The Bankrupt Husband

"It'll have to go, Mary; there's no ielp for it." She looked up- tlie lady to whoni these words were addressed - in a way which howcd that t.hcy had struck and hurt ïer. She was scollopicg a ciiild's skirt, and the needlo-work had followed her apid fingcrs aloug the flannel like a line f snowy foam: but uow the work feil, unheeded, to the floor. "Ah, John, has it come tothat?" asked Mary, the wife of John Malcolm; and the soft bloom in her cheeks vanished away, and the words were spoken in a dr.d of gasp, as though just beneath ,hein lay a might} swell and rush of eelings that well nigh overpowered her voice. " Yes, Mary, it must come. God inows I've struggled as hard as anyman eould to weather the storm, and I could ïave done it, too, if those Western houses had'nt gone under. But they'll carry us with it." " I can't realize ityet, John," she said, ooking athim in a half-bewildered, halfVightened way that was pitiful to see ; he shock, for the moment, had ha!fstunned her. " O, Mary, it was bardost for your sake ! " and the words carne in that sharp groan which is terrible to hear froni the lips of a strong man. The tones roused her at once into full consciousness of what had befallen them, and the part she must bear in it. " Don't, John - don't tak e it so bard," her voice stru-glii)g up through a sob into a note of brave cheerfulness, and her lips fashioning a smile which though weak at first, you feit certain would grow strong all the time, just as you feel the sweet promise of the day when the first faint sunbeams struggle wéakly out of the morning's inist. " I could have borne up, Mary, if it had'nt been for you and the children ; but that thought cuta to the core - its more than I can bear." And for the first time the young wife and mothor heard a aob from the lips of her husband, aa he biwed down on the arm of his ehair. The pride of hin manhood gave way at last, and John Malcolm wept like a little child, ïhen the woman's heart, the woman's power to cheer, and comfort, and strengthen, rouscd thcmselves ; the waves went over her but ono momeut, and then Mary Malcolm forgot herself, and rose up to the height of her true womanhood - to the exaltation of self-sacrifice. "John," said the soft brave voice, "don't ever say that again. Let everything else fail, the heart of your wife never will." And now she had come close to hiin, and he feit her small arms about his neck, and her head lay on his shoulder, as tender, aa confiding as in their days of brightest prosporiiy. All through the day he had been looking ibrward to this hour, and shrioking a way from it ; and once or twice - üod forgive him! - he had glanced out of his oflieo window at the river, whieh rolled lts dark sullen waters in the distanee, and a flerce tetnptation had rolled over him to drop everything and hurry out therc and bury all bis pain and anguish under the dark, cruinpled sheet of water. J5ut John, iu his secret distress, knewthat this temptation was the voice of the devil entering into his soul; he was a man who feared God and kept his commandments - he put the temptation afTide. Tlie young husband had not doubted his wife's heart for a moment ; but he expected to pee her almost stricken to the earth, with the first tidings of the ruin of the house in which he was the hcaviest partner. He knew that her youth had been nurtured in all the grace and luxury that wealth confers, and he feared the thought of going out into the chili and darkness of poverty. He had not looked for loud lamentations, or bitter reproaches, but he dreaded the silent tears, the mute despair of the white face." So John Malcolm raised his hot face, stained with the tears that were shed for her sake, and looked into the eyes of his wife; and sho arswered him with a sniile that set even her face iu a new sacreduess and beauty to her husband's eye - a suiile 60 gweet and tender to him, go brave and defiant für the worst the world could do for tlicm, that it said to him at once all that her words would, and could not. " Ah, Mary, my wife," said the merchant, " I thought when I came into my house, an hour ago, that I was a ruined man ; I feel cow as though I was a very rich one." "Iluined with me and the children, John?" aud uow thcre was some faint reproach in her voice; but she clunf closer to hiin, " But Mary - poor child, you don't know what it is to be poor, to give up so much of grfico and luxury, to which you have been accustoiued." '' You say that, John, bofore you've triecl me, and see what springs of courage and powers of self-sacriüce there are in my nature." The noble words had a fitting of emphasis in the sweet smile - in the steadfast, dauntless tones. " But we shall have to give up the house, Mary." " Wel], we can feel just as happy in a smaller ono. Our love has had a broader foundation than stately rooms and costly furniture We'll take a cozy little cottage somewhere in the oountry, and for three servants get along with oiie." Hearing these words, John Malcolm looked at his wife ; but he did not say then what was in his heart - a thanksgivingto God for the angel He had sent to walk with hira. He took her hand and held it close in his, while he told her of a temptation which had beset him before the failuro of his house became oertain - a temptation to yiclding by which he could have saved himself from failare. But it must havo been by dishonest nieans, by taking advantage of others n his power - in short, by a fraud, which, though man's laws never could reach, God's did, with the eternal " Do unto others as vo would they should do unto you." " O, thank God ! thnnk God you were delivered irom this evil ! I had rather you shoukl go down to your grave without a dollar, than comniittod this sin," said Mary Maloolm ; and the tears were bright in her bluo eyes. And aftcrwards there feil alittlesilence betwixt those two, husband and wife. It was broken by the latter. 8he looked up in the mau's face, and her little fingers sifted themselves through the dark hair that had no shocks of gray, and her look, bright, gratcful, loving touched, and covered a great deal. " What is it Mary ? " "I was thinking, John, how mueh better off to-day I ani than thousands of wives throughout the land. How many there are who sit in their lonely homes, wearing the slow hours away with hopes and fears for the husbands who have gone to the war, and whose dreams at night are filled with visions of battle-fields, where the one loved face lies white and ghastly on the sodden grass, with no hand to offer the last cup of cold water, no ear to catch the last low word. Ah, John, my eyes have never searched, as so many eager eyes do, for your name among the list of dead and wounded; and 'failed' seems a word to thank God for, when I think of that." She was erying now - she, the broken merchant's wife - erying for joy. " Mary," said John Maloolm, " I never thought of all this, never onee thanked God for it, though this day has been the darkest and the brightest of my life ; for out of the thick cloud has its blessed light shined." And after a while their talk went on all the practical matter and uses which so nearly cuncerned them - the retrenching their expenses, the selling the furniture at onee, and settling themselvcs in the cottage, as Mary called it, always speaking the word with a tone which gave it a sweeter flavor of home. " I can get a clerkship, and we can contrive to live on a small salary until the war is over, which God grant may not be long ; and afterwards I shall, doubtless, see my way clear into business again But, Mary, don't you know how folks will pity you behind your back, and say you've come down dreadfully in the world, and say that it's a shame that you ever threw yourself away on such a poor dog as I am ? " " They won't know what they're saying then, and I certainly shan't care for it " Her smile was clear and bright now, as sunshine that has struggled with the cloud, and come out of it triumphaut. " Woll, Mary, a strong heart makes a stout arm, and I shill toil with both for you and the children, as a man does for those that are dearer than life to him." " Dear John ! " - her hand fluttered down on his shoulder in a pretty, caressing way, though her tones needc-d nothing more. " I carne homo, Mary, a miserable discouraged, broken-spirited-man ; and now I feel as brave, as strong, as chcerful, too, as I ever did in my life - aye, and rieher ; for it needed this day and this trial, to show me what the woman I married was worth, and all she could bo to me. O, Mary, if there was only more wives in the world like you ! " Dear reader, have you ever stood, like this woman, face to face with adversity ? - and have you, too, learned in what spirit to take it ?