AGNES VOLUNTEERS.


One day Mrs. Arnold, widow of the late well-known Samuel Arnold of
this city, sat in the library of their elegant mansion up town,
leading the daily papers.

It was shortly after breakfast, and presently Agnes, her adopted
daughter, entered the room. The Arnolds had never had any children,
save one, a girl, and she had died when she was three years old. While
going to the funeral, Mrs. Arnold saw a poorly clad lady walking
slowly along with a little girl so strikingly like her own dead child,
that she was perfectly astonished,--so much so, indeed, that she
called her husband's attention to the little one. Mr. Arnold himself
was so surprised that he had the carriage stop, and, getting out, went
and inquired the lady's name and address.

"For, madame," said he, as a reason for his doing such an apparently
strange act, "your little daughter here is a perfect likeness of our
own little Agnes, whose coffin you see in yonder hearse. You must
allow Mrs. Arnold and me to call upon you, though we are perfect
strangers to you; indeed you must."

"Very well, sir," answered the strange lady, "I shall not, certainly
under the circumstances, object."

Immediately after the funeral the Arnolds called at the residence of