"Go you instead of me, mother-do, now, there's a dear. You will, won't you, eh ?" begged the little fellow, as he curled his arm coaxingly about her waist, and looked up at her through his tears. "Do you tell him, mother, I never shall be able to keep to the horrid candle-work, for I hate itthat I do; and though every night, when I lie awake, I make vows that I will not vex him again, but strive hard at whatever he gives me to do, still, when the next day comes, my heart fails me, and my spirit keeps pulling my body away" (the boy had caught the Puritanical phrases of the time), "and filling my head with the delight of being on the water; and then, for the life of me, I can't keep away from my voyage-books, or my little ship, or something that reminds me of the sea. If you'd only get him to let me go with Captain Holmes-" and, as the dame turned her head away, he added quickly, "just for one voyage, dear mother--to see how I like it-oh! I'd -I'd-I don't know what I'd not do for you, mother dear; I'd bring you and Deborah home such beautiful things then, and—”

The boyish protestations were suddenly cut short by the sight of the brown paper cap in the shop moving toward the parlor; so, without waiting to finish the sentence, the affrighted lad flung open the side door leading to the staircase, and scampered up to his room, with an imaginary parent following close at his heels.

Here the little fellow threw himself on the "trestle-bed" that stood in one corner of the garret, and lay for a time too terrified for tears; for his conscience converted the least noise into the approach of his father's footsteps, so that he trembled like a leaf at every motion, his heart beating the while in his bosom like a flail.

After a time, however, the lad, finding he was left by himself, began to lay aside his fears, and to talk, as boys are wont to do, about the hardships he endured.

"He was sure he did every thing he possibly could," he would mutter to himself, as he whimpered between the words, "and he thought it very cruel of them to force him to keep to that filthy, nasty candle-making, when they knew he couldn't bear it, and, what was more, he never should like it, not even if he was to make ever so much money at it, and be able to keep a pony of his own into the bargain. Why wouldn't they let him go to sea, he wondered? He called it very unkind, he did." And the boy would doubtlessly have continued in the same strain, had not the little pet Guinea-pig, that he kept in an old bird-cage in one corner of his room, here given a squeak so shrill that it sounded more like the piping of a bird than the cry of a beast.

In a moment Benjamin had forgotten all his sorrows, and with the tear-drops still lingering in the corner of his eyes-like goutes of rain in flower-cups after a summer shower-he leaped from the bed, saying, "Ah! Master Toby Anderson, you want your supper, do you?" and the next minute his hand was inside the cage, dragging the plump little piebald thing from out its nest of hay.

Then, cuddling the pet creature close up in his neck, while he leaned his head on one side so as to keep its back warm with his cheek, he began prattling away to the animal almost as a mother does to her babe.

"Ah! Master Tiggy, that's what you like, don't you?" said Benjamin, as he stroked his hand along the sleek sides of the tame little thing till it made a noise like a cry of joy, somewhat between the

chirruping of a cricket and the pur of a cat. "You like me to rub your back, you do, you fond little rascal! But I've got bad news for Toby-there's no supper for him to-night; no nice bread and milk for him to put his little pink tooties in while he eats it; for he's got all the manners of the pig, that he has. Ah! he'll have to go to bed, like his poor young master, on an empty stomach; for what do you think, Tiggy dear?-why, they've been very unkind to poor Benjamin, that they have;" and the chord once touched, the boy confided all his sorrows to the pet animal, as if it had been one of his cronies at school.

"I wouldn't treat you so, would I, Toby ?" he went on, hugging the little thing as he spoke; "for who gives the beauty nice apple-parings? and who's a regular little piggy-wiggy for them? -who but Master Toby Anderson here. Ay, but to-night my little gentleman will have to eat his bed, though it won't be the first time he has done that; for he dearly loves a bit of sweet new hay, don't you, Tobe ?"

Presently the boy cried, as the animal wriggled itself up the sleeve of his coat, "Come down here, sir! come down directly, I say!" and then standing up, he proceeded to shake his arm violently over the bed till the little black and white ball was dislodged from the new nestling-place he had chosen.

"Come here, you little rascal! Come and let me look at you! There, now, sit up and wash yourself with your little paws, like a kitten, for you're going to bed shortly, I can tell you. Oh, he's a beauty, that he is, with his black patch over one eye like a little bull-dog, and a little brown spot at his side, the very color of a pear that's gone bad. Then he's got eyes of his own like large black beads, and little tiddy ears that are as

soft and pinky as rose-leaves. He's a nice clean little tiggy, too, and not like those filthy white mice that some boys keep, and which have such a nasty ratty smell with them-no! Toby smells of nice new hay instead. There! there's a fine fellow for you, " cried the lad, as he rubbed up the tiny animal's coat the wrong way. "Why, he looks like a little baby hog with a mane of bristles up his neck. But Toby's no hog, that he isn't, for he wouldn't bite me even with my finger at his mouth-no! he only nibbles at it, to have a game at play, that's all. But come, Master Anderson, you must go back to your nest, and make the best supper you can off your bed-clothes; for you can't sleep with the cat to-night, so you'll have to keep yourself warm, old fellow, for I couldn't for the life of me go down stairs to get Pussy for you to cuddle just now."

The pet was at length returned to its cage, and Benjamin once more left to brood over his troubles; so he flung himself on the bed again, and began thinking how he could best avoid the punishment that he felt sure awaited him on the

morrow.

Yet it was strange, he mused, his father had not called him down even to put the shutters up. Who had closed the shop? he wondered. They must have done supper by this time. Yes, that was the clatter of the things being taken away. Why didn't Deborah come to him? he always did to her when she was in disgrace. Who had asked a blessing on the food now he was away? Still he could not make out why he wasn't called down. Had mother begged him off as usual? No, that couldn't be, for father had threatened last time that he would listen to no more entreaties. Perhaps one of the deacons had come in

to talk with father about the affairs of the chapel in South Street,* or else Uncle Ben was reading to them his short-hand notes of the sermon he had gone to hear that evening.†

Soon, however, the sounds of his father's violin below stairs put an end to the boy's conjectures as to the occupation of the family, and as he crept outside the door to listen, he could hear them all joining in a hymn.t

Still Benjamin could not make out why his punishment should be deferred. However, he made his mind up to one thing, and that was to be off to his brother-in-law, Captain Holmes, at daybreak on the morrow, and get him to promise to take him as a cabin-boy on his next voyage-for that would put an end to all the noises between his father and him.

The plan was no sooner framed than the lad was away in spirit again, sailing far over the sea, while he listened to the drone of the sacred tune below; until at last, tired out with his troubles, he fell asleep as he lay outside the bed, and woke

"I remember well," Franklin writes in the description he gives of his father's character in his Autobiography, "his being frequently visited by leading men, who consulted him for his opinion on public affairs, and those of the church he belonged to, and who showed a great respect for his judgment and advice."

"He had invented a short hand of his own," says Franklin in his life, speaking of his Uncle Benjamin, "which he taught me; but, not having practiced it, I have now forgotten it. He was very pious, and an assiduous attendant at the sermons of the best preachers, which he reduced to writing according to his method, and had thus collected several volumes of them."

"My father was skilled a little in music. His voice was sonorous and agreeable, so that when he played on his violin, and sang withal, as he was accustomed to do after the business of the day was over, it was extremely agreeable to hear." -- Franklin's Autobiography.