my good friends," said she, "you are thinking more of what is left than what is taken."

"Indeed you have guessed right, ma'am," replied Allen, venting his agitated spirits in loud sobs. "The Lord that has spared my wife and little ones and Ellen, is welcome to all the rest. If I could but have saved my bible that my mother gave me, and my wife's silver tankard, I would just care no more than if it was a bonfire." The mention of the excepted articles seemed to recall to Mrs. Allen's mind something of importance. She exclaimed, "poor Ellen," and looked anxiously around her, till her eye falling on a trunk, she hastily opened it and took from it a small box; then turning to her husband, "God be praised," she said, "every thing of value is saved." The first strong emotions of gratitude having been directed to the supreme Preserver, they now begun with one voice to pour out their thanks to Mrs. Harrison whose generous agency they felt deeply. She begged them to defer all such expressions, and urging the necessity of a shelter for their little ones, she insisted on their going home with her. The good farmer and his wife forgot their scruples in their gratitude and necessities; and in a short time they were comfortably housed at the Harrison mansion. After Mrs. Harrison had made every provision for the refreshment and repose of her guests, and after she had stowed away little Ellen in a room adjoining her own, and extended her hospitalities even to the dog, her faithful coad

jutor in the preservation of the child, she retired to her own room, nerved by gratitude and joy, to the task of reconciling her husband to the liberties she had taken with the family mansion. So strikingly did she delineate the dangers and escape of the family, the risk she herself had run, the rescue of the child, and finally, the exertions of Roger, his truly english coolness and intrepidity, that Mr. Harrison himself anticipated the conclusion of the story, by exclaiming, "Lord bless me, my dear! I hope you brought the unfortunate people home with you ?" "Certainly, my dear," she replied. "You did right-perfectly right. There is no other establishment in Lansdown equal to giving them all a shelter. But Martha, my dear," he continued, "you ran a great risk-quite an unwarrantable risk, considering the relative importance of your life to that of the child's."

"Oh! thank you, for thinking my life so important. I only acted like a dutiful wife, and emulated your example. You have forgotten at what hazard you saved Charles Lindsay's life."

"Forgotten! no, my dear; but then you know a man has always more self-possession than a woman, more mind for emergencies, and besides, Charles was the heir of an honourable familysome compensation for the risk. However, all is well that ends well. You have shown a spirit worthy of a noble name, Martha my dear; and I shall take particular pleasure in writing an ac

count of the whole affair to Sir Harry by the next ship that sails for London."

Mrs. Harrison, having thus succeeded beyond her utmost hopes in making a favourable impression on the mind of her husband, retired to rest; her bosom filled with those sweet emotions that are the peculiar property and rich reward of the virtuous. If Mrs. Harrison felt any anxiety the succeeding day about the intercourse of the host and his guests, it was removed when she saw that the sense of protection and condescending kindness on the one part, and of gratitude on the other, produced a happy state of feeling between the respective parties.

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CHAPTER VIII.

"Oh, 'tis the curse of love and still approved,
When woman cannot love, when they're beloved."
Two Gentlemen of Verona.

IN the week following the destruction of his own house, Mr. Allen succeeded in obtaining another for the accommodation of his family till the following summer. The rigours of the stern season then approaching, rendering it necessary to defer the re-building of his own, Mrs. Harrison proposed to Mrs. Allen to leave Ellen Bruce at the mansion-house till she should again be reestablished in her own home. There were such obvious advantages in this arrangement for the child, Mrs. Harrison pressed her request so earnestly, and Mrs. Allen felt that it would be so ungrateful to refuse, that she yielded her own inclination, and left Ellen with her devoted friend. presence of this sweet child operated on Mrs. Harrison's affections as the first breaking out of the sun after a long series of cloudy weather upon the physical constitution. She had been resigned in afflictions, patient under all those often recurring vexations and petty disappointments that are by general consent pronounced more trying to human virtue than great calamities; she

The

had endured for twenty years the exacting consequential peevish selfishness of a husband, in all respects dissimilar to herself, in most inferior; and she had become neither nervous, petulant, nor selfish. Indeed so successful were her dutiful efforts, that all her acquaintance deemed her quite blind to her husband's faults; and that she was not, never appeared except when, to attain some good purpose, her cautious and adroit approaches to his mind betrayed that she knew where his prejudices were stationed, and where his passions ruled. If the hasty affections of her youth had been alienated by her husband's faults, their place had been supplied by the resolution of virtue, and by the tolerance of a tender nature that felt more pity than aversion for human frailty; and finally, perhaps she loved him; for neither her words nor actions ever expressed that she did not if the maidenly reserve that "never tells a love," is the poet's eloquent theme, the matronly virtue that conceals the want of it, is certainly far more deserving of the moralist's praise.

Little Ellen opened the fountain of Mrs. Harrison's affections; and such was the renovating influence produced on her, that her husband, who never dreamed whence it proceeded, remarked how prodigiously the country winter improved her health and spirits; and congratulated himself upon his wise decision to remove from the chilling airs of the coast to the family estate, always noted for its salubrious situation.