"Oh! oh! mamma, dear, isn't it a pity he isn't a rich, boy like Cousin Willie? then he could have a carriage to take him about in, and nice clothes to cover up the hump on his back, and a pretty cane with a silver band every little way, and the people wouldn't push him about so, and call him 'ugly rascal,' as that great man did just now."

Kittie Fay's mother had noticed the sad object that was slowly moving up the street before her, trying in vain to keep his clumsy crutch out of the way of the passers-by, and she had heard the rude and inhuman ejaculation of the nobly-formed specimen, whose inner soul must, she felt, be far more hideous than the stricken lad's outward being, since it could so cruelly taunt one on whom the hand of God had been placed in wisdom.

"Perhaps not 'a pity,' Kittie, darling," replied she, as she quickened her steps in order to overtake the boy. "We will try to find out whether it is or not, and you shall some day answer the question for yourself;" and she laid her hand gently upon the head of the poor little cripple, who had halted that he might get breath to proceed to his home. She was almost startled at the sweet yet sad face that was upturned to her gaze. There seemed such a depth of feeling in the blue eye, and such a calm and hallowed expression upon the pale features, that she hesitated for a moment, as if studying how to address herself to the lad. He was not like a common pauper, although the scanty rags scarcely covered his unsightly figure, and the old hat served only to keep the scorching sun from the very top of his head. He had not asked for money, and he shrunk away from the touch of the lady as if there were degradation in it, and leaned upon his crutch, with the sweet yet reproachful look still fixed upon her.

Perhaps it was a consciousness of the blessed sympathy that welled up from her motherly heart that relaxed his features into a half smile, and moved him to a half glad, half sad emotion; perhaps the memory of as dear a face that once beamed upon him with the same holy tenderness, stirred the long-time quiet depths within his young bosom, and sent forth the tear that lay upon his thin cheek! At any rate, the shyness and misery had vanished, and he stood intently gazing into the face of the lady until he seemed to have forgotten his misfortunes in the happiness of that one sacred moment. The gentle voice recalled him to a sense of his position, and he sighed heavily as she said, "Will you tell me where you live, my son? and may I sometimes go to see you with my little daughter?"

"My son, my son!" that was too much, for the pent-up torrent, and the poor lad burst into an agony of weeping. Years had passed since so blessed a sound had fallen upon his heart, and it awakened so long a train of fond recollections, henceforth to be only as a departed dream, that he could have no power to restrain the grief that struggled for vent. It wasn't the pity that moved him—oh! no. There was never an hour in the day, when he was exposed to the observation of his fellow-mortals, that some expression of commiseration did not reach his sensitive ear, and many a stranger would stop him with the words of self-complacent condolence that would send the hot blood over his white forehead, and excite in him a bitter feeling of rebellion against the Providence that ordereth all things aright. He could distinguish between a passing glance of loathing and contempt, and the heartfelt look of sympathetic sorrow, and his isolated spirit grasped at the slightest evidence of a kindred feeling, and treasured it up as the brightest and most precious of gifts.

Mrs. Fay was troubled by the tears she had so unwittingly occasioned, and was about to move quietly away, as she saw no prospect of an immediate answer to her question, and the people were beginning to be attracted to the spot by the scene, when the boy pointed in the direction of the bay, and said, tremulously, "I stay with my grandmother down there in a small house by the water, lady; and we shall both be glad to see you if you please to come;" and, as if fearing another glance, he hobbled off as fast as his infirmities would allow, and was soon out of their sight.

It was hard to go along day by day, with his withered limb and his protruding back, in the midst of God's fair creation, and feel himself an anomaly there. Shut up his ears and soul as he would against the coarse gibes that were often uttered at his expense, he could not fail to perceive the strange difference between himself and the crowd that hurried by him, nor to take in the wondrous beauty that would sometimes flit before his longing vision. The very thought that in his own person he was denied the excellence and majesty of a perfect development enhanced so much the more the value of these perfections in his estimation, and helped him to feel that of all the objects in the wide world, he was the most horribly repulsive. He did not mind the brutal sneers of the rabble that surrounded his grandmother's hovel on this day, however, for the sweet lady and the beauteous child were constantly before him, and the look so like his departed mother's; that had penetrated his inmost soul, exalted him far above the trivialities of earth, and he entered the door with a face so radiant, that his old grandmother cried out in surprise,

"Why, Archie, my boy, what's the matter with ye now? you look as if the angels had been with ye."

"And so they have, grandmother," replied the boy. "Do you remember what dear mother used to tell us? That all were God's angels that do His will; and what can be His will if not the outpouring of kindness and love upon all the world?"

"It is strange, child!" continued the old woman, raising her hands in utter amazement; "last night, and almost all the nights before it, the cloud has been upon ye, and to-night I'm frightened by the change," and she sat down with her hands folded upon her lap, not daring to turn from the lad "for fear he was crazed," as she said to herself.

"I know I have been dark, and gloomy, and wicked," replied he, "for I was maddened by the foolish and thoughtless; but I learned to-day that there are those who can forget the body and its defects, and see the real and perfect man that is hidden beneath. No, no, grandmother, I do not any longer wish to be otherwise than as God has made me, and I'll be valued yet for something better than this shell!" and the boy-man went away to his humble room, and shut himself in to dream out his future, while his bewildered grandparent wondered within herself what it all could mean.

There was little in that carpetless room, with its narrow cot, and its one chair, and its small window with the cracked and puttied panes, to inspire hopefulness or even cheerfulness, if the spirit looks to external objects for its coloring; and yet the one eye that pierced within the bosom of the solitary lad, saw the blessed light that was beginning to dawn there, and the invisible hand that so affectionately helpeth us in our necessity, was stretched forth to lift him out of the despondency that had hitherto pressed him continually downward.

The sun was near its setting, and the evening was coming on with its slow, midsummer pace, and he had sat for one whole hour beside the window, with bowed head, and clasped hands building up a castle, which, perchance might fall; perchance might resist the shock of ages, and prove the admiration of every beholder. What mattered it to him, so long as it served to divert him from the one baneful subject—his distorted self—and place him for the time being at least, in an atmosphere of glory and delight! It was better by far than the boisterous mirth of the rude boys whose riotous sport filled the open space near his dwelling with revolting and uncouth sounds; and these silent and intense yearnings after something higher and better than his present state, were almost sure to result in some real and noble achievement.

Not much could be found in any of his surroundings to encourage his lofty aspirations; what with the coarse father whose only mastery was of the trowel by day, and at night the pipe; and the simple grandmother who dwelt with wonder, and almost with alarm on every progressive step of the boy. As he looked from the small loop-hole that admitted the light and air to his humble room, there was naught before him save blocks of brick and stone, with a large square of ground intervening, which was unfenced and covered with rough stone, and the refuse from the adjoining houses; but that same uncultivated plot insured to him a wide expanse above, whither his longing soul often turned for the beauty and power that it met not on earth. The bay was shut off from his view by the broad and high masonry which his wealthy neighbors had erected between him and his chief joy, and the only glimpse of water visible to him now was a stagnant pond, on which dirty and ill-mannered urchins were constantly sailing their boats of paper or wood. One would have thought that there was nothing to attach him to so barren and unattractive a spot, and yet the greatest of all his anxieties was lest amid the encroachments of an ambitious and increasing population, the miserable hut that had become a palace to him in its hallowed associations, would fall under the ban of some authoritative power, and himself be cast forth into some new place where memory and affection had no hold.

The extensive traveler, whose mind has an unbounded range, can scarcely conceive of the immense value of a limited space to his equally acquisitive though less favored brother. Thousands, whose feet had wandered amid all the wonders of the earth, came back to their every-day plodding life with vacant brains and unexpanded souls, while Archibald Mackie, in his non-suggestive hovel, gathered big thoughts and exalted ideas, and grew majestic in intellect, even as he was diminutive in his outward frame. Not a stone upon the waste before him but could tell him its thrilling tale of weary heads pillowed thereon, when all other resting-places failed; of scanty meals spread out upon them for lack of a social board; and of forlorn and forsaken ones, sighing out their bitter plaints unto these flinty auditors for want of more attentive hearers. Not a block in the noble structures all about but could bear witness to many a sorrowing soul whose drooping body was sustained only by the thought of the needy ones at home, whose wants gave energy to every effort. Not a child amid the group that frequented the common play-ground near but spoke to him, either of blessed ties, and hallowed sympathies, and tender care, and watchful training, or of a broken circle, and chilled feelings, and an utter destitution of interest or culture. But these were all wearisome to him compared to the splendors that were revealed from the heavenly creation, where his gaze was so lovingly fixed on this evening, after meeting Mrs. Fay and her little daughter Kittie.

He could remember his mother more by the endearing fondness lavished upon him from his birth, than by any distinct impression of her features, but this night her face took the form of the strange lady's in his imagination, and made him sadder than ever as he looked upward to meet it.

"Wherefore, oh! wherefore wert thou taken from me, my mother!" said he, as he bowed still lower before God, as if crushed beneath the weight of so mighty a sorrow. "How can I be any thing without thy gentle guidance, and with none to help me out of my ignorance and nothingness?"

"With God nothing is impossible!" came the answer from his mother's Bible, which he had opened to the place that her own hand had marked, and Archie lifted up his heart and his head, and went out at the summons of his grandmother.