spell.” And again in response there was silence on the part of the closet, broken by occasional kicks that shook the door, and even caused the old panel to stir in its worm-eaten setting of oaken wainscot. As Helen looked up after the silence that followed Tommy's demonstration, while the panel yet slightly stirred, it seemed to her that a shiver ran over the lady painted there; she remembered the ghost-stories, it made a shiver run over her herself. She rose and went to look out of the window and see if there were no sign of the chaise,—it was hardly time for Margaret yet. Then she returned, and her fascinated eyes caught again the eyes of the old Colonial Governor's lady, that lady who was her mother many generations removed. It was a pale face painted there, as if the painter had seen it only by moonlight,—dark eyes in which the lustre lay with an effect of restless, searching radiance, and the delicate aquiline nose and thin and haughty lip spoke of a woman capable of acting a secret in her day, and keeping it long after, Helen thought. Whenever she caught the eye of that portrait,—and so curiously well was it painted, that she never looked at it without catching the eye,—the lady shadowed there seemed to return a glance of defiance, and her lip wore a curve of triumph. She kept one hand clasped over her crimson vest embroidered with its golden tangles and purfles; perhaps in the other her secret hung hidden out of sight. Now, in the dancing firelight, the ruby that lay on the dame's forehead seemed to flicker like a live jewel in Helen's eyes; as the flame rose, her breast heaved too, a color rested on the pale cheek; as it fell, Helen fancied that she sighed; with all the quick lightning and darkening of the crackling fire the glance of the eyes shifted to and fro, the shadows round the mouth wavered; now they lowered, and now they smiled, and now the parted lips seemed just about to speak.

Helen started to her feet in a tremble: no wonder Tommy hated to stay in the closet; she sprung to let him out. And just then the old horse stopped at the gate, with the sound of Frederick's voice. Helen forgot Tommy, flung open the door to Frederick, and ran out to the gate as he appeared coming in with his mother in his arms, and laid her on the sofa. Helen only stayed to lead the old horse into the barn, and directly afterward was blowing up the blaze in the parlor, and calling the delinquents to account. They had driven into Orton Wood, Frederick said, and there the chaise broke down; and it being in an open space, he had kindled a great fire to keep his mother warm, while he tied the springs up as he might, which it took a weary while to do, and he had brought home a chaiseful of fagots that nobody owned, and was cherishing visions of future predatory excursions in the same direction. Immediately as he said it, wheeling his mother's sofa up to the hearth and rubbing his hands before it, a little occurrence took place that rendered his invaluable chaiseful of fagots of a moment ago the mere chips of this one, for it had changed the earth under all their feet. Margaret was just coming in at the door; Master Tommy, hearing the incoming and voices and confusion, and desiring to make a part of it, called out from his den, “'Elen! let me out, let me out, I say. W-a-wa, t-e-r, water. You know the Docker said I needed plenty of fresh air. 'Elen! let me out,—the Docker said I was a pecoolar child and needed pecoolar treatment!” And before any one could reach him, the belligerent boy gave the old door such an astonishing series of kicks and thrusts, that the lock broke from its mouldering frame; the worn floor shook and creaked; a bit of the plastering dropped from above; the door and Tommy fell out together; and the old portrait of the pale proud lady started, and trembled, and pitched downward, caught and split from end to end upon the handle of the great steel poker. And suddenly, with a wild exclamation of inextinguishable certainty and exultation, Helen held up her apron to catch what came rattling and ringing and racing and jingling, as they tumbled down together into it, and danced a measure over the floor with the naughty nuns of the broken rosary-beads that they surprised in their mad escape from the bondage of a hundred years. The pale and languid mother started up, resting eagerly on her elbow; Margaret fell upon the floor, catching up the guineas and doubloons as if she were crazy, and kissing them in a transport; Tommy began to discover what his pockets were made for, straightway. Meanwhile Frederick sprung upon a chair and went to pulling out the thready remnants of the decaying bags in which the gold had been enclosed; Helen still held her apron up, thanking fortune it was so large; and little Sarah, waking, began to creep down and toddle along to hold her apron too, crowing and capering at the strange scene, the glitter, and the joy. At last there were no more,—there was only the memorandum on a bit of parchment, telling the story of the sealing of the bags by the old Tory ancestor in troublous times, and their destined concealment behind his wife's portrait.

“Here are more thousands of dollars than you have fingers and toes, little Cinderella!” cried Frederick. “You can afford to wear glass slippers for the rest of your life! It is all your godmother's doings, and she was a fine old English gentlewoman, who acted wisely and for the benefit of posterity. Never say I disbelieved in my ancestors!”

“O yes,” said Helen, “all very fine now. For my part, I was sure of it long ago!”

“I sha'n't dare to close an eye to-night for fear of burglars!” cried Margaret. “That I sha'n't!”

“Now mother, mother dear,” exclaimed Helen, coming and taking her mother's thin hand and plunging it deep down among the sliding coins that were tearing down her strong apron with their weight, “'tis almost as much as I can carry! Tommy may go to school now, and you can have the Doctor and get well, and what can't we, what sha'n't we have! Margaret needn't teach any more,—we can have the house made over, we can keep a girl,—and gold at 240!—O, I think I shall lose my wits!” And down it would all have gone upon the floor but for Frederick.

“Don't, Nelly,” said he, “we shall want them,—the guineas I mean, of course not the wits. What use have they been to us all these years, except to make gowns out of cobwebs and dinners out of dew? Now let us count our wealth, and then—”

“No,” said Nelly, “my stew will be good for nothing if we wait, and mother is famished. We're comfortable, we know; if we're rich, we can find it out after supper. I wish I hadn't killed my cropple-crowns. Now Tommy, Tommy Fotherington, you never need spell water again as long as you live, for it was that blessed word that put Tommy in the closet, that kicked the door, that shook the house, that loosened the panel, that poured out the guineas, that made the starving Fotheringtons a richer and happier family than ever sat round the old Tory Governor's table!”

Harriet E. Prescott.

FARMING FOR BOYS.

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No. II.

(Continued from page 66.)