Even while she stood in this attitude, the door opened quietly, and
Mr. Edwards entered.
"I thought you would be afraid, Mary; and so I came home," said he in a kind voice.
Mary looked at him with surprise. This was soon changed to joy as she perceived that he was perfectly sober.
"Oh, father!" she sobbed, unable to control her feelings, and leaning her face against his breast as she spoke—"if you would never go away!"
Tenderly the father drew his arm around his weeping child, and kissed her pure forehead.
"Mary," said he, as calmly as he could speak, "for your mother's sake—" but he could not finish the sentence. His voice quivered, and became inarticulate.
Solemnly, in the silence of his own heart, did the father, as he stood thus with his child in his arms, repeat the vows he had already taken. And he kept his vows.
Wonderful is the power of music! It is the heart's own language, and speaks to it in a voice of irresistible persuasion. It is a good gift from heaven, and should ever be used in a good cause.
THE DISTILLER'S DREAM.
FROM the time Mr. Andrew Grim opened a low grogshop near the Washington Market, until, as a wealthy distiller, he counted himself worth a hundred thousand dollars, every thing had gone on smoothly; and now he might be seen among the money-lords of the day, as self-complacent as any. He had stock, houses, and lands: and, in his mind, these made up life's greatest good. And had he not obtained them in honest trade? Were they not the reward of persevering industry? Mr. Grim felt proud of the fact, that he was the architect of his own fortunes. "How many had started in life side by side with him; and yet scarcely one in ten of them had risen above the common level."