mother was seated on the side of her bed; I placed her little supper on a table near her, and leaning my back against the wall, stood quite silent, while she thus spoke

to me.

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Before she began, I saw her wipe away a tear which was running down her cheek, and then looking kindly at me, My dear Lucy," she said, "I see your grief, and cannot bear it. I perceive what God has required of me. You shall go and be happy with your James. I cannot blame you for the love you bear him he was your first companion, and the only friend of your childhood; he has some faults, but he has many virtues; and such a wife as you will make (so she was pleased to speak), will confirm him, with God's blessing, in all that is good, and will gently lead him to correct his faults. I could have wished not to be parted from my children, but to witness their pious lives in this sweet retreat; but it has pleased God, who orders all for the best, to decide otherwise. Go, my child; go to our dear James, and make him happy, by saying that I give my consent, and with my consent, a mother's blessing." Here she stopped, and, as I have since recollected, seemed much affected, but she tried to look unconcerned, and began to prepare herself for going to rest, while I stood looking at her in such a state of mind as cannot be described.

My heart seemed to be torn asunder: at one moment, I thought that nothing should tempt me to forsake my aged parent, who was now more dear to me than ever; and the next, I half resolved to go with James. And, no doubt, I should have yielded to this temptation, had I not, although then unknown and unfelt by myself, been restrained by a divine power: glory, therefore, be given to God, who, in the hour of trial, made his grace sufficient for me. "I shall do very well here, with old William," continued my mother, after having been silent for some time; "we will part with some of our farm, a very little will. support us, and God will take care of us. The war,

with Heaven's favour, may be over soon, and James may then be able to get his discharge: and I shall look forward to my children's return, to take care of me when I become helpless and infirm, which must unavoidably be the case in a very few years: but, in the meantime, I have no fear of doing very well. Go, therefore, my Lacy; go with your James, and may the Almighty God

bless you!" While she spoke these last words, she arose from the side of her bed (in order no doubt to hide her feelings), and seemed to be busied in folding up a handkerchief she had just taken off: but her eyesight being too dim distinctly to see the little table on which I had placed her supper, she stumbled against it, and throwing it down, broke the cup which held her milk.

This seeming accident (thus ordered, no doubt by Providence), by drawing my attention to her helpless state, at once opened my eyes to my duty. God enabled me to make that resolution, which I never afterward changed, nor for one moment repented of. I threw myself upon my knees before my mother, and lifting up my hands to her, "Never, never,” I said, “will I leave you. -Your kindness to me, in consenting to part with me, only binds me more closely to you. God forbid that any thing on earth should tempt me to forsake you, my beloved mother, in your old age, without one friend to comfort you but a poor and helpless old man. No, no, my beloved parent, your tender care of me, in my days of infancy, shall not be so rewarded."

My mother now, on her part, used many reasons to persuade me to leave her. She put her arms round my neck, she kissed me, and with many tears besought me to seek my own happiness, and to leave her to the care of Providence.

"No, no," I answered," God has enabled me to see my duty, and, with the assistance of his Holy Spirit, I will perform it; and to him I leave the care of my future happiness."

I said no more, but left my mother and returned to James, to tell him what had passed, and the resolutions which I had made; not doubting to convince him, that after such a proof of my mother's tender love to us both, it would be most cruel to forsake her.

But he was not at that time in a state of mind to be convinced by any reasons, however good. It happened that he had overheard most of what had passed between me and my mother; for he was seated near the foot of the stairs, where the door had been left open; and he no sooner saw me, than he charged me with not loving him.

"I now believe," he said, "what but yesterday the whole world could not have made me believe; that

there is some other person for whose sake you refuse me, and that you make your regard for your aged mother a cloak to hide your falsehood. For now, your mother gives her consent; she even entreats you to marry me, and you refuse."

I was silent with astonishment; I did not then know, what I was afterward told, that he alluded to a young farmer who lived in the next village, who had, while James was with his regiment, asked me in marriage; but who, being informed by my mother that I had given my heart to another person, immediately took his leave. This matter had come no more into my mind; but there was a person who, having yielded to a love for James, which in his situation was highly improper, had told this story much to my discredit. James was consequently led to suppose that I refused him for the sake of this young man, who was far richer than himself: and thus crediting a cruel calumny, and giving way to the natural fieriness of his temper, he would not hear any thing I had to say, but flinging from me, and vowing never to see me again, he left the house.

I called him back, but he would not hear me. I hearkened to his steps as he went down the stony path into the valley; and when I could hear him no more, I sat down on the bench before the door, like one stupefied.

It grew every moment more and more dark; old William had retired to rest: all was still and hushed; I heard no sound but the melancholy hootings of the owls in the holes of the rock, and the whistling of the wind among the trees. I thought my beloved James might perhaps return, but it was a false hope; he had left me in anger, and years passed away before I saw him again.

Such a deep-rooted affection as I felt for him could not be at once overcome: yet even in that sad hour I felt such divine consolation as passeth all description, when these comfortable words came strongly into my mind "There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, but he shall receive an hundred-fold now in this time; and in the world to come, eternal life:-O that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness, and declare the wonders that he doeth for the children of men. Mark x. 29, 30; Psalm cvii.

I remained sitting where James had left me till the dawn appeared: then, taking my pail, I went into the fields to milk the cows. The cows had broken the hedge, and strayed down the lane, and there was no one to help me to drive them back, or to stop the gap.

I hoped, during the whole of the next day, to see James coming back to take his leave of us; persuading myself that our last parting, before he returned to his regiment, would yet be marked with kindness. But I looked for him in vain; and the next news which we received of him was from miller Page, who, coming to us in very great anger, informed us that he had spent the last day with his daughter Sally, and that she had followed him to Gloucester.

The old man called his Maker to witness that he would never more speak to his daughter; not foreseeing that it would never be in his power to do so; for she no sooner reached Gloucester than James married her: and, not long afterward, she went with him to Portsmouth, where the regiment embarked for foreign service, and Sally never again saw her native country. Some time afterward, an old soldier, who had been discharged from James's regiment at Portsmouth as being unfit for service, passed through our village in his way to North Wales; and, hearing that James Clare's family was so near, he called upon us, and we entertained him in our little cottage for several days, which was a great comfort and refreshment to the old man. He told us that James, he trusted, would make a brave and a good soldier; that he understood his duty well, and was thought the finest looking young man in the regiment; but that it was supposed he was not happy with his wife, who was a gay, dressy woman, and withal had so high and unquiet a spirit as to deprive the sergeant of all domestic peace. In addition to which he intimated that James was disposed to have recourse to what is but too often the soldier's comforter, his bottle, a false and deadly friend, which often proves the destruction both of soul and body.

This account of James and his wife gave us great pain, but did not surprise us. We daily followed them with our earnest prayers; but a length of time passed away before we heard any more of them.

Immediately after James's marriage, we thought it proper to part with the cottage which his father and

himself had rented, as well as very much to lessen our own farm, since poor William could now do but little work. We kept only an orchard, which supplied one cow with grass; and this, with our garden, which was very fruitful, two or three pigs, and a little poultry, gave us full employment. We never wanted milk, bacon, eggs, or vegetables. My mother still could spin, and knit, and do some plain needlework; though we might, perhaps (particularly when our fruit failed us), have been a little pinched for our rent, had not an old relation of my mother's, to whom her father had been very kind, left us unexpectedly at his death three hundred pounds; the interest of which not only paid our rent, but supplied my mother and William with many comforts which age requires, such as sugar and tea, a little good beer, which we brewed ourselves, and warm clothing for the winter.

As the remembrance of my disappointment in my dear James became more faint, I grew more and more sensible of the goodness of God towards me, and more and more contented with my little home, and my venerable companions: for I loved our faithful old William in the next degree to my mother. As they grew older and more infirm, their cheerfulness seemed to increase, their piety became more lively, and their faith in their Redeemer more active and effectual; while they daily became more and more grateful to God for his tender care of them, in providing them with so many comforts in their age.

"We have no reason to look for happiness in this world," my mother would often say; "but God has dealt graciously with us, according to that which is written, 'My people shall dwell in quiet resting-places.' Isaiah xxxii. 18. They who make this world their god, live in a state of perpetual self-deceit, constantly seeking after that happiness which the humble, quiet, children of God enjoy, in many a retired and lovely solitude, overlooked, and perhaps despised, by the men of this world. The ways of God are wonderful, and unsearchable; but his merciful goodness endureth for ever and ever upon them that fear him, and his righteousness upon children's children."

Day followed after day, and month after month, so calmly, that seven years were now passed away since our dear unhappy James had left us; and I hardly was aware of the lapse of time. We still thought of him, VOL. III.-L

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