sake, while she herself pined for the freedom of the grave, and to soar from the cares and sorrows of a sordid world, to the heaven already open to receive her. In homely phrase, Mrs. Baker dwelt upon this touching mixture of maternal tenderness and soft languor, that would not mourn for him she was so soon to join. The woman then described her sudden death, and placed the fragment of her last letter before her auditor. Deeply interested, the stranger began to read, when suddenly he became ghastly pale, and, trembling all over, he asked, "To whom was this letter addressed?" "Ah, sir," replied Mrs. Baker, "would that I could tell, and all my troubles would be over. Read on, sir, and you will see that Mrs. Raby feels sure that the lady would have been a mother to poor Missy; but who, or where she is, is past all my guessing." The stranger strove to read on; but violent emotion, and the struggle to hide what he felt, hindered him from taking in the meaning of a single word. At length he told Mrs. Baker that, with her leave, he would take the letter away, and read it at his leisure. He promised her his aid in discovering Mrs. Raby's relatives, and assured her that there would be small difficulty in so doing. He then retired, and Mrs. Baker exclaimed, "Please God, this will prove a good day's work." A voice from the grave had spoken to the stranger. It was not the dead mother's voice--she, whatever her merits and sufferings had been, was to him an image of the mind only--he had never known her. But her benefactress, her hope and trust, who and where was she! Alithea! the warm-hearted friend--the incomparable mother! She to whom all hearts in distress turned, sure of relief--who went before the desires of the necessitous; whose generous and free spirit made her emperess of all hearts; who, while she lived, spread, as does the sun, radiance and warmth around--her pulses were stilled; her powers cribbed up in the grave. She was nothing now; and he had reduced to this nothing the living frame of this glorious being. The stranger read the letter again and again; again he writhed, as her name appeared, traced by her friend's delicate hand, and the concluding hope seemed the acme of his despair. She would indeed have been a mother to the orphan--he remembered expressions that told him that she was making diligent inquiry for her friend, whose luckless fate had not reached her. Yes, it was his Alithea; he could not doubt. His? Fatal mistake--his she had never been; and the wild resolve to make her such had ended in death and ruin.