"I'll go to bed,—it's best place; but,"
catching at Margaret's gown, "yo'll come
again,—I know yo' will—but just say it!"

"I will come to-morrow," said Margaret.

Bessy leant back against her father, who
prepared to carry her upstairs; but as
Margaret rose to go he struggled to say
something. "I could wish there were a God, if it
were only to ask Him to bless thee."

Margaret went away very sad and thoughtful.

She was late for tea at home. At
Helstone unpunctuality at meal-times was a
great fault in her mother's eyes; but now
this, as well as many other little irregularities,
seemed to have lost their power of irritation,
and Margaret almost longed for the old
complainings.

"Have you met with a servant, dear?"

" No, mamma; that Anne Buckley would
never have done."

"Suppose I try," said Mr. Hale. "Everybody
else has had their turn at this great difficulty.
Now let me try. I may be the Cinderella to
put on the slipper after all."

Margaret could hardly smile at this little
joke, so oppressed was she by her visit to the
Higginses.

"What would you do, papa? How would
you set about it?"

"Why, I would apply to some good
house-mother to recommend me one know to
herself or her servants."

"Very good. But we must first catch our
house-mother."

"You have caught her. Or rather she is
coming into the snare, and you will catch her
to-morrow, if you're skilful."

"What do you mean, Mr. Hale?" asked
his wife, her curiosity aroused.

"Why, my paragon pupil (as Margaret calls
him), has told me that his mother intends to
call on Mrs. and Miss Hale to-morrow."

"Mrs. Thornton!" exclaimed Mrs. Hale.

"The mother of whom he spoke to us?"
said Margaret.

"Mrs. Thornton; the only mother he has,
I believe,"said Mr. Hale quietly.

"I shall like to see her. She must be an
uncommon person," her mother added.
"Perhaps she may have a relation who might suit
us, and be glad of our place. She sounded to
be such a careful economical person, that I
should like any one out of the same family."

"My dear," said Mr. Hale, alarmed. " Pray
don't go off on that idea. I fancy Mrs.
Thornton is as haughty and proud in her
way as our little Margaret here is in hers,
and that she completely ignores that old time
of trial, and poverty, and economy, of which
he speaks so openly. I am sure, at any rate,
she would not like strangers to know
anything about it."

"Take notice that it is not my kind of haughtiness,
papa, if I have any at all; which I
don't agree to, though you're always accusing
me of it."

"I don't know positively that it is hers
either; but from little things I have gathered
from him, I fancy so."

They cared too little to ask in what manner
her son had spoken about her. Margaret
only wanted to know if she must stay in to
receive this call, as it would prevent her
going to see how Bessy was, until late in the
day, since the early morning was always
occupied in household affairs; and then she
recollected that her mother must not be left
to have the whole weight of entertaining her
visitor.

CORNWALL'S GIFT TO
STAFFORDSHIRE.

CORNWALL has many curious things to show
us, and among them is the curious fact that
the material for the finer kinds of porcelain,
necessary in our Staffordshire potteries, is
brought in great part from this western
county. We might, if in a moralising mood,
endeavour to show how much better the
world would be constituted if we had the
arranging thereof. We might argue that
England would be much happier and more
fortunate if she grew her own tea, coffee,
sugar, and cotton, as well as mined her own
iron, copper, coal, and salt; that Cornwall
would find her rich copper and tin still
richer if she had coal to smelt them, instead
of sending them to Swansea to be smelted;
that South Wales would find her stores of
iron ore a still more abundant source of
wealth, if she had at hand the rich morsels
of ore for which she has now to send to
Cumberland; that Staffordshire would make
her million of cups and saucers more cheaply
if she had the china clay at hand, instead of
purchasing it from the south-western counties.
It may be so; we know not. But it
may be, on the other hand, that we are all
dependent one on another, than if more
isolated in proud self-reliance. It is indeed
a happy ordination that we cannot afford to
be independent of one another; that nation
is obliged to depend upon nation, country
upon country, family upon family.

Be this as it may, it is certainly a remarkable
circumstance that Staffordshire, which
has in great part a clayey soil, can find it
worth while to send all the way to Cornwall
for material of porcelain. One might perhaps
have thought that Cornwall should make the
porcelain, since Cornwall possesses the porcelain
clay; but Cornwall has little brown clay,
and little water power, no coal, and is a
long way from the centre of England. These
deficiencies tell unfavourably; and this it is
better that the clay should be sent to the
potters, than that the potters should come
to the clay.

The discovery of the qualities of china
clay, and the introduction of this substance
into our potteries, were marked by many