EVERAL months have passed away since the daring attempt of the escaped convict to rob Mrs. Raymond in her humble home, and a change has come that has brought gloom upon the mother and her two children.

It may have been the shock she had, when threatened by the intruder, that caused her to break down and take to her bed ill; but certain it is that she was forced to give up her work, she said for a day or two, and keep her children home from school.

Little Pearl was a good cook, however, and Will made the fires and did what little marketing there was, so that their mother did not suffer for want of attention.

Still she fretted, and a fever followed, and Will went after a doctor on his own responsibility, and placed his mother in his care.

The man of medicine made three visits, and his pay took two-thirds of the little money the poor woman had, and she determined to get up and go to work to earn more.

But she could do but little, and, weak and wretched, she gained strength very slowly.

Then Will went out to see what he could get to do, and each night he came in with a few pence, earned by blacking boots, running errands or selling papers, and this helped to eke out a subsistence for all three.

Mrs. Raymond did not seem to suffer pain, she had no fever, but her ailment appeared to be heart trouble, and night after night she lay awake brooding over her sorrows.

Surprised, as the days passed, that Will seemed to be bringing in more money each day, she wondered at it, and questioned him, but he merely said that he picked it up in odd jobs.

"But, Will, you are looking pale and haggard, and you are working too hard," seeing that he did look wan and white.

"No, mother, I'm all right," he answered, and so the conversation ended.

But that night Mrs. Raymond could not sleep, and growing strangely nervous, she went to wake her son to talk to her for awhile.

To her surprise he was not in his little rear room adjoining the kitchen, and the bed had not been slept in.

She awakened Pearl and asked her about her brother.

"Oh, mamma, don't scold him, for he is at work," said Pearl anxiously.

"Your brother at work, and at night?"

"Yes, mamma, for he has a place as night messenger in a telegraph office; he goes on at ten o'clock and gets off at six," explained Pearl.

"My poor boy! and this accounts for his being so hard to wake up every morning.

"Yes, mamma; but he sleeps in the daytime when he can, and you know he goes to bed early, but I always wake him up at half-past nine o'clock; and, oh, mamma! Will gets six dollars a week, only think of that."

"And he's killing himself, he don't get half the sleep he should have.

"He must give it up, Pearl, for I will not allow him to ruin his health and slave his young life away as he is doing."

"But, mamma, you are sick, and Will makes so much, and you ought not to work."

But Mrs. Raymond was firm in her resolve, and when Will came creeping into his little room in the early morning, he was astonished at finding his mother lying in his bed, awaiting him.

In vain he argued; she would not hear of his continuing his night-work, and so Will Raymond left his place and looked for something else to do.

But nothing came in his way; times were hard, and but a few pennies a day were all the mother and her children had to live on.

Will seldom ate at home, saying that he got plenty at the lunch-counters during the day, and he left the scanty food for his mother and sister; but this his mother soon began to disbelieve, as the boy looked really ill and was growing thin.

"To-day is Thanksgiving Day, Will, so we must have a good dinner," said Mrs. Raymond, with a forced smile, one morning, after a most meagre breakfast.

"Oh, mamma!" said Will, and his heart was too full to say more.

"My son, I have a gold-piece—a three-dollar piece given me years ago, and which I have held on to until now, never counting it in thinking of my finances; but I wish you to take it and go to some good market and invest a dollar at least in a good dinner;" and the poor mother turned away to hide her tears, for the faces of her children told her plainly that they were hungry—yes, very hungry, as she was herself.

Will took the piece of gold, when his mother had taken it from its hiding-place, and placed it carefully in his pocket.

Then he started out upon his errand.

He was anxious to make his money go as far as possible, and yet secure the best, so he wended his way to a market, which had often attracted his attention.

Arriving at the market he feasted his eyes upon bunches of crisp, white celery, selected some fine sweet-potatoes, picked out a fine chicken, and then felt in his pocket for his money.

The marketman saw him turn pale as death, and then say, in a whisper, which he knew was not feigned:

"My gold-piece is gone!"

"Have you lost your money, my little man?" he asked, in a kindly way.

"Yes, sir; and it is all we have in the world.

"Ah! here is a hole in my pocket, and it has rolled out, for it was a three-dollar gold-piece.

"But maybe I can find it, sir," and the tears were in the boy's eyes.

"If you do not come back, I will trust you for your Thanksgiving dinner, for I know you will pay me when you can."

"Oh, thank you, sir! You are so kind!" and Will bounded away to look for his gold-piece.

But then he remembered that if he went at a rapid pace it might escape his eye; he walked slowly, searching the ground at every step of the way.

Presently he walked bolt up against a gentleman who had been watching his approach for half a block.

"Oh, pardon me, sir!" he said.

"Certainly, my boy; but you appear to be searching for something that you have lost?"

The face of the man was full of kindness, though stern, and his voice had a sympathetic tone in it that touched the boy, who told his misfortune to the stranger, adding:

"It was all we had, sir, and poor mother's heart will break, I know."

The man looked like one who had seen the world, and he dressed as one who had a plethoric pocket-book.

He was a reader of human nature, and saw that it was no begging for sympathy that the boy told his story for.

A man of fifty, perhaps, he was well preserved, and yet there was that in his face that seemed to indicate that his life had not been all made up of sunshine.

"My boy, I found your gold-piece, and—"

"Oh, sir!" cried Will, in delight.

"Yes, and I took it as an omen of good luck, this Thanksgiving day, and I meant to devote many times its amount to charity, of which I might not have thought but for my finding this gold-piece.

"No, I cannot give you my 'luck-piece,' as I must keep it; but I will give you more than its value, so let us go to the market and get the things you ordered, and then, if you will ask me home with you, I will go, for somehow I look upon you as a lucky find, my boy.

"Come, now, to the market."

"But, sir, our home is a flat on the top floor of a tenement-house, and it is so humble, and we are so poor, you would not like to go there."

"I will go, unless you refuse to take me, my boy."

"No, sir, I could not refuse one who is so kind to me," was the answer, and Will led the way back to the market.

"Did you find your money, my lad?" asked the man.

"Yes, sir, or rather this gentleman found it for me."

"Yes, sir, and I wish you to put up your best turkey, and other things that I will order, and send at once to the address that my young friend here will give you."

Will stood aghast, as he heard the orders, for flour, tea, coffee, sugar, hams and other things were on the list until he seemed to feel that his kind friend was going to provision the flat for a year to come.

"Now, Will, we must take a carriage, for I am a trifle lame, from the effects of an old wound when I was a soldier in the Mexican war," and a passing hack was called, and the two entered it.

Arriving at the tenement-house the gentleman bade the driver wait, and then he followed Will up the dingy flights of stairs to the top floor.

Opening the door of the sitting-room, Will ushered his guest in, and Mrs. Raymond arose from her easy-chair at sight of a stranger.

She looked pale and thin, but very beautiful, and her face slightly flushed as she saw her son with the visitor.

"This is my mother, Mr. Ivey, and this, my little sister Pearl.

"Mother, this gentleman has been most kind to me," and Will introduced his visitor with the ease of one double his years.

The visitor seemed amazed at the lovely woman he beheld before him, and instinctively he knew that he was in the presence of a lady.

He bowed low, and advancing held out his hand, while he said:

"You must pardon my intrusion, Mrs. Raymond; but I was so fortunate this morning as to find a three-dollar gold-piece.

"It caught my eye, as it glittered upon the pavement, and picking it up I saw that it had a hole in it, so attached it to my watch-chain.

"A moment after I beheld one I recognized as the owner coming in search of it, and thus I made the acquaintance of your noble boy, and hence took the occasion to also meet you and his sister."

Mrs. Raymond was touched by the words of the visitor, and there was that in his face that seemed to impress her, and she said:

"You are very welcome, sir, though ours is but a poor home for visitors, and I have been an invalid for some little time; but may I ask, as my son introduced you as Mr. Ivey, if you are not Colonel Richard Ivey, who was known as Dashing Dick Ivey of the Dragoons in the Mexican war?"

"Why yes, madam, that was my name, when years ago I was a cavalry officer; but have we met before that you recognize me?"

"No, sir, but when a girl I kept a scrap-book, and yours was among the pictures that I took from a paper and put in it, and often have I looked over the book and your face has but little changed, so I recalled it upon hearing your name."

"You are very kind, my dear madam, and this is another link of friendship between us that you should remember me as a soldier, and I hope you will look upon me from this day as an old friend, one who knows your sufferings and your needs, for I have heard all from Will, and I intend to do for you just what I would have done for a sister of mine were she in distress," and into the hearts of the mother and her children came a joy that they had not known for many a long day, and all through Will Raymond's losing his three-dollar gold-piece on Thanksgiving Day.