be out of her power to indulge in momentary whims. She gratified no feeling but a newly-awakened desire for mental improvement, and spent her leisure hours in reading useful books.

Abby's year was one of perpetual self-contest and self-denial; but it was by no means one of unmitigated misery. The ruling desire of years was not to be conquered by the resolution of a moment; but when the contest was over, there was for her the triumph of victory. If the battle was sometimes desperate, there was so much more merit in being conqueror. One sabbath was spent in tears, because Judith Slater did not wish her to attend their meeting with such a dowdy bonnet; and another fellow-boarder thought her gown must have been made in 'the year one.' The colour mounted to her cheeks, and the lightning flashed from her eyes, when asked if she had 'just come down,' and she felt as though she should be glad to be away from them all, when she heard their sly innuendoes about 'bush-whackers.' Still she remained unshaken. It is but for a year, said she to herself, and the time and money that my father thought I should spend in folly shall be devoted to a better purpose.

III.

At the close of a pleasant April day, Mr Atkins sat at his kitchen fireside, with Charley upon his knee. 'Wife,' said he to Mrs Atkins, who was busily preparing the evening meal, 'is it not a year since Abby left home?'

'Why, husband, let me think: I always clean up the house thoroughly just before fast-day, and I had not done it when Abby went away. I remember speaking to her about it, and telling her that it was wrong to leave me at such a busy time; and she said, Mother, I will be at home to do it all next year." Yes, it is a year, and I should not be surprised if she should come this week.'

66

'Perhaps she will not come at all,' said Mr Atkins with a gloomy look; she has written us but few letters, and they have been very short and unsatisfactory. I suppose she has sense enough to know that no news is better than bad news; and having nothing pleasant to tell about herself, she thinks she will tell us nothing at all. But if I ever get her home again, I will keep her here. I assure you her first year in Lowell shall also be her last.'

'Husband, I told you my fears, and if you had set up your authority, Abby would have been obliged to stay at home; but perhaps she is doing pretty well. You know she is not accustomed to writing, and that may account for the few and short letters we have received; but they have all, even the shortest, contained the assurance that she would be at home at the close of the year.'

'Pa, the stage has stopped here,' said little Charley, and he

bounded from his father's knee. The next moment the room rang with the shout of 'Abby has come! Abby has come!' In a few moments more she was in the midst of the joyful throng. Her father pressed her hand in silence, and tears gushed from her mother's eyes. Her brothers and sisters were clamorous with delight, all but little Charley, to whom Abby was a stranger, and who repelled with terror all her overtures for a better acquaintance.. Her parents gazed upon her with speechless pleasure, for they felt that a change for the better had taken place in their once wayward girl. Yes, there she stood before them, a little taller and a little thinner, and, when the flush of emotion had faded away, perhaps a little paler; but the eyes were bright in their joyous radiance, and the smile of health and innocence was playing around the rosy lips. She carefully laid aside her new straw-bonnet, with its plain trimming of light-blue ribbon, and her dark merino dress shewed to the best advantage her neat symmetrical form. There was more delicacy of personal appearance than when she left them, and also more softness of manner; for constant collision with so many young females had worn off the little asperities which had marked her conduct while at home.

'Well, Abby, how many silk gowns have you got?' said her father as she opened a large new trunk.

'Not one, father,' said she, and she fixed her dark eyes upon him with an expression which told all. But here are some little books for the children, and a new calico dress for mother; and here is a nice black silk handkerchief for you to wear around your neck on Sundays. Accept it, dear father, for it is your daughter's first gift.'

'You had better have bought me a pair of spectacles, for I am sure I cannot see anything.' There were tears in the rough farmer's eyes, but he tried to laugh and joke, that they might not be perceived. 'But what did you do with all your money?'

'I thought I had better leave it there,' said Abby, and she placed her bank-book in her father's hand. Mr Atkins looked a moment, and the forced smile faded away. The surprise had been too great, and tears fell thick and fast from the father's eyes.

'It is but a little,' said Abby.

'But it was all you could save,' replied her father, and I am proud of you, Abby; yes, proud that I am the father of such a girl. It is not this paltry sum which pleases me so much, but the prudence, self-command, and real affection for us which you have displayed. But was it not sometimes hard to resist temptation?'

'Yes, father, you can never know how hard; but it was the thought of this night which sustained me through it all. I knew how you would smile, and what my mother would say and feel; and though there have been moments, yes, hours, that have seen me wretched enough, yet this one evening will repay for all. There is

ABBY'S YEAR IN LOWELL.-A TALE OF SELF-DENIAL.

but one thing now to mar my happiness, and that is the thought that this little fellow has quite forgotten me,' and she drew Charley to her side. But the new picture-book had already effected wonders, and in a few moments he was in her lap, with his arms around her neck, and his mother could not persuade him to retire that night until he had given Sister Abby' a hundred kisses.

'Father,' said Abby as she arose to retire when the tall clock struck eleven, 'may I not some time go back to Lowell? I should like to add a little to the sum in the bank, and I should be glad of one silk gown.'

'Yes, Abby, you may do anything you wish. I shall never again be afraid to let you spend a year in Lowell. You have shewn yourself to be possessed of a virtue, without which no one can expect to gain either respect or confidence-SELF-DENIAL.'

HE elephant is the largest and most powerful of all living quadrupeds, and may be regarded as a remnant of those gigantic races which were common at an earlier period of the earth's history. Specimens have been found upwards of twelve feet high from the sole of the foot to the ridge of the shoulder, above five tons in weight, and capable of carrying enormous burdens. In general figure, the animal seems clumsy and awkward, but this is fully compensated by the litheness and agility of his trunk. His legs are necessarily massive, for the support of such a huge body; but though apparently stiff, they are by no means the unwieldy members which many suppose. He can kneel and rise with facility; can use the fore-feet by way of hand in holding down branches while he strips off the foliage with his trunk; employ his feet in stamping his enemies to death; and has been known to travel even with a heavy load from fifty to seventy miles in twenty-four hours. His feet, which are internally divided into toes, are externally gathered into a round cushioned mass, protected by flattish nails, and are therefore unfitted for walking on roads or rocky ground. Less bulky in the hinder quarters, his strength accumulates in his chest and neck, the latter of which is short and well adapted for the support of the head and trunk, which are his principal organs of action and defence.

Compared with the bulk of his body, the head appears small; but not so when we take into account the weight and size of its appendages. These are pendulous ears, a couple of gigantic tusks in the

No. 54.

I

male, and the proboscis or trunk, which in large specimens is capable of reaching to a distance of seven or eight feet. In the Indian species the ears are rather small, but in the African they are so large, that the Boers and Hottentots make use of them as trucks when dried. The tusks, which correspond to the canine teeth of other quadrupeds, appear only in the upper jaw, fully developed in the male, and only partially so in the female. These he employs as his main weapons of defence, as well as in clearing away obstructions from his path, and in grubbing up succulent roots, of which he is particularly fond. The largest pair in the Paris Museum of Natural History is seven feet in length, and about half a foot in diameter at the base; but specimens of much larger dimensions are mentioned by early authors, whose accounts, however, have the disadvantage of being regarded as somewhat apocryphal. The eye

of the elephant is small, but brilliant ; and though, from the position in the head, it is incapable of backward and upward vision, yet this defect is remedied in a great degree by the acuteness of his hearing. Indeed all his senses are peculiarly keen, and concentrated, as it were, around the proboscis, for the purpose of directing more immediately the motions of that indispensable mechanism.

The trunk is of a tapering form, and composed of several thousand minute muscles, which cross and interlace each other, so as to give it the power of stretching and contracting, of turning itself in every direction, and of feeling and grasping with a delicacy and strength which is altogether astonishing. It encloses the nostrils, and has the power of inflating itself, of drawing in water, or of ejecting it with violence; it also terminates on the upper side in a sort of fleshy finger, and below in a similar protuberance, which answers to the opposing power of the thumb, and thus it can lift the minutest object. 'Endowed,' says an eloquent writer, 'with exquisite sensibility, nearly eight feet in length, and stout in proportion to the massive size of the whole animal, this organ, at the volition of the elephant, will uproot trees or gather grass, raise a piece of artillery or pick up a comfit, kill a man or brush off a fly. It conveys the food to the mouth, and pumps up the enormous draughts of water which, by its recurvature, are turned into and driven down the capacious throat, or showered over the body. Its length supplies the place of a long neck, which would have been incompatible with the support of the large head and weighty tusks of the animal.'

The skin of the elephant, like that of the horse, is extremely

In systems of natural history, the elephant ranks with the Pachyderms, or thickskinned class of animals, and forms the type of the Proboscidean order; that is, those which are furnished with a proboscis or prehensile trunk. There are only two species of the genus Elephas-namely, the Asiatic and the African; the latter being distinguished from the former by its large pendulous ears, less elevated head, and some minor peculiarities interesting only to professed naturalists. The Mammoth, whose remains are found so abundantly in Siberia, is another species which appears to have become extinct within a very recent period.