that occasion, his daily deeds were thus described: "Every moment some new instance of his incorrigible generosity comes to light. Sometimes it is poor children whom he has put out to nurse, or others whose apprentice fee he has paid. Sometimes he buys tools or agricultural implements for workmen without means. Here, relations of his master obtain from him large sums which they will not restore and that he will never demand; there, he is left unpaid by persons who have employed him and whom he does not press because they have fallen into misfortune, and he respects distress." When he found, to his great surprise, how much his doings were admired, he answered one of the committee who had sought him out, "Indeed, sir, I am not doing this for men, but for the Master above."

Eustache was not the only negro who received a "prize of virtue. " In 1848 the French liberated all the slaves in their various colonies, without having given sufficient time for preparation. The blacks made instant use of their freedom by deserting their masters and setting up little huts for themselves, with gardens, where the tropical climate enabled them to grow all their wants required without any need for exertion. This was, of course, ruin to the owners of the large plantations hitherto entirely dependent on slave labor. Among those thus deserted was one in French Guiana, named La Parterre, and belonging to a lady, a widow with a large family. Out of seventy negro slaves, not one remained on the estate except Paul Dunez, who had become a sort of foreman, and who promised his mistress that he would do his utmost for her. He tried at first to obtain some hired labor, but not succeeding he tried to keep as much as possible under cultivation, though he had no one to help him but his wife and young sons. The great difficulty was in keeping up the dykes which fence out the coast from the sea on that low, marshy coast of northern South America, a sort of tropical Holland. Day after day was Paul laboring at the dykes, and at every spring tide he would watch for two or three nights together, so as to be ready to repair any breach in the embankment. This went on for thirty-two months, and was labor freely given without hire, for faithful loyalty's sake; but at last the equinoctial tides of 1851 were too much for Paul's single arm, he could not be at every breach at once, and the plantation was all laid under water.

To work he set again to repair the damage as best he might, and the government at Cayenne, hearing of his exertions, resolved to assign to him a prize which had been founded for the most meritorious laborer in the colony; namely, the sum of 600 francs and admission for his son into the college at the capital. But Paul's whole devotion was still to his mistress. Her son, not his own, was sent to the college, and the 600 francs were expended in fitting

the boy out as became the former circumstances of his family, on whose service Paul continued to spend himself.

The next year his name was sent up to Paris, and the first prize of virtue was decreed to him for his long course of self-denying exertions.

THE PETITIONERS FOR PARDON.

1720 AND ABOUT 1805.

O one in our country has deserved warmer or more loving esteem than Helen Walker, the Scottish maiden, who though she would not utter a word of untruth to save her sister from being sentenced to death, yet came on foot from Edinburgh to London, made her way to the Duke of Argyle, and being introduced by him, by her entreaties obtained that sister's pardon from Queen Caroline, who was acting as Regent in the absence of George II. It is hard to say which was the most glorious, the God-fearing truth that strengthened this peasant girl to risk a life so dear to her, or the trustful courage and perseverance that carried her through a journey, which in the early part of the eighteenth century was both tedious and full of danger; and it is satisfactory to know that her after-life, though simple and homely, by no means was unworthy of the high excellence of her youth. Her sister, Tibbie, for whom she had done so much, married and left her, and she lived on to be remembered by her neighbors as a religious, quiet old woman, gaining her living by knitting new feet to old stockings, teaching little children, and keeping chickens. Her neighbors respected her, and called her a "lofty body." They used to tell that in a thunder-storm she used to move herself with her work and her Bible to the front of the house, saying that the Almighty could smite as well in the city as in the field. Sir Walter Scott made her the model of the most beautiful character he ever drew, and afterwards placed a monument to her honor in her own village church.

In the beginning of this century, a girl younger than Helen Walker was impelled to a journey beside which that from Edinburgh to London seems only like a summer stroll, and her motive was in like manner deep affection, love truly stronger than death. As Helen Walker served to suggest the Jeanie Deans of the "Heart of Mid-Lothian," so Prascovia Lopouloff was the origin of Elizabeth, the heroine of Madame Cottin's "Exiles of Siberia," but in both cases the real facts have been a good deal altered in the tales, and we may doubt whether the Russian lady appears to so much advantage, when dressed up by the French au

thoress, as does the Scottish lassie in the hands of her countrymen.

Prascovia was the daughter of a captain in the Russian army, who for some unknown reason had undergone the sentence of exile to Siberia, from the capricious and insane Czar, Paul I. The Russian government, being despotic, is naturally inclined to be suspicious, and it has long been the custom to send off persons supposed to be dangerous to the state, to live in the intensely cold and remote district of Siberia. Actual criminals are marched off in chains, and kept working in the mines; but political offenders are permitted to live with their families, have a weekly sum allowed for their support, and when it is insufficient can eke it out by any form of labor they prefer, whether by hunting, or by such farming as the climate will allow.

The miseries of the exiles have been much mitigated in these latter times, many more comforts are permitted them, and though closely watched, and suffering from many annoying regulations, those of higher rank receive a sufficient sum out of their own revenues to enable them to live in tolerable ease, and without actual drudgery; and at Tobolsk, the capital of Siberia, there is a highly educated and accomplished society of banished Poles and Russians who have incurred suspicion.

Under the Czars who resigned before the kindhearted Alexander I., the banishment was far more terrible. It was not only the being absent from home and friends, but it was a fall from all the luxuries of civilized life to the utmost poverty, and that in a climate of fearful severity, with a winter lasting nine months, and the sun unseen for many weeks of that time. Captain Lopouloff was condemned for life, was placed in the village of Ischim, far to the north of Tobolsk, and only obtained an allowance of ten kopecks a day. His wife, and their little girl of about three years old, accompanied him, and the former adapted herself patiently to her situation, working hard at the common domestic cares for which she had been used to trust to servants; and as the little Prascovia grew older, she not only helped her mother, but gained employment in the village, going out to assist in the late and scanty rye harvest, and obtaining a small bundle of the rye as her wages. She was very happy, even in this wild, dreary home, amid all the deep snows, iron frosts, and long darkness, until she was nearly fifteen, when she began to understand how wretched her father was in his banishment. He had sent a petition to the Governor of Siberia, in the charge of an officer, who had promised to represent his case strongly, and the watching for the answer, and continued disappointment, whenever a courier arrived from Tobolsk, rendered him so restless, that he no longer tried to put on a cheerful countenance before his daughter, but openly lamented his

hard fate, in seeing her growing up untaught and working with her hands like the meanest serf.

His despair awoke Prascovia from her childish enjoyments. She daily prayed that he might be brought home and comforted, and, as she said herself, it one day darted into her mind like a flash of lightning, just as she finished saying her prayers, that she might go to Petersburg and obtain his pardon. Long did she dwell upon the thought, going alone among the pine-trees to dream over it, and to pray that grace and strength might be given her for this great work, this exceeding bliss of restoring her father to his home. Still she durst not mention the project; it seemed so impossible, that it died away upon her lips whenever she tried to ask her father's permission, till at last she set herself a time, at which nothing should prevent her from speaking. The day came; she went out among the whispering pines, and again prayed for strength to make her proposal, and that her father might be led to listen to it favorably. But prayers are not always soon answered. Her father listened to her plan in silence, then called out to his wife: "Here is a fine patroness! Our daughter is going off to Petersburg to speak for us to the Emperor," and he related all the scheme that had been laid before him, with such a throbbing heart, in a tone of amusement.

"She ought to be attending to her work instead of talking nonsense," said the wife; and when poor Prascovia, more mortified at derisions than by anger, began to cry bitterly, her mother held out a cloth to her, saying in a kind, half-coaxing tone, "Here, my dear, dust the table for dinner, and then you may set off to Petersburg at your ease.'

Still day after day Prascovia returned to the charge, entreating that her scheme might at last be considered, till her father grew displeased, and severely forbade her to mention it again. She abstained; but for three whole years she never failed to add to her daily prayers a petition that his consent might be gained. During this time her mother had a long and serious illness, and Prascovia's care, as both nurse and housewife, gave her father and mother such confidence in her, that they no longer regarded her as a child; and when she again ventured to bring her plan before them, they did not laugh at her, but besought her not to leave them in their declining years to expose herself to danger on so wild a project. She answered by tears, but she could not lay it aside.

Another difficulty was, that without a passport she would have been immediately sent back to Ischim, and so many petitions from her father had been disregarded, that there was little chance that any paper sent by him to Tobolsk would be attended to. However, she found one of their fellow-exiles who drew up a request in due form for a passport for her, and after six months more of waiting the

answer arrived. She was not herself a prisoner, she could leave Siberia whenever she pleased, and the passport was enclosed for her. Her father, however, seized upon it, and locked it up, declaring that he had only allowed the application to go in the certainty that it would be refused, and that nothing should induce him to let a girl of eighteen depart alone for such a journey.

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Prascovia still persevered, and her disappointment worked upon her mother to promise not to prevent her from going, provided her father consented, and at last he yielded. What shall we do with this child?" he said: we shall have to let her go." Still he said, "Do you think, poor child, that you can speak to the Emperor as you speak to your father in Siberia? Sentinels guard every entrance to his palace, and you will never pass the threshold. Poor even to beggary, without clothes or introductions, how could you appear, and who will deign to present you?" "However, Prascovia trusted that the same Providence that had brought her the passport would smooth other difficulties; she had boundless confidence in the Power to whom she had committed herself, and her own earnest will made obstacles seem as nothing. That her undertaking should not be disobedient was all she desired. And at length the consent was won, and the 8th of September fixed for her day of departure.

At dawn she was dressed, with a little bag over her shoulder, and her father was trying to make her take the whole family store of wealth, one silver rouble, though, as she truly said, this was not enough to take her to Petersburg, and might do some good at home, and she only took it at last when he laid his strict commands on her. Two of the poorest of the exiles tried to force on her all the money they had, -thirty copper kopecks and a silver twenty-kopeck piece; and though she refused these, she affectionately promised that the kind givers should share in any favor she should obtain.

When the first sunbeam shone into the room, there was, according to the beautiful old Russian custom, a short, solemn silence, for private prayer for the traveller. Then, after a few words, also customary, of indifferent conversation, there was a last embrace, and Prascovia, kneeling down, received her parents' blessing, rose up, and set her face upon her way,- -a girl of nineteen, with a single rouble in her pocket, to walk through vast expanses of forest, and make her way to the presence of her sovereign.

The two poor exiles did their utmost for her by escorting her as far as they were allowed to go from Ischim, and they did not leave her till she had joined a party of girls on their way to one of the villages she had to pass. Once they had a fright from some half-tipsy lads; but they shook them off, and reached the village, where Prascovia was known and hospitably lodged for the night. She was much