"I Don't Love You Now, Mother."

A great many years ngo, I knew a ady vvlio had bocu sick for two year, is you havo seen many a one, all the while dying with consumptiou. She íad one child - a little boy. Ono af'ternoon, I was sitting by her )edsde, for dearly lloved her - watchng hor with an aching heart. It seemed as though she would cough hor ife away. Her little boy Henry sat, ;oo, at the post of har bed, his blue eyes, so like hers, filling with tears to see her sulfer so. By and by the terrible cough ceased. Henry carne and )ut his urms round his mother's neck, ïo.stlud his head in his mother's bosoin, aml said, "Mothcr.J I do love you. I wish you wasn't siok." An hour later, the same loving, blueeyed boy came in, all a glow, stamping he snow oíF his feet. "O mother, may [ go skating? it is so nice - Ed and Charlie are going." " Henry," feebly said the mother, "the ioe is not hard ecough vet." "But, mother, very pet tishly said the boy, "you are sick al! the time - how do you know ?" "My child, you niuat obey me," geutly said ,he rnother. 'It is too bad," angrily sobbed the joy, who, an hour a go, had so loved lis" rnother. "I would like to have my ittle boy go," said his mother, looking sadly at the little boy's face, all covered with frowns ; "you said you lored me - be good." "No, I don't love you now, mother," said the boy, going out slamming the door. Again the dreadful coughing camo upon her, and we though t no more of ;he boy after the oough commenced I noticed tears falling thick upon her pilow. but she sank from eshaustion into a light sleep. In a little while, muffled steps of men's feet were heard eoming into the ïouse, as though carrying something ; and they were - carrying the alraost ifüless body of Henry. Angrily he had left his mother, and ?one to skate - disobeying her; and ;hen broke through tho ice, sank under the water, and now, saved by a great effort, was brought home barely alive, to his sick mother. I o.losed the doore, feoling more danger for her life than the child's, and coming softly in, drevv back the curLains from the bed. "I heard thern - is it Henry ; O, I knew he went - is he dead ?" But she never seemed to heur the answer I gavo, telling her, "O no." 3he commeocetl coughing - she died m agony - strangled to death. The poor mother 1 the boys disobediunce silled her. q After a coupleof hours, I sought the boy's room. "O I wish I had not told mother I did nút love her. To-morrow I'll teil her Ido," said the child sobbinj paiafully. My hoartac:iod; to-morrow I knew we must teil him she was dead. We did not, till the child came fully into the room, crying "Mother, I do love you." O! may I never again see agony like that child'i, na the lips he kissed gave back no kiss - as the hand he took feil lifelessly from his hand, instead oí shaking his hand as it always had, and the boy knew she was dead. "Mother, I do love you now," all the day long he sobbed and cried. " O mother, mother, forgive me." Then he would not leave hia mother. " Speak to me, mother I" but she could nevor epeak again, and he - the last words she had ever heard him say, wero, Mothor, I don't love you now." That boy's whole life was changed ; sober and sad he was ever after. Ha is now a grey-haired old man, with one sorrow ever his, one act of disobedience, one wrong word, embittering all his life - with those words ever wring ing in his ears, ''Mother, I don't love you now." Will the little ones who read this remember, if they disobey their mother, ïf they are eross and naughty, they sayevery single time they do so, to a tendí er mother's heart, by their actions, i not in the words of H6nry, the same thing - " I don't love you now, moth er ?"-