.  The name, it must be confessed, impressed May favorably—­Walter Cunningham; there was something manly about it, and she spent more time than she would like to acknowledge, in speculations regarding its owner, for to May, notwithstanding what Will Shakspeare has said to the contrary, there was a very great deal in a name.  By some chance she had never met him.  She had passed most of her life, for what crimes she could not tell, in a sort of prison, ycleped a fashionable boarding-school, and the greater part of the vacations had been spent with a rich maiden aunt and an old bachelor uncle in the city of Brotherly Love.  A few days previous to her liberation from this “durance vile,” Walter Cunningham had set out for Paris, where he was to remain as long as suited his convenience.