It has smiled on my successes,
Raised me when my hopes were low,
And by turns has looked upon me
With all the kind eyes I know.

Do you wonder that my picture
Has become like to a friend?
It has seen my life's beginning,
It shall stay and cheer the end!

NORTH AND SOUTH.

BY THE AUTHOR OF MARY BARTON.

CHAPTER THE FOURTEENTH.

IT was a comfort to Margaret about this
time to find that her mother drew more
tenderly and intimately towards her than she
had ever done since the days of her childhood.
She took her to her heart as a confidential
friend—the post Margaret had always
longed to fill, and had envied Dixon for being
preferred to. Margaret took pains to respond to
every call made upon her for sympathy—and
they were many—even when they bore
relation to trifles, which she would no more
have noticed or regarded herself than the
elephant would perceive the little pin at his
feet, which yet he lifts carefully up at the
bidding of his keeper. All unconsciously
Margaret drew near to a reward.

One evening, Mr. Hale being absent, her
mother began to talk to her about her brother
Frederick, the very subject on which Margaret
had longed to ask questions, and almost
the only one on which her timidity overcame
her natural openness. The more she wanted
to hear about him, the less likely she was
to speak.

"Oh, Margaret, it was so windy last night!
It came howling down the chimney in our
room! I could not sleep. I never can when
there is such a terrible wind. I got into a
wakeful habit when poor Frederick was at
sea; and now, even if I don't waken all at
once, I dream of him in some stormy sea,
with great, clear, glass-green walls of waves
on either side his ship, but far higher than
her very masts, curling over her with that
cruel, terrible white foam, like some gigantic
crested serpent. It is an old dream, but it
always comes back on windy nights, till I am
thankful to waken, sitting straight and stiff
up in bed with my terror. Poor Frederick!
He is on land now, so wind can do him no
harm. Though I did think it might shake
down some of those tall chimneys."

"Where is Frederick now, mamma? Our
letters are directed to the care of Messrs.
Barbour, at Cadiz, I know: but where is he
himself?"

"I can't remember the name of the place,
but he is not called Hale; you must remember
that, Margaret. Notice the F. D. in
every corner of the letters. He has taken
the name of Dickinson. I wanted him to
have been called Beresford, to which he had
a kind of right, but your father thought he
had better not. He might be recognised, you
know, if he were called by my name."

"Mamma," said Margaret, "I  was at Aunt
Shaw's when it all happened; and I suppose
I was not old enough to be told plainly about
it. But I should like to know now, if I may
—if it does not give you too much pain to
speak about it."

"Pain! No," replied Mrs. Hale, her cheek
flushing. "Yet it is pain to think that
perhaps I may never see my darling boy
again. Or else he did right, Margaret. They
may say what they like, but I have his own
letters to show, and I'll believe him, though
he is my son, sooner than any court-martial
on earth. Go to my little japan cabinet,
dear, and in the second left-hand drawer you
will find a packet of letters."

Margaret went. There were the yellow,
sea-stained letters, with the peculiar fragrance
which ocean letters have. Margaret carried
them back to her mother, who untied the
silken string with trembling fingers, and,
examining their dates, she gave them to
Margaret to read, making her hurried, anxious
remarks on their contents almost before her
daughter could have understood what they
were.

"You see, Margaret, how from the very
first he disliked Captain Reid. He was
second lieutenant in the ship—the Orion—in
which Frederick sailed the very first time.
Poor little fellow, how well he looked in his
midshipman's dress, with his dirk in his hand,
cutting open all the newspapers with it as if
it were a paper-knife. But this Mr. Reid, as
he was then, seemed to take a dislike to
Frederick from the very beginning. And
then—stay! these are the letters he wrote
on board the Russell. When he was appointed
to her, and found his old enemy Captain Reid
in command, he did mean to bear all his
tyranny patiently. Look! this is the letter.
Just read it, Margaret. Where is it he
says—Stop—'My father may rely upon me
that I will bear with all proper patience
everything that one officer and gentleman
can take from another. But, from my former
knowledge of my present captain, I confess I
look forward with apprehension to a long
course of tyranny on board the Russell.' You
see, he promises to bear patiently, and I am
sure he did, for he was the sweetest-tempered
boy, when he was not vexed, that could
possibly be. Is that the letter in which he
speaks of Captain Reid's impatience with
the men, for not going through the ship's
manœuvres as quickly as the Avenger? You
see, he says that they had many new hands
on board the Russell, while the Avenger had
been nearly three years on the station, with
nothing to do but to keep slavers off, and work
her men, till they ran up and down the
rigging like rats or monkeys."

Margaret slowly read the letter, half illegible
through the fading of the ink. It might