"Sometimes. It's a pretty time of night for a fellow to be out, isn't it? Well, if Jen's sick, I'll stay away. Here, give her this;" and between the narrow grating was slipped a bill. Winnie picked it up. The face disappeared: ah! what a sorry tale it had told! She forgot her fears, but her heart ached for the toiling mother and sick little sister when son and brother was of this sort. Upstairs she went, seeing nothing alarming now in the darkness; all her visionary fears had fled. But little Joan saw her white face and wide-open eyes. Drinking the milk eagerly, she sank back on the pillow with a sigh of satisfaction. Winnie said nothing, and Joan slept like a baby. When morning came, Mrs. Jessup arose rested, refreshed, and so grateful to Winnie that she felt repaid for the little sacrifice she had made; and then she told Mrs. Jessup of the night's occurrence, and gave her the money. "My poor boy!" was all the mother said, as tears rolled down her face--"my poor boy!" but it told of sorrow, disappointment, and grief which even Winnie could hardly understand. When Joan kissed Winnie good-by that morning, she whispered, "I know who you are like, and whom you would rather be than all the queens in the world." "Who, Jennie?" "Florence Nightingale." "Yes, you have guessed rightly," answered Winnie, who not for one moment regretted her postponed jaunt, her sleepless night, nor anything she had done. Once having conquered, she had now no more trouble with fears in the dark. And the jaunt came in due time, and little Joan's room was made sweet and bright with roses and syringas that Florence Nightingale brought from her excursion. But she never forgot that night. THE OLD, OLD STORY. BY JIMMY BROWN. We've had a most awful time in our house. There have been ever so many robberies in town, and everybody has been almost afraid to go to bed. The robbers broke into old Dr. Smith's house one night. Dr. Smith is one of those doctors that don't give any medicine except cold water, and he heard the robbers, and came down-stairs in his nigown, with a big umbrella in his hand, and said, "If you don't leave this minute, I'll shoot you." And the robbers they said, "Oho! that umbrella isn't loaded;" and they took him and tied his hands and feet, and put a mustard plaster over his mouth, so that he couldn't yell, and then they filled the wash-tub with water, and made him sit down in it, and told him that now he'd know how it was himself, and went away and left him, and he nearly froze to death before morning.