THE LUCKY PENNY. BY MRS. S. C. HALL. CHAPTER I. "AND what will you do with yours, Willy?" "1 dun know," replied the heavy-looking urchin, while he turned the half-pence over and over in his hand; "two ha p'nees; it's not much." Ned piroutted on one broad, bare foot, and tossed a summerset on the pavement, close to the pretty basketshop at a corner of Covent-Garden Market, while Willy" pondered over the half-pence. When "Ned" recovered his breath, and had shouldered the door-post for half a minute, he again spoke "And that one, just riding away on his fine responsible horse, thought he'd make our fortune this frosty new-year's morning, with his three-pence betwixt three of us-and his grand condition, that we should meet him on this spot, if living, this day twel'-months, and tell him what we did with the pennies! Hurroo! as if we could remember. I say, Willy, suppose you and I toss up for them-head wins?" "No, no," replied the prudent Willy, putting the half-pence into his pocket, and attempting to button the garment; an unsuccessful attempt, inasmuch as there was no button: "No; I'll not make up my mind jist yet-I'll may-be let it lie, and show it to him this day twal'-month. He may give more for taking care of un." "Easy, easy," persisted Ned, "let tail win, if you don't like head." "I'll not have it, no way." "But where 's Richard gone?" inquired the careless boy, after varying his exercise by walking on his hands, and kicking his feet in the air. "I dun know," replied the other; "it's most like he's gone home: that's where he goes most times: he comes the gentleman over us becase of his edication." "He has no spirit," said Ned, contemptuously; he never spends his money like-like me." "He got the 'lucky penny,' for all that," answered Willy, "for I saw the hole in it myself." "Look at that, now!" exclaimed Ned; "it's ever the way with him; see now, if that don't turn up something before the year's out. While we sleep under bridges, in tatur-baskets, and 'darkies,' he sleeps on a bed; and his mother stiches o' nights, and days too. He's as high up as a gentleman, and yet he's as keen after a job as a cat after a sparra." "Please, sir, will you lend me the works of Benjamin Franklin-for a penny?” The bookseller looked at the boy, and then at the penny, and inquired if he were the lad who had carried the parcels about for Thomas Brand, when he was ill. The boy said he was. "And would you like to do so now, on your own account?" was the next question. The pale, pinched-up features of the youth crimsoned all over, and his dark, deep-set eyes were illumined as if by magic. "Be your messenger, sir?—indeed I would.” "Who could answer for your character?" "My mother, sir; she knows me best," he replied with great simplicity. "But who knows her?" said the bookseller, smiling. "Not many, sir; but the landlady where we live, and some few others." The bookseller inquired what place of worship they attended. The lad told him, but added, "My mother has not been there lately." "Why not?" The deep flush returned, but the expression of the face told of pain, not pleasure. "My mother, sir, has not been well-and-the weather is cold-and her clothes are not warm." He eagerly inquired if he was wanted that day. The bookseller told him to be there at half-past seven the next morning, and that meanwhile he would inquire into his character. The boy could hardly speak; unshed tears stood in his eyes, and after sundry scrapes and bows, he rushed from the shop. "Holloa, youngster!" called out the bookseller, "you have not told me your mother's name or address." The boy gave both, and again ran off Again the bookseller shouted, "Holloa!" "You have forgotten Franklin." The lad bowed and scraped twice as much as ever; and muttering something about "joy" and "mother," placed the book inside his jacket and disappeared. Richard Dolland's mother was seated in the smallest of all possible rooms, which looked into a court near the "Seven Dials." The window was but little above the flags, for the room had been slipped off the narrow entrance; and stowed away into a corner, where there was space for a bedstead, a small table, a chair, and a box; there was a little bookshelf, upon it were three or four old books, an inkbottle, and some stumpy pens; and the grate only The two boys lounged away, while the third-the only one of the three who had earned his penny, by holding a gentleman's horse for a moment, while the others looked on--had passed rapidly to a small circulating library near Cranbourne Alley, and laying down his penny on the counter, looked in the book-contained wood-ashes. seller's face, and said Mrs. Dolland was plying her needle and thread at the window; but she did not realize that wonderful | the gentleman offered me the place; I'm sure I have Daguerreotype of misery which one of our greatest poets drew; for she was not clad in "Unwomanly rags," though the very light-colored cotton-dress-the worn-out and faded blue "comforter" round her throat-the pale and purple hue of her face proclaimed that poverty had been beside her many a dreary winter's day. The snow was drizzling in little hard bitter knots, not falling in soft gentle flakes, wooing the earth to resignation; and the woman whose slight, almost girlish figure, and fair braided hair gave her an aspect of extreme youth, bent more and more forward to the light, as if she found it difficult to thread her needle; she rubbed her eyes until they became quite red; she rubbed the window-glass with her handkerchief (that was torn), and at last her hands fell into her lap, and large tears coursed each other over her pale cheeks; she pressed her eyes, and tried again; no-she could not pass the fine thread into the fine needle. Oh! what an expression saddened her face into despair. She threw back her head as if appealing to the Almighty; she clasped her thin palms together, and then, raising them slowly, pressed them on her eyes. worn, as Ned Brady says, 'the legs off my feet,' tramping after places—and that to offer itself to methink of that, mother! Poor Tom Brand had four shillings a-week, but he could not make out a billI can; Benjamin Franklin (he wrote Poor Richard's Almanac,' you know) says, 'there are no gains without pains;' and I'm sure poor father took pains enough to teach me, though I have the gains, and he had the-❞ The entrance of his future master arrested Richard's eloquence; he made a few inquiries, found his way into a back kitchen to the landlady, and, being satisfied with what he heard, engaged the lad at four shillings a-week; he looked kindly at the gentle mother, and uncomfortably at the grate; then slid a shilling into Mrs. Dolland's hand, “in advance." "It was not 'luck.' Richard," said she to her son, after the long, gaunt-looking man of books had departed; "it's all come of God's goodness!" There was a fire that evening in the widow's little room, and a whole candle was lit; and a cup of tea, with the luxuries of milk, sugar, and a little loaf, formed their new-year's féte; and yet two-pence remained out of the bookseller's loan! When their frugal meal was finished, Mrs. Dolland worked on mechanically, and Richard threaded her needle; the boy read aloud to her certain pas A light, quick, bounding step echoed in the little court-the mother knew it well: she arose, as if uncertain what to do—she shuddered-she sat down-sages which he thought she might like, he wondered took up her work, and when Richard, in passing, she was not more elated at his success; she seemed tapped against the window, she met the flushed, working unconsciously, and buried in her own excited face of her son with her usual calm, quiet thoughts; at last, and not without a feeling of pain, smile. he ceased reading aloud, and forgot all external cares "Here's a bright new-year's-day, mother!" he in the deep interest he took in the self-helping volume exclaimed. "Where?" she said, looking drearily out at the falling snow, and dusting it off her son's coat with her hand. "Every where, mother!”—he laid the book on the table-"I earned a penny, and I've got a place— there!" "Got a place!" repeated the woman; and then her face flushed-" with whom? how?" He detailed the particulars. "And I gave the penny, mother dear," he added, "to read the 'Works of Benjamin Franklin,' which will teach me how to grow rich and good; I'll read the book to you this evening, while you work." The flush on her cheek faded to deadly paleness. "I don't know what's the matter with my eyes, Richard-they are so weak." that rested on his lap. Suddenly he looked up, aroused by a sort of halfbreathed sigh; his mother's large eyes were fixed upon him-there was something in the look and the expression he thought he had never seen before. "Richard," she said, "is there any hope in that book?" "Hope, mother! why, it is full, full of hope; for a poor lad, it is one great hope from beginning to end. Why, many a copy my father set from Poor Richard's Almanac, though I don't think he knew it. Don't you remember 'Help hands, for I have no lands,' and 'Diligence is the mother of good luck,' and that grand, long one I wrote in small-hand-Since thou art not sure of a minute, throw not away an hour.'" "Yes, dear, those were pleasant days; I mind "Looking on the snow, mother; mine grow weak them well; when he went, all went." when I look on the snow." How she caught at the straw!" I never thought of that, Richard; I dare say it is bad. And what did ye with the penny, dear?" "I told you, mother; I got the reading of the 'Works of Benjamin Franklin' for it, and it's a book that will do me great good; I read two or three pages here and there of it, at the very shop where I am to be employed, when I was there for Thomas Brand, before he died. It was just luck that took me there to look for it-the book, I mean-and then "No, mother," replied the boy; and I don't know what is the matter to-day, you are not a bit like yourself; you used to say that God was always with us, and that hope was a part of God. And it is newyear's day, and has begun so well; I have got a place--and a nice one; suppose it had been at a butcher's or green-grocers? we should have been thankful-but among books and such like, with odd minutes for reading, and every penny of four shillings a-week-mother, you need not work so hard now." "I can't, Richard," she said; and then there was a | right kind. Your poor father used to talk of unsanelong pause. tified philosophy; but he was too wise, as well as too good for me-you ought to be good and wise, my child-God grant it!" When she spoke again her voice seemed stifled. "I have been turning in my own mind what I could do; what do you think of ballad-singing-and a wee dog to lead me?" "To look at it, mother," said the boy, with an earnestness beyond his years; "I was so full of joy at being employed, that I thought my heart would "What is it, mother?" inquired the boy; and he flung himself on his knees beside her. "What sor-break, and now" his young spirit bounded bravely row is it?" She laid her cheek on his head, while she whispered-so terrible did the words seem-"I am growing dark, my child; I shall soon be quite, quite BLIND. He drew back, pushed the hair off her brow, and gazed into her eyes steadily. It is over-work-weakness-illness-it cannot be blindness; it will soon be all right again; they are only a very little dim, mother." And he kissed her eyes and brow until his lips were moist with her tears. "If God would but spare me my sight, just to keep on a little longer, and keep me from the parish (though we have good right to its help,) and save me from being a burden-a millstone-about your neck, Richard!" "Now don't mother; I will not shed a tear this blessed new-year's day; I wont believe it is as you say; it's just the trouble and the cold you have gone through; and the tenderness you were once used to -though I only remember my father a poor schoolmaster, still he took care of you. You know my four shillings a-week will do a great deal; it's a capital salary," said the boy, exultingly; "four broad white shillings a-week! you can have some nourishment then." He paused a moment and opened his eyes. "I suppose I am not to live in the house; if I was, and you had it ALL-Oh, mother, you would n't be so comfortable!" Presently he took down his father's Bible, and read a psalm-it was the first Psalın: "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful; "But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night; "And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper" The boy paused. "There, mother! is there not hope in that?" "There is, indeed-and comfort," answered the widow; "and I am always glad when you read a book containing plenty of hope. The present is often so miserable that it is natural to get away from it, and feel and know there is something different to come; I have often sat with only hope for a comforter when you have been seeking employment; and 1 have been here without food or fire, or any thing-but hope." "And I used to think you so blythe, mother, when I came into the court, and heard you singing." "I have often sobbed through a song, Richard, and yet it was comfort, somehow, to sing it. I dare say there is a deal of hope in that new book of yours, but I wish it may be sanctified hope-hope of the above the trial-"no-not now will I believe what you fear; rest and comfort; you need not embroider at nights now; you can knit, or make nets, but no fine work." Strangers, to have heard him talk, would have imagined that his luxuriant imagination was contemplating four pounds instead of four shillings a-week; only those who have wanted, and counted over the necessaries to be procured by pence, can compre hend the wealth of shillings. These two were alone in the world; the husband and father had died of consumption; he had been an earnest, true, book-loving man, whose enthusiastic and poetic temperament had been branded as "dreamy"-certainly, he was fonder of thinking than of acting; he had knowledge enough to have given him courage, but perhaps the natural delicacy of his constitution rendered his struggles for independence insufficient; latterly, he had been a schoolmaster, but certain religious scruples prevented his advancing with the great education movement beginning to agitate England; and when his health declined, his scholars fell away: but as his mental strength faded. that of his wife seemed to increase. She was nothing more than a simple, loving, enduring, industrious woman, noted in the village of their adoption as possessing a most beautiful voice; and often had the sound of her own minstrelsy, hyming God's praise, or on week-days welling forth the tenderness or chivalry of an old ballad, been company and consolation to her wearied spirit. Books and music refine external things; and born and brought up in their atmosphere, Richard, poor, half-starved, half-naked, running hither and thither in search of employment, and cast among really low, Vicious, false, intemperate, godless children, was preserved from contagion. It was a singular happiness that his mother never feared for him; one of the many bits of poetry of her nature, was the firm faith she entertained that the son of her husbandwhose memory was to her as the protection of a titular saint-could not be tainted by evil example. She knew the boy's burning thirst for knowledge; she knew his struggles, not for ease, but for labor; she knew his young energy, and wondered at it; she knew the devotional spirit that was in him ;-yet in all these things she put no trust: but she felt as though the invisible but present spirit of his father was with him through scenes of sin and misery, and encompassed him as with a halo, so that he might walk, like the prophets of Israel, through a burning fiery furnace unscathed. These two-mother and son-were alone in their poverty-stricken sphere; and that Newyear's-day had brought to the mother both hope and despair; but though an increasing film came between her and the delicate embroidery she wrought with so much skill and care-though the confession that she was growing "dark," caused her sharper agony than she had suffered since her husband's death—still, as the evening drew on, and she put by her work, her spirit lightened under the influence of the fresh and healthful hope which animated her son. She busied herself with sundry contrivances for his making a neat appearance on the following day; she forced him into a jacket which he had out-grown, to see how he looked, and kissed and blessed the bright face which, she thanked God, she could still see. Together they turned out, and over and over again, the contents of their solitary box; and Richard, by no means indifferent to his personal appearance at any time, said, very frankly, that he thought his acquaintances, Ned Brady and William, or Willy "No-go," as he was familiarly styled, would hardly recognize him on the morrow, if they should chance to meet. “But if I lend you this silk handkerchief, that was your poor father's, to tie round your neck, don't let it puff you up," said the simple-minded woman, "don't; and don't look down upon Ned Brady and William No-go, (what an odd name;) if they are good lads, you might ask them in to tea some night (that is, when we have tea ;) they must be good lads, if you know them." And then followed a prayer and a blessing, and, much later than usual, after a few happier tears, another prayer, and another blessing, the worn-out eyes, and those so young and fresh, closed in peaceful sleep. "Neddy, my boy!" stammered Mrs. Brady to her son, as she staggered to her wretched lodging that night, "it's wonderful luck ye' had with that penny; the four-pence ye' won through it at "pitch and toss" has made a woman of me; I am as happy as a queenas a queen, Neddy." The unfortunate creature flourished her arm so decidedly that she broke a pane of glass in a shopkeeper's window, and was secured by a policeman for the offence; poor unfortunate Ned followed his mother, with loud, incoherent lamentations, wishing "bad luck" to every one, but more especially to the police, and the gentleman that brought him into misery by his mean penny ;-if it had been a sum he could have done any thing with --but a penny! what could be done with one poor penny, but spend it! TO MARY, ASKING FOR A SONG. THE song, dear maid, you deign to ask, What churlish mortal could refuse; Then, while I ply my pleasing task, Be thou at once my theme and muse. While to such theme my gift I bring, Fair muse, inspire me as I sing. A song you ask-if music flow, To make thy gentle heart rejoice; Ope but thy lips, and soon thou 'lt know There's music beaming from thy brow Within thine eyes a tuneful tongue; And gazing there, I fancy how The morning stars together sung. BY MATTHIAS WARD. Through passion's waste, when wandering far, Heaven grant thee for my guiding star. Ask you for music? Go but forth, And air salutes each varied charm; The birds are dumb in dreamy night, But when he brings his wakening light, Thus mute my voice when thou art gone, My matin song will gladly rise. E'er may it reach a willing ear, And welcome prove, when thou art near. A POET'S THOUGHT. BY WM. ALBERT SUTLIFFE. A THOUGHT that lay anear a Poet's heart, Sang a sweet note that through a palace stole, THE COUNTESS OF MONTFORT; OR, THE RELIEF OF HENNEBON. BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT. I wish now to return to the Countess of Montfort, who possessed the courage of a man and the heart of a lion. FROISSART-CHRONICLES, VOL. I. C. 72. THE age of knight errantry, as we read of it, and | With which of these the absolute right rested, is in some degree believe, as recited in the Morte d'Arthur, and the other British or Breton romances, had never any real existence more than its heroes, Lancelot du Lac, Tristran le Blanc, or Pellinant or Pellinore, or any of the heroes of "the table round;" the very date of whose alleged existence, centuries before chivalry or feudalism was heard of, precludes the possibility of their identity. The age of chivalry, however, had a real being; it was in very truth "the body of a time, its form and pressure;" and that was the age of Edward the Third, and the Black Prince of England, of the Captal de Buch and Sire Eustache de Ribeaumont, of Bertrand du Guesclin, and Charles of Luxemburg, the valiant blind king of Bohemia, and those who won or died at Crecy and Poictiers. That was the age, when knights shaped their conduct to the legends which they read in the old romances, which were to them the code of honor, bravery and virtue. That was the age when "Dieu, son honneur et sa dame," was the war-cry and the creed of every noble knight, when noblesse oblige was a proverb not-as now-without a meaning. And of that age 1 have a legend, reproduced from the old chronicles of old Froissart, so redolent of the truth, the vigor, and the fresh raciness of those old days, when manhood was still held in more esteem than money, and the person of a man something more valuable than his purse, that I think it may be held worthy to arrest attention, even in these days of sordid deference to the sovereign dollar, of stolid indifference to every thing in humanity that is of a truth good or great or noble. "I wish now to return," says Froissart, in a fine passage, a portion of which I have chosen as my motto, "to the Countess of Montfort, who possessed the courage of a man and the heart of a lion." Previous to this, the veracious chronicler of the antique wars of France and England has related, how by the death of the Duke of Brittany, who left no issue, the ducal coronet of that province, which together with Normandy and Anjou, had always since the Norman conquest maintained relations with the crown of England, was left in dispute between John Count de Montfort, the half-brother of the late duke, who had married the sister of Lewis Earl of Flanders, and a daughter of the late duke's brother german, who was wedded to Charles, younger son of Guy Count de Blois, by the sister of Philip of Valois, the reigning king of France. not a matter of much moment; as it is with the romance of feudalism, not the accuracy of heraldic genealogies, that I am now dealing. Nor, were it important, have I at hand the means of deciding certainly; since the solution of the question depends on facts not clearly presented, as regarding the seniority of the brothers, the precise degrees of consanguinity, and the local laws of the French provinces. Both parties appear to have relied on alleged declarations, each in his own favor, by the late duke, John of Britanny. The Bretons it would seem, almost to a man, sided with the Count de Montfort; and this would in these days go very far toward settling the question. King Philip of France, naturally took part with his niece, the wife of a great feudatory of his crown; Edward the Third of England, as naturally, favored the opposite claimant; expecting doubtless that he should receive the count's homage as his vassal for Brittany, in case of his recovering his duchy by the aid of British arms. The Count de Montfort was summoned before the king and peers of France to answer to the charge of having already done homage to the English king, as suzerain of a French province-a charge, by the way, which he absolutely denied—and to prove his title to the duchy before Parliament. To their decision he expressed his willingness to defer, and offered to abide by their judgment, but the same night, suspecting ill faith on the part of his rival and the French king, and fearing treachery, he withdrew secretly into his own duchy, of which he had already gained absolute possession, holding all its strong places with the free consent of the lords, the burgesses, the clergy and the commonalty of the chief towns, and being every where addressed as Duke of Brittany. After the departure of the count from Paris, the Parliament, almost as a matter of course, decided against him-firstly, par contumace, or as we should now say, by default-secondly, for treason, as having done homage to a foreign liege lord—and thirdly, because the Countess of Blois was the daughter of the next brother of the late duke, while the Count John de Montfort was the youngest of the family. I may observe here, that it is more than doubtful whether the alleged homage to Edward was at this time rendered; that the fact was positively denied by Montfort himself, and by his other historians; and furthermore, that the descent to the female line is |