let them look back to the time when duty, compassion, and gratitude, could not extort from me one word of concession to answer the parting kindness of my mother's friend. And let them learn to judge of the characters of others with a mercy which I do not ask them to bestow upon mine; for, while men's worst actions are necessarily exposed to their fellow-men, there are few who, like me, unfold their temptations, or record their repentance

CHAP. XXI.

His years are young, but his experience old.
His head unmellowed,—but his judgment ripe.
And, in a word, (for far behind his worth,
Come all the praises that I now bestow,)
He is complete in feature and in mind,
With all good grace to grace a gentleman.

SHAKESPEARE.

I WAS

WAS now in a situation which might have alarmed the fears even of one born to pe nury and inured to hardship. Every day diminished a pittance which I had no means of replacing; and, in an isolation which debarred me alike from sympathy and protection, I was suffering the penalty of that perverse temper which had preferred exile among strangers, to an imaginary degradation among 66 my own people."

As it became absolutely necessary to dis

cover some means of immediate subsistence, I expended part of my slender finances in advertising my wishes and qualifications; but not one inquiry did the advertisement produce. Perhaps the Scottish mothers in those days insisted upon some acquaintance with the woman to whom they committed the education of their daughters, beyond what was necessary to ascertain her knowledge of the various arts of squandering time. I endeavoured to ward off actual want by such pastime work as had once ministered to my amusement, and afterwards to my convenience; but I soon found that my labours were as useless as they were light; for Edinburgh, at that time, contained no market for the fruits of feminine ingenuity.

In such emergency, it is not to be wondered if my spirits faltered. My improvident lightness of heart forsook me; and though I often resolved to face the storm bravely, I resolved it with the tears in my eyes. I asked myself an hundred times a day, what better dependence I could wish than on goodness which would never withhold, and

power which could never be exhausted? And yet, a hundred times a day I looked forward as anxiously as if my dependence had been upon the vapour tossed by the wind. I felt that, though I had possessed the treasures of the earth, the blessing of Heaven would have been necessary to me; and I knew that it would be sufficient, although that earth should vanish from her place. Yet I often examined my decaying means of support as mournfully as if I had reversed the sentiment of the Roman; and "to live," had been the only thing necessary.

I was thus engaged one morning, when I heard the voice of Murray inquiring for me. Longing to meet once more the glance of a friendly eye, I was more than half tempted to retract my general order for his exclusion. I had only a moment to weigh the question, yet the prudent side prevailed, because, if the truth must be told, I chanced just then to look into my glass, and was ill satisfied with the appearance of my swoln eyes and colourless cheeks; so well did the motives of my unpremeditat

ed actions furnish a clue to the original defects of my mind. However, though I dare not say that my decision was wise, I may at least call it fortunate; since it probably saved me from one of those frothy passions which idleness, such as I was condemned to, sometimes engenders in the heads of those whose hearts are by nature placed in unassailable security. This ordinary form of the passion was certainly the only one in which it could then have affected me; for what woman, educated as I had been, early initiated like me into heartless dissipation, was ever capable of that deep generous self-devoting sentiment which, in retirement, springs amid mutual charities and mutual pursuits, links itself with every interest of this life, and twines itself even with the hopes of immortality? My affections and my imagination were yet to receive their culture in the native land of strong attachment, ere I could be capable of such a sentiment.

As I persevered in excluding Murray, the only being with whom I could now exchange sympathies was my new Highland