One day, after Charley had been out for the first time, Sara, with a little tremor of voice and manner, addressed Stephen thus:-- "I shall take Charley home to-morrow, if you please, Mr. Archer." "You don't mean to say, Sara, you've been paying for those lodgings all this time?" half-asked, half-exclaimed Stephen. "Yes, Mr. Archer. We, must have somewhere to go to. It ain't easy to get a room at any moment, now them railways is everywheres." "But I hope as how you're comfortable where you are, Sara?" "Yes, Mr. Archer. But what am I to do for all your kindness?" "You can pay me all in a lump, if you like, Sara. Only you don't owe me nothing." Her colour came and went. She was not used to men. She could not tell what he would have her understand, and could not help trembling. "What do you mean, Mr. Archer?" she faltered out. "I mean you can give me yourself, Sara, and that'll clear all scores." "But, Mr. Archer--you've been a-teaching of me good things--You _don't_ mean to marry me!" exclaimed Sara, bursting into tears. "Of course I do, Sara. Don't cry about it. I won't if you don't like." This is how Stephen came to change his mind about his stock in trade. THE GIFTS OF THE CHILD CHRIST. CHAPTER I. "My hearers, we grow old," said the preacher. "Be it summer or be it spring with us now, autumn will soon settle down into winter, that winter whose snow melts only in the grave. The wind of the world sets for the tomb. Some of us rejoice to be swept along on its swift wings, and hear it bellowing in the hollows of earth and sky; but it will grow a terror to the man of trembling limb and withered brain, until at length he will long for the shelter of the tomb to escape its roaring and buffeting. Happy the man who shall then be able to believe that old age itself, with its pitiable decays and sad dreams of youth, is the chastening of the Lord, a sure sign of his love and his fatherhood." It was the first Sunday in Advent; but "the chastening of the Lord" came into almost every sermon that man preached. "Eloquent! But after all, _can_ this kind of thing be true?" said to himself a man of about thirty, who sat decorously listening. For many years he had thought he believed this kind of thing--but of late he was not so sure. Beside him sat his wife, in her new winter bonnet, her pretty face turned up toward the preacher; but her eyes--nothing else--revealed that she was not listening. She was much younger than her husband--hardly twenty, indeed. In the upper corner of the pew sat a pale-faced child about five, sucking her thumb, and staring at the preacher. The sermon over, they walked home in proximity. The husband looked gloomy, and his eyes sought the ground. The wife looked more smiling than cheerful, and her pretty eyes went hither and thither. Behind them walked the child--steadily, "with level-fronting eyelids."