Homes made and marred

"MAMMA, do come and see our beautiful new swing!" cried a little boy, rushing into his mother's sitting-room. "Mr. Hill has finished, and he would like to know that you think it...

FOR a time all went comfortably in the neat home of Matthew Hill and his thrifty wife, who imagined herself profited by the good advice of her mistress, while, in fact, few thin...

FOR a long time Mrs. Hill cleaned, dusted, and straightened without noticing the absence of her husband. But when she had finished her task and there was no one to say, "How nic...

"WHAT a cross-grained woman that Mrs. Hill is!" said Benjamin Field to his wife, as he sat down to his supper. "If you had served me so, I don't know where we'd have been by thi...

"WELL, well, who'd have thought it?" said one of a group of women who stood supporting a street corner while the operation was going forward of getting a poor invalid, wrapped i...

WITH returning health came little improvement in the feelings of Matthew Hill, and, so far from expressing any penitence for his great fault, he was obstinately bent on maintain...

"WELL to be sure, Mrs. Hill, you 'do' bear your troubles! Mrs. Smith, she says to me, says she, 'If there's a true hero in the world, it's Mrs. Hill; she don't ask nobody's pity...

"ANY news of your husband, Jane?" asked Mrs. Oakland, stepping in after a gentle tap as usual at the door. "I saw Mrs. Field yesterday, and she said that some more money had com...

"TWO hours!" It was very annoying, but had to be borne, so Matthew Hill strolled into the town, still undecided about the course he should pursue towards his wife and family, bu...

"NOW, mother, come up and look," said a young girl, popping her head in at the door of the household room, where her mother was putting the finishing touch to the frill of a sno...

Mr. and Mrs. Taylor nodded and walked on, but the whole party were presently stopped by the appearance of Miss Brooks and some young friends, who inclined to exchange a word or...

"DEARY me, I'm sure I don't know what to do," said a little fat woman, with a pleasant, round face, coming leisurely down the stairs, and pushing open the door of a small "front...

"IT'S very kind of him to think about me," said Matthew Hill, as Robert Taylor sat by his bedside, and told him how Mr. Dixon, to whose office he had been sent to execute some d...

"IT'S no make-believe of a home that Robert can take up with after this," thought Mrs. Hayes, as she sat in the easy-chair, leaning her head upon the little pillow at the top of...

"I am afraid not," said the medical gentleman in attendance; "if warnings were of any use, we have them in abundance. This is the third violent death through drink that I have h...

BENJAMIN FIELD had to answer Mr. Hill's letter, and recent circumstances made him more than ever anxious for his return. But no word or message was to be got from Mrs. Hill, and...

MRS. HILL had buried her baby, and the close and kind attentions of Mr. and Mrs. Field had kept less faithful friends away, so that the influences for good had for a time anothe...

"ROBERT," said a gentlemanly young man about Robert Taylor's own height and age, laying his hand familiarly upon his shoulder, "my father says it is a pity poor Matthew should b...

"I CAN see how it is very well," thought Miss Lydia Brooks. "I know that old woman thinks her nephew admires me, as I know he does too; and so she wants to make a Methodist of m...

THE young gardener felt he had made an awkward beginning to the suit he had determined to press, and endeavoured to assure Milly that respect for her excellent father had alone...

ROBERT TAYLOR shook hands with Matthew Hill at the door of a railway carriage as soon as the doctor would hear of the journey. Messrs. Carver and Davis sent a special message to...

WHEN Matthew returned with the doctor, they found Mrs. Hill talking wildly, sometimes screaming, sometimes fighting off some imaginary assailant, the frightened children awake,...

HAD he been aware how suddenly at last his darling was to be removed to "the better land," Mr. Hill would have risked even Jane's precarious state, that she might see her child...

MR. LEWIS was determined to take no refusal from any one but Emily Taylor herself, not believing that any girl could resist his attractions of which he himself entertained the h...

MRS. TAYLOR and her son kindly interested themselves in choosing suitable lodgings for Matthew Hill and his little boy, when, all arrangements being made, the house given up, th...

"NOW, Milly, my dear," said Mrs. Hayes, when the train stopped at a certain junction, on the return, "I'm getting out here, and you will go on home alone. Take care of my luggag...

TO none of her attached friends was Mrs. Hayes's visit more welcome than to Rhoda Lewis, and the sight of the kind old face at the cottage door caused the maiden to bound forwar...

"THEY did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they builded, they planted, they married and were given in marriage;" so said the Lord Jesus, and He disapproved of none of th...