an intercourse which he had voluntarily renounced. Besides, Miss Mortimer's bequest furnished my only means of discharging another debt which had long occasioned me more mortification than I could have suffered from any obligation to Mr Maitland. My degrading debt to Lord Frederick was still unpaid; and my deliverance from absolute and immediate want, was less gratifying to me, than the power of escaping from obligation to a wretch who had given proof of such heartless selfishness. I therefore resolved to comply with my friend's injunction to use without further inquiry the money which had so providentially been placed within my reach; and the first purpose to which it was devoted, was the repayment of Lord Frederick's loan, with every shilling of interest to which law could have entitled him. The remainder I could not help dividing with Miss Mortimer's old servant; as the poor creature, who had grown grey in the family of my friend, had been deprived of the bequest by which her mistress had intended to acknowledge her services. The purchase of a few decencies which my own wardrobe required, and the expense of a plain grave-stone to mark the resting-place of the best of women, reduced my possessions to thirty pounds. With this provision, which, small as it was, I owed to most singular good fortune, I was obliged to quit the asylum which had sheltered me from my bitterest sorrow, and had witnes sed my most substantial joys; the home which was endeared to me by the kindness of a lost friend,-the birth place of my better being, the spot which was hallowed by my first worship. It was on a stormy winter night, I remember it well, that I turned weeping from the door of my only home. All day I had wandered through the cottage; I had sat by my friend's death-bed, and laid my head upon her pillow. I had placed her chair as she was wont to place it; had realized her presence in every well known spot, and bidden her a thousand and a thousand times farewell. When I left the house, the closing door sounded as drearily as the earth which I had heard rattle on her coffin. It seemed the signal, that I was shut out from all familiar sights and sounds for ever. The storm that was beating on me became, by a natural thought, the type of my after life; and when all there seemed darkness, my mind wandered back to the sorrows of the past. I recalled another time when the wide earth, which lodges and supports her children of every various tribe, and opens at last in her bosom a resting-place for them all, contained no home for me. I remembered a time when I had felt myself alone, though in the presence of the universal Father,-destitute, in a world stored with his bounty, desolate, though Omnipotence was pledged to answer my cry. My deliverance from this orphan state,-from this disastrous darkness, rushed upon my mind. I thought upon the mighty transformation which had gladdened the desert for me, and made the solitary place rejoice, The cry of thanksgiving burst from my lips, although it died amidst the storm. "Oh Thou!" I exclaimed, "who from pollution didst reclaim, from rebellion didst receive, from despair didst revive me,-let - but Thy presence be with me, and let my path lead where it will !" As I passed the village church-yard, I turned to visit the grave of her whom I had lost. The stone had been placed upon it since I had seen it last, and I felt as if the performance of the last duty had made our separation more complete. "And is this all that I can do for thee my friend?" said I. "Are all the kindly charities cut off between us for ever? Hast thou, who wert so lately alive to the joys and the sorrows of every living thing, no share in all that is done or suffered here? Hast thou, who so lately wert my other soul, no feeling now that owns kindred with any thought of mine? Yes. On one theme, in one employment we can sympathize still. We can still worship together." Kneeling upon the grave of my last earthly friend, I commended myself to a heavenly one, and was comforted. CHAP. XIX. They hate to mingle in the filthy fray, Where the soul sours, and gradual rancour grows THOMSON. THOUGH I was no longer of a temper to reject the means of comfort which still remained within my reach, or scornfully to repulse the mercies both of God and man, I had accepted with reluctance the asylum offered by the clergyman to whom Miss Mortimer had recommended me; for the reserve which shrinks from obligation, is one of the most unconquerable forms of pride. Besides, though the Doctor's professional duties had made me somewhat acquainted with him, his family were, even by cha racter, strangers to me. The state of Miss |