Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/718

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FAIR AND FALSE.

There was a tender beauty in her face,
⁠A smile like magic,
A mystic light within her soft dark eyes,
⁠Half gay—half tragic;
As if the better angel of her life
⁠At times were grieving,
To find that one so fair and young could be
⁠Ever deceiving.

For, shame to tell! she trifled with two hearts,
⁠With both coquetting,
And so I tore her image from my breast,
⁠My love forgetting.
Yet blame not all because deceit lay shrined
⁠In heart so youthful;
For one false woman, trust me, you will find
⁠Ten thousand truthful!

B. S. Montgomery.

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SAM BENTLEY’S CHRISTMAS.

 

CHAPTER II.

When Susan Moore determined not to be dependent on her sister, but to find some employment by which she might earn her own livelihood, her thoughts turned instinctively to the scenes of her childhood. She had decided on leaving home from an exaggerated feeling of the difficulties which her sister had to contend with, a sense of the wrong of relying upon her for any help, a long smouldering dislike to the rude notice which was bestowed upon her in the streets, and an irrepressible longing to be again in the neighbourhood of her earlier and happier days. She knew that there labour was always in demand, that in many instances the children, and not the parents, were the bread-