Home Scenes, and Home Influence | Page 8

thing but that."
As for getting the required sum through Anna, he did not permit
himself to hope very strongly. She had looked thoughtful since their
last interview on the subject, and at times, it seemed to him, troubled. It
was plain that she had been disappointed in any efforts to get money
that she might have made.
"That she, too, should be subject to mortification and painful
humiliation!" said he, as his mind dwelt on the subject. "It is too
bad--too bad!--Oh, to think that my folly should have had this
reaction!"
Anna looked sober as Brainard parted with her after breakfast, and he
thought he saw tears in her eyes. As soon as he was gone she dressed
herself, and taking from a handsome jewel-box the present of her
husband, a gold watch and chain, a bracelet, diamond pin, and some
other articles of the same kind, left the house.
Two hours afterward, as Brainard sat at his desk trying to fix his mind
upon the accounts before him, a note was handed in bearing his address.

He broke the seal, and found that it enclosed one hundred and seventy
dollars, with these few words from Anna:
"This is the best I can do for you, dear husband. Will it be enough?"
"God bless her!" came half audibly from the lips of Brainard, as he
drew forth his pocket-book, in which were thirty dollars. "Yes, it will
be enough."
"There is no comfort in owing, or in paying after this fashion," said the
young man to himself, as he walked homeward at dinner-time, with his
last note in his pocket. "There will have to be a change."
And there was a change. When next I visited my young friend, I found
him in a smaller house, looking as comfortable and happy as I could
have wished to see him. We talked pleasantly about the errors of the
past, and the trouble which had followed as a natural result.
"There is one thing," said Brainard, during the conversation, glancing at
his wife as he spoke, "that I have not been able to make out."
"What is that?" asked Mrs. Brainard, smiling.
"Where the last one hundred and seventy dollars you gave me came
from."
"Have you missed nothing?" said she, archly.
"Nothing," was his reply.
"Been deprived of no comfort?"
"So far from it, I have found a great many new ones."
"And been saved the trouble of winding up and regulating that pretty
eight-day clock for which you gave forty dollars."
Brainard fairly started to his feet as he turned to the mantel, and,
strange to say, missed, for the first time, the handsome timepiece
referred to by his wife.
"Why, Anna, is it possible? Surely that hasn't been gone for two
months!"
"Oh, yes, it has."
"Well, that beats all."
And Brainard resumed his chair.
"You've been just as comfortable," said the excellent young woman.
"But you didn't get a hundred and seventy dollars for the timepiece?"
"No. Have you lost no other comfort? Think."
Brainard thought, but in vain. Anna glided from the room, and returned
in a few moments with her jewel-box.

"Do you miss any thing?" said she, as she raised the lid and placed the
box in his hands.
"Your watch and chain!"
Anna smiled.
"You did not sell them?"
"Yes."
"Why, Anna! Did you set no value on your husband's gifts?"
There was a slight rebuke in the tone of Brainard. Tears sprang to
Anna's eyes, as she answered--"I valued them less than his happiness."
Brainard looked at her for a few moments with an expression of deep
tenderness. Then turning to me, he said, in a voice that was unsteady
from emotion--"You shall be my judge. Has she done wrong or right?"
"Right!" I responded, warmly. "Right! thank Heaven, my friend, for
giving you a true woman for a wife. There is some hope now of your
finding the comfort you sought so vainly in the beginning."
And he has found it--found it in a wise appropriation, of the good gifts
of Providence according to his means.

CHILDREN--A FAMILY SCENE.

"MOTHER!"
"As I was saying"--
"Mother!"
"Miss Jones wore a white figured satin"--
"Oh! mother!"
"With short sleeves"--
"Mother! mother!"
"Looped up with a small rosebud"--
"I say! mother! mother!"
The child now caught hold of her mother's arm, and shook it violently,
in her effort to gain the attention she desired, while her voice, which at
first was low, had become loud and impatient. Mrs. Elder, no longer
able to continue her account of the manner in which Miss Jones
appeared at a recent ball, turned angrily toward little Mary, whose
importunities had sadly annoyed her, and, seizing her by the arm, took
her to the door and thrust her