sum that will procure you immediate necessaries;’--and thrusting a coin into her hand, he hurried away. The deed took the poor girl completely by surprise;--for although it has occupied me some time to relate all that passed between her and the generous stranger, yet in reality their dialogue was of scarcely more than two minutes’ duration; and the dress-maker had not yet recovered from the grief into which the accident to her parcel had plunged her. When, therefore, the light of the lamp flashed upon a bright yellow coin, she could scarcely believe her eyes:--she fancied that her benefactor had made a mistake, and intended to give her a shilling,--and then, in spite of the cold night, the warm blood rushed to her cheeks, at the idea of any one treating her as a mendicant--for she had her little feelings of pride, poor though she were! But her next thought was that the stranger might really have intended to present her with a sovereign; and--so strange a sentiment is human pride, even in the most virtuous bosoms--her soul revolted not from receiving that amount. And now, lest this circumstance should induce you to form an evil opinion of my heroine, I must inform you that it was no selfish nor avaricious feeling that made her draw a distinction between the gift of a shilling and that of a sovereign:--but she had been tenderly and genteelly brought up--and the comparison which her mind drew, was simply as between the alms that one would toss to a mendicant, and the pecuniary aid which a delicate benevolence would administer to a person in temporary embarrassment.