“The next day I began to read the beautiful story. Every page took that hold of me that I forgot all about the pretty cover, and perhaps you wouldn’t believe it, but before Nelly was born, if you would but give me a word here and there, I could begin at the beginning, and say it clear through to the end. It appeared to me I was there with those people by the lakes in the mountains--with Allan bane and his harp, Ellen Douglas, Malcolm Graeme, Fitz-James, and the others. I saw Ellen’s picture before me when I was milking the cow, or cooking on the hearth, or weeding the little garden. There she was, stepping about so sweetly in the rhyme, that I felt it to be all true as the day, more true after I could repeat it to myself. And then when I found my baby grew into such a pretty girl, and so smart too, it seemed as if Providence had been ever so good to me again. But children are mysteries any way. I’ve wondered a thousand times why Nelly was such a lady, and why she loved to learn so much more than the other children. She has read to me ever since she was ten years old, and she’s got quite a lot of books there, you see, ma’am. She’s mighty fond of poetry, too.” RESULTS OF UNUSED TALENT. To illustrate the advantages of healthful duties and self-esteem, and the evils following want of occupation, I will give the experience of an old friend, a former resident of this State. For convenience I will call her Mrs. Hosmer. This daughter of an orderly and peaceful home, in Western New York, became engaged when quite young to an intelligent young man, who afterward became foreman in her father’s iron-works. Several years elapsed before the young man felt at liberty to take on himself the cares and expenses of a family. He sought to expedite matters by obtaining a California agency from a large hardware establishment. This took him from home, and pending the decision, he became intimately acquainted with another young woman possessing marked personal attractions, different entirely from those of his long time _fiancée_. News of his supposed disloyalty reached his betrothed simultaneously with his return to his native town with the agency in his pocket--ready for the ceremony, and removal to California. The beauty, and alert, independent ways of the young woman in question, were set forth to the betrothed in a manner calculated to depress her own self-esteem, and raise a doubt of her lover’s satisfaction in her, but not enough doubt, she thought, to justify an explanation, or to impede the marriage, which therefore took place at once.