“No offence, I hope, Ma’am; none meant, certainly.  Wish you good-afternoon, Ma’am.  Call and see you again some day, and hope to find you better.”

Would he find her better?  While the mystery remained, while the ruin of her hopes impended, what could restore to her the cheerfulness, the courage, the self-command she had lost?

[To be continued.]

“BRINGING OUR SHEAVES WITH US.”

  The time for toil is past, and night has come,—­
      The last and saddest of the harvest-eves;
  Worn out with labor long and wearisome,
  Drooping and faint, the reapers hasten home,
          Each laden with his sheaves.

  Last of the laborers thy feet I gain,
      Lord of the harvest! and my spirit grieves
  That I am burdened not so much with grain
  As with a heaviness of heart and brain;—­
          Master, behold my sheaves!

  Few, light, and worthless,—­yet their trifling weight
      Through all my frame a weary aching leaves;
  For long I struggled with my hapless fate,
  And staid and toiled till it was dark and late,—­
          Yet these are all my sheaves.

  Full well I know I have more tares than wheat,—­
      Brambles and flowers, dry stalks, and withered leaves
  Wherefore I blush and weep, as at thy feet
  I kneel down reverently, and repeat,
          “Master, behold my sheaves!”

  I know these blossoms, clustering heavily
      With evening dew upon their folded leaves,
  Can claim no value nor utility,—­
  Therefore shall fragrancy and beauty be
          The glory of my sheaves.

  So do I gather strength and hope anew;
      For well I know thy patient love perceives
  Not what I did, but what I strove to do,—­
  And though the full, ripe ears be sadly few,
          Thou wilt accept my sheaves.

FARMING LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND.

New England does not produce the bread she eats, nor the raw materials of the fabrics she wears.  A multitude of her purely agricultural towns are undergoing, more or less rapidly, a process of depopulation.  Yet these facts exist by the side of positive advances in agricultural science and decided improvements in the means and modes of farming.  The plough is perfected, and the theory of ploughing is understood.  The advantages of thorough draining are universally recognized, and tiles are for sale everywhere.  Mowing and reaping machines have ceased to be a novelty upon our plains and meadows.  The natural fertilizers have been analyzed, and artificial nutrients of the soil have been contrived.  The pick and pride of foreign herds have regenerated our neat stock, and the Morgan and the Black-Hawk eat their oats in our stalls.  The sheepfold and the sty abound with choice blood.  Sterling agricultural journals are on every farmer’s table, and Saxton’s hand-books upon agricultural specialties are scattered everywhere.  Public shows and fairs bring on an annual exacerbation of the agricultural fever, which is constantly breaking out in new places, beyond the power of the daily press to chronicle.  Yet it is too evident that the results are not at all commensurate with the means under tribute and at command.  What is the reason?