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lA r C. R. IIANLEITER, P © £ T R ¥. NATURE. FROM THE GERMAN. Ilium”J by reddening skies, stand glittering On tender blade the dew ; AnJ undulates the landscape of the spring Upon the clear stream’s blue. Fair is the rocky rill, the blossom’d tree, The grove with gold that gleams : Fair is the star of eve, which close we see To yonder purple realms. Fair is the meadow’s green, the dale’s thick bush, The hill’s bright robe es flowers, The alder-stream, the pond’s surrounding rush, And lilhes’ snowy showers. Oh I how the host of beings arc made one By Love’s enduring band ! The glow-worm, and the fiery flood of sun, Spring from one Father’s hand. Thou beckontst. Almighty, if the tree Lose hut a hud that’s blown ; Thou beckonest, if in immensity One sun is sunk tad gone! gILEE© Ti ® TAL I© J POOR BRIDGET ; Ur The Narrative of the Emigrant Family. BY 11. HASTINGS WELD. CHAPTER I. MAY DAY IN NEW-YOP.K. When Alexander conqueted the world, he wept fur another world to conquer. Our j highly worthy and notable Dutch predeces sors believed more like reasonable beings and less like spoiled children, titan that j spoiled child of fortune, Alexander of Mace > don, whom men call Great. \\ hen the good vrows of New Amsterdam had scrub lied the whole interior of a house, when ! they had even deluged the tiles of the roof ami mopped the little Dutch bricks in the chimney; when they had even taken up the floor, and taken off the casings <>f the doors to scour the wood on the other side, they did not weep for more scouring to do, but set about finding it—an easi r task, by the way, than for Alexander to enter as con querer into another wotld. He went to one—it is true —but Alexander was ferried over Styx by Clinton, with as little ceiomo ny as the meanest of his soldiers. “J here is not room in his boat for earthly honors —no, not even a title ! Woman’s work, they say, in these degen erate days. is never done—andjwe believe it —hut it is because women will not emulate the good example of the daughters of New Amsterdam. It is not because woman’s ■ work cannot be done ‘hat it is not done— i Itemise woman will not do it. The oldest j descendant of the Dutch dynasty; whose ! memory (it must be a woman) wi 1 carry her 1 hack into the halcyon days of soap and sand : in Manhattan, will tell you that woman’s wurk in those good old limes was finished j just once in every year, upon the thitteeth ! day of April. From the first of May, when j site entered her residence, by the terms of i tlie leases then and now used, to the|last of j the next April, was required to “ clean up” j and make a house habitable. Some people i in these degenerate times, might fancy that, so notch being aeccompli.xhed, the next, tiling in order was to sit down nttd inhabit the domicil thus redeemed. So might a modern statesman think that, a kingdom be ing once conquered, the next duty was to i Biivern and enjoy it. Alexander, however, | had no such effeminate ideas. Nor had the Dutch housewives. Alexander could only weep—and move cnuitiets by a monarch’s tears. Women j can move themselves, and never shed a tear, j while they turn their husbands into pack hoi ses, and turn the city upside down. — Hence came the custom of shifting resid* ti res, punctually upon the first day of May, annually. The women “cleaned out” eve ry corner, cranny and nook of their premi ses, and wound up by clearing themselves nut. Alas that they have not har.ded down, with the custom of moving, the custom of cleaning also. The family who enter anew place of abode now, find it empty indeed, hut far from being swept, and still faither from being (varnished. Ihe order is now reversed. The struggle is to defile premi ses as much as may possibly be done in a twelve months, and when the force of slut tishness can t.o farther go in a house, to go out of it, and enter another. Rar&M the outside aspect of things on moving day, and full of full —hut there are depths and passages of woe tinder it. 1 lie grinning face of the idiot mocks the mental vacuity, or the inside sorrow beneath —the out-door aspect of life is the low comidy ac companiment of a deeper than scenic tra gedy, because it is more simple and more natural, and because it is real. Ihe land lord who is most hard hearted can nheti tiines do no more than deny anew lease to his poor tenant. To throw him out in the middle of a quarter were but to take cruel trouble without any gain. T o let die house over his head is to place the disa greeable duty of expulsion with parties who feel no compunction in executing it, because they have no agency in causing the grief of those, in creating whose distress they are but mechanical und always unwil littg agenta. Jk WooMy § 3D)@v©ft®dl ft© IP©Mfti©s s Mows* JLsift . • M . s3® JLffftgs <&©<>• Upon the first day of May, 1810. a poor widow and her little daughter left the home which hud been theirs for many years—the mother with many a sigh—the* daughter with no emotions but those of childish curi osity and wonder. How should a child of six years think ? And yet the gill was sad, for her mother wept; and in no land be neath the sun are found finer feelings, clo ser family attachments, deeper love rd'kind red, than in the green Isle of the Ocean.— Her children carry with them, the world over, those sentiments—they are the mis sionaries of natural religion among mot e ar tificial, and therefore less affectionate, com munities. Where they huddle together in the densest, dirtiest streets of overgrown cities, they form oasts in the selfish deserts. 1 hey may lt poor, they may he ragged, they may be pecuniarily wretched, but their hearts are rich in natural affection, whole in attachment to their firesides, happy in con tent, while they are but spared to enjoy gr ief togethi r. And why should the mother weep to leave that house ? \V as it because she was wed in it—because the vows piighted on the banks of the Shannon were redeemed be neath the sinking roof of that old building ? Was it because her child was born there? There, too, her husband sickened and died; and there, formally weary months since, she hail starved. From those doors she had seen her little all of household wealth wrested by the landlord’s warrant; and the simple chattels which were to her valuable as si many monuments of the de| aited con- j veyed away to form the subjects of heart- | less joking and ribaldry at u street auction, j But they could not can v the house away.— ; The y could not tear from her, while a ten- I ant, the corner where his last breath was exhaled. They could not sh*it out from her eyes the light of heaven which entered at lire little; window to light up the last smile on his face, as he received the last tiles of religion, and the last offices of conjugal af fection. They could not deprive the dull j apartment of its associations. They could I not make the wall tit the floor less a record | of the gambols of her child, at which, with its father, she had raised the shout of sur prise, the laugh of pleasure, or the scream of affright. The house was part of her ‘ husband's memory ; and they could not tlien tear it from her. Hut the annual period of removal had come round, and they had driv en her from it. She wandered listlessly hand in hand with her child, the child the guide of the parent, for the latter was blind with grief. Worn and exhausted, the two i sat down on a marble step. Sleep stole j over the senses of the child—the mother j sat mxl seemed to watch the bustle about her. But her mind was dead and her stare was vacant —so much that until she was remind ed by the lather rude touch of a porter that the ptdace was about to receive an occu pant, she had forgotten that her palace, the ! hovel she had left, to her was desolate.— She dtevv her still sleeping child from the stops. and moved on with the air of one who was hunted from every covert, and j who could hope no more for rest for the ! sole of her foot. The new tenant of the house was charita ble and a municipal officer—that sentence in liberal New York does not always in volve a paradox. He asked her name and story, heard it in brief, gave her an order on the almshouse commissioners, for pres ent relief, and proceeded to oversee the handling of furnituie, the price of almost any one article of which would have been to the widow a fortune. The licit, who fear not the possibility of going to the alms house themselves, esteem it a very tolerable place. The poor who may lie consigned to it on any niottow, shudder at the mention of it. The mother placed her child upon the door stone of a less magnificent house, and charging her not to move till she returned, j went first to see what manner of place the j almshouse was, before she would Must her- j self w ith her child within its walls. For her own egress she did not fear, should she not desire to stay —hut her child—they might wrest the child ftotn her, and then in deed she would be desolate. Change we the scene. James Carleton too was an emigrant, but he was hale in bo dy, and unbroken in mind. He had been so long in the land, that, so far as an Irish- j man’s thoughts can be, his were weaned J from the land of his birth. He had mat tied j in the country of his adoption, and if for- I tune had not showered upon him blessings j | above the common lot, she had withheld ex- j traoidinary misfortunes also. He once had | a sister —that sister was dead—but as all must tlie, his heart had become reconciled to the deprivation, and the wife of his bo som hud brought Him children to fill bet place. His wotld was in his household ; and the crowded city, with its envies, its jealousies, its vices, and its temptations, j (Jurleton thought was no place to rear his j family. His little property was converted i to cash—the few moveables which he would { take were packed in the wagon, which iu ; those aiite-tuilioud and steamboat times, re moved the emigrant hundreds, aye, thou sands of miles. To morrow he was to de port —and it cost him no pang. The night was to be spent with his family at the house of a friend. The day he spent in walking about, and j looking with feelings of gratification at b:s I deliveiauce from the scene of confusion MADISON, MORGAN COUNTY, GEORGIA, FRIDAY MORNING, MARCH 8, 1814. which met the eye upon all hands. Fet ventlv did lie congratulate himself—for the best of us are selfish—that all this shouting, j ond crowding, and altercation, was nothing to him. Imagination contrasted it all w ith the quiet of the fields where he was to sit down and watch the developement of the I character iitnl intellect of his children. The i future seemed Heaven to him—the present was a hell in which he had no share. Suddenly thete was a shout. The multi- I tilde, vaiiousas had been the destinations of ! j its individuals, turned their heads with one j ! accord tow ard the point whete it was heard. | lit another instant all who were not ahso- j L lately detained elsewhere, turned their feet | j thither also, arid Carleton was borne, with j I the crowd, toward the spot where a heavily I j laden car had thrown down and killed a j j poor woman. When he reached the spot, j the position of the body precluded a view j of her face. A man was releasing from her death grasp a hit of paper, and when he had disengaged it, he placed it in Carleton’s hand, while he still supported the body.— Catleton lead ; “ Admit Bridget McCann and her child to the alms house. “ Is she quite dead ?” he asked. i Ids was answered in the affirmative, and, ! sensible he could do no good, and featful of ; being detained from his journey, as a wit- j ness, he turned aw ay hastily. lie was faint j too—for James Cat letmi made no boast of manhood which could enable him to look 1 unemployed and unmoved upon such a spec- ! lacle. Had he been actively engaged in as ! sisting the sufferer he could have remained, ! and would not have suffered his sensibility to interfere with his humanity. But site ! was past the need of assistance, and there j were enough others to attend to the respect j due the dead. As be passed down the street, again he thanked God that the mor row would witness his departure from the j city and its scenes. A satldet man than when he commenced j his stroll, Catleton tinned his steps home- i ward. Homeward? Aye, “’tis home j where Vi the heart is,” and he hastened to I tejoitt his wife and children. Ilnw natural it j is, w hen one sees a calami ly overtaken pet son ! in whom lie has no inteiest, for his heart to leap toward his own, and his steps to httriv [ him to tlie assurance that they are safe.— No mattei whether or not thete he any ; possible chance that the same misfortune nnty have overtaken them; the imagination like the senses, is quickened bv pain ; and years of fancied giiefntay puss in one slant hour’s suspense. Catleton thought to rub his feet-upon a J mat at the door, in the deep shadow thrown | by the street lamps—but a living thing shrunk from his touch. He took tlre light from the servant's hand, and there on tire cold stone slept a beautiful child. Her negligent drapery showed a fair skin t! at ill comported with her mean, though tidy dress, and her little round arm seemed to shiver in the night air as he examined it. 1 An anxious expression sat upon her expres sive countenance even in sleep. Catleton raised her up. As he did so, her blue eyes opened upon him with delighted affection —but in an instant their language changed to deep disappointment. “Why do you wait here, child ?’’ he asked her. “ I’m waiting for my mother.” “ \\ hois your mother ?” The child only stared as if she could not comprehend why any one should ask that question. Carleton asked again, •* \\ hat is your mothei’s name ?” Still the child (lid not answer. It was a question she had nevei heard before. The servant girl, with a wo man’s toady wit, then asked ; “ What is your name, sis ?” “ Bt idget McCann.” “ And where do you live ?” “No whete yet. We've moved.” “ And where is your mother?” “ I don’t know. She told me to wait for her.” Catleton remembered now—and shud dered. Ho led the child in, and as she walked down the kitchen stairs with the servant, he wondered who should break to the orphan the awful news—how she could be made to understand it—and whether it was necessary thus to afilict her. Poor Bridget ! Had it been as easy to put Bridget in the ’ Alms House, as to put her to bed, the order for hot admission which Catleton still held, would have been used that evening. But the child could not travel alone, and no one fell the necessity of going with her, while there was room in the house for the or phan's head to rest. The family heard her story, or rather the story of her moth er's death from Carleton, and all adjourned to the kitchen to sec the hungry child cat. The looks of deep compassion needed no ) interpretation to Bridget—she suw they I were all kind, and fancied that all tHe wo men might he mothers, all the git Is sisters, ■ the men fathers, nttd the boys brothers. Shu longed for her mother to come and see how happy she was —she wontiered that her mother did not come. As Bridget, for the twentieth time said j “ mother told me she would come lieio, if I would wait,” the newspaper reporter wrote, at the end of his ropnit of the inquest, “ The body w ill be placed in the dead house for recognition.” CHAPTER 11. WESTW ARD tto ! Catleton had sons, but ho daughters. Up to this moment he had not thought of a daughter’s love. The heavily laden wag on stood at the door. The mother and the } children were lifted into it. The dog i ark j ed impatiently, and Carleton was just ready jto seat himself beside his family. Bridget's J little face peeped from an upper window— j in an instant was down beside the etni ! giant. As he prepared to mount, she stele | up unperceived, and touched his elbow.— i “ Will yen take me to my mother 1” ! Carleton looked at the child—at his wife 1 —at the still vacant nook iu tl e wagon. It was an impulst—but it was mutual on the 1 pnitof Ini. band and wife, God directs out ! impulses for good. The father placed Bi iuget in the wagon—the mother eked out her scanty covering with her own cloak. The family took the child ns a blessing—for it is not the rich who do the acts of iinesl benevolence. J.ong before the wagon wheels had censed jolting upon the pave ment, Bridget was asleep. Like a bird, ex- j iled liom the patent nest, she clung to the fit st protector, and while she slept, dreamed of her mother. Night fill upon the traveler?, and being yet within the liluikls of the older settle ments, they sought the shelter of a village inn. Night fell on the city. The day de signated for recognition of the mother's coisv had passed, and no one cla med it.— | Bridget fell asleep, and as her mother by . adoption took leave of her with a kiss, the j mercenary hireling drove the last contract ; nail in her own mot!el’s ititle coffin. Day . broke upon Bridget, and as she was lifted into the emigrant wagon, the body of her mother was pushed upon tlie hearse. And j when Bridget again sought her pillow for | the night, and to dream of the mother, of whom her occupation itt the dav time scarce l left her time to think, a tier of coffins had been piled upon the remains of her parent in Potters’ Field. Quick lime was strewn between each, and over the highest a scanty foot of earth. Little coffins, with children like! Bridget, and younger, filled the chinks of the aceldema, and the wealth of Indies could not, in a few days, have des- I ignuted the coffin of Bridget's mother from among the rest. Happy child ! She knew nothing of all tins, nor could she have known. As day j and day rose and wore over her, the mem- j ory of her parent grew less and less dis tinct, As night after night fell, the mother I still visited the niphan child in dreams. At i first the anxious and care-worn visage of j the parent presented itself at Bridget's led- ! side, and offered the self-denying crust. — Children’s dreams ate beyond their years. The ir visions are as old as those of adults; j but the infant vocabulary furnishesno words with which the child may communicate to its seniors the story of the night. Angels hover over and hold communion with chil dren in the still watches; and when they would tell us of it we laugh at them ! Nightly to the bedside of her ch Id came the mother’s spirit. At fiist Btidget’s vivid recollection of distress invested the phan tom with the look of kind self denial. But Bridget knew waul no mote, and the menr ol v of want soon faded from her dreams.— Happy herself, bet mother's face beamed with happiness, as the visions of the child took color from her daily experience ; and it slioit time sufficed to make her dreams a repetition of tho day’s delight. By day and night the child, as she was sensible of happiness, in some indefinable way attiihu ted i'. to her mother. That mother became a mental abstraction, whose visible repre sentatives were the kind family with whom she journeyed. ‘I he path of the emigrant is not now over flowers. Much less was it so at the time of which we write. Not even the facilities of canals, with their now accounted snail like progress, helped the emigrant. Ohio was the ultima thu/e, and the road to the then “ far west” hud to be won in many stages wiili tlie axe. As is now the case at the extreme borders of emigration, the traveler carried his own hosteliie with him. The camp fire supplied the means of pre paring food; the rifle during the day pro vided the substantials of the evening repast, the cover of the wagon protected the trav eler from the dews of heaven, while the carefully nursed fire kept the beasts of the forest aloof. Points which we now reach in hours, then required days to attain, and a day* journey now, then occupied weeks. The pace of the emigrant was little be yond a walk, as, indeed, the able bodied of the emigrant parties did walk, leaving to the children and women the carefully hus banded assistance of the best of burthen.— But the men who carved out their fortunes under such laborious conditions, while they won competence, acquited habits of bodily hardihood, and mental strength, which fit ted them to the fathers of the West, and founders of nations. They have given to their child ten a rich inheritance—not mere ly a pecuniary independence, but a person al character, which fits them to be, as they are rapidly becoming, the arbiters of this great nation. The young lion of the West even now holds in awe the enervated At lantic. The West most he our master—— and it will he at once mighty in power, and magnanimous in its exercise. Those who contino themselves to the seaboard know as little of the republic, os he knows of a man who limits himself to an observation of the toilet, without a thought upon the mind, j The soul of tlie Union, it will shortly be i found, is seated I eyond the Alleghanies. The weary toad occupied many weeks before the journey was accomplished. Dai ly little 111 idget entwined herself more and more closely about the Hearts of her benefactors, until the relation in which they stood to each other was forgotten. Budg et was no longer the stranger whom they had taken in charity, but hud become a dearly beloved member of the little circle. The mother's wardrobe aided her scanty equipment in some measure; und where the intonvcniencies of the journey prevent ed the adaptation of garments too uselessly large, the tiunk whithcontuii edjdie apparel of the boys was unhesitatingly drawn upon. Bridget looked as lovely in it jacket as the best of them, and the loss of one of her shoes ft orn the wagon as she slept, was promptly remedied with a pair of little John’s half boots. It is a picnic and hap py life with all its inconveniences, that of the emigrant : and the absence of the re stmints of conventional forms, the ready glee with which odd expedients are adopt ed.and the echo of the unrestrained laugh in the forest make the traveler cease to re giet, if lie does not. cease to remember, the conveniences of Ins late residence in the crowded town. So passed the journey ; and the only re giet which Bridget occasioned to her wor thy guardian, was when the passing stran ger whom he encountered, complimented him on the unstudied beauty and rosy health of his daughter. He would sigh that the presumption was incorrect, but he never took the trouble to contradict it. lie was willing, if possible, to deceive himself, and lie earnestly desired that Bridget might cense to remember any other father than himself, any other mother than his wife.— ‘I lie boys had already adopted her as a sis ter, and the delusion grew daily more strong, as they lead learned to discover from fre quent allusion to the fact by others, that “ Btidgi i looked the image of her father.” CHAPTER HI. A NEW UOilE —A FUNERAL —A WEDDING—-AND A RIRTII. We must take tlie convenient liberty of story tellers, to shake Old Time’s glass, and hurry tlie sand through faster than its wont; or, to take the still ruder libeity of forget ting him altogether for a few years. The Carleton family had been some ten yeats “settled.” W here they pitched their tent, the log house had succeeded the impromptu cabin. The clearing which was at fiist a narrow enclosure, had spread to a w ide farm. The log house had given way to a small frame, with the luxury of glass windows and a hiick chimney. Neighbors had sat down near them, and the “ smokes” of sev eral habitations could be discerned from the hardy settler’s door. ‘1 ime and space would fail us to describe till the stages of life in the West, ftom the selection of a site for the house, down to the “ harvest home” of the cultivated crops. Nor would it be less than presumption in us to attempt a theme in its details, which has been so much better handled by those who, if not “ to the manor hotn,” have “ to the manor” emigrated. The toil necessary to reduce the desert of spontaneous but use less luxuriance To the plenty bearing acres of a well stocked and tilled farm, told as sensibly and as happily upon tlie fanners as upon the soil. The father appeared to hav e taken anew lease of life. His step was more manly, and his frame more vigorous than when, ten years before, we accompa nied him from the city. The two boys bed grown up into fine stalvvait young men — ) and Bridget—what shall we say of her? If James Carleton was proud of his adapt ed daughter while she was yet a child, what shall we say of the gratification of his hon est heart, as he looked upon the maiden of sixteen 1 She had become, under bis goid itia care, and under tlie practical teachings of the West, n woman, while yet a child. Fat temtived from the at Hit rry laws of so ciety, w liich do but make sins oftiifles barm less in themselves, by prohibition ; Bridget’s innate modesty, native purity, and strong good sense, formed her manual of morals and nfanners, She instinctively avoided what her heart told her was wrong; she in stinctively followed wlint that heart told her was light. Her delicacy was guided by rite maxim “ avoid every appearance of evil,” and her innocence prevented her in vesting any thing good with an evil appear ance. Slit* hail no world-hackneyed asso cintior.s to lead her to put an extiinsic color of impropriety on what is intrinsically pro per and right. Her “politeness” was sincere, and had its b ginning and end in the golden rule, to deal by others as she would he dealt by. Still Bt idget was mortal, and of course far (tom perfect; but as fur as native grace and love liness can throw a veil aver imperfections, were her faults naturally, and without ef fort, thus concealed. While Catleton watch ed her, his thoughts involuntarily strayed buck to the homo of bis childhood, beyond the far wide ocean—for what his sister was to him in his youth, was Bridget becoming to him in bis tiper years. She was even dearer—and he sometimes thought that he could see in her countenance positive lines of resemblance to the playmate of his child hood. But as he had tto ft tend, who hav VOLUME II.""NUMBER 50. ing seen both, could unite with him in draw-’ iti” the paralic-1. he had no one but himself to convince of the resemblance; and a man’s own heart is not hard of belief in that to which he would persuade it. When theiefore he called ••Bridget!” and her cheerful voice answered, it was happiness to him to recognise in the tones of her who answeied to his departed sister’s name* a resemblance to her voice. It was happiness, too, to he carried, by her elastic step hack to the time Ovhen his sister bounded to meet him, and to resd ift I er mild blue eyes the same confiding affect tion which united the brother and sister of 1 years gone by. This sister was in Heaven —he tejoiced for her there—be rejoiced in Iter upon earth—for “ Poor Bridget,” ns he once called his protege, was to him in his manhood, all that his own sister had been in his infancy. And Mrs, Oath.ton loved Biidget, too,’ with an affection ns deep and sincere, if not as poetical, as her husband’s. But the ma tron’s attachim nts to Bridget bad yet ano! Ik t motive—gratitude. Happiness unalloyed is no man’s continued earthly lot. The emt igiant who moves to the freedom and plenty of the “ new country,’’ from the restrictions and labor of the old, is taught, in God’s un erring Providence, though he may seem to have conquered anew world for himself, on overruling Power is still present,’ and that in his hands are the issues of life. Woman, in the sphere for which she was bom, has ni'tre endurance than man.- But man is more elastic, his mind is more active, and his frame better adapted to support change. Hence, while we find that remov al to the West is often the apparent pur chase of longevity to the man, to the matron it brings weakness, and often premature cleat I). Could Oar let on have seen the wifelhal he married, arid the wife that presided over his plain table in Ohio, placed side by side, the strong contrast between the blooming health of the one, and t lie waning pallor of the other, would have shocked him at once, and inefliiceably. But the change had been gradual, and therefore imperceptible. As day fades in to night through the long summer twilight, we cannot murk any point of time at which durknoss increases. One shadow prepares the way for the next, and thus, when night has indeed fallen, we are as much taken by surprise as if the light were shut from us at midday. Glorious as the setting of a sum mer sun were the patting daysot Mrs. Carle tu'i. .Mild as the reflection of the depart ing light were the evidences of her virtue, and the exercises of her kindness. Calmly as the sun sinks to r est did she, step by step, yield her bold upon life—and sudden as night falls to a contemplative mind did tiro conviction of her sickness unto death fall upon Carleton. As he watched the beauty of the evening clouds, he had watched the closing months of his wife’s existence, and as in one case he forgot that the beauty of the heavens was the hailunger of night, so did he, in the other, overlook the warning of death’s approach in the almost supernatural mental and mature personal loveliness of tlie partner of Iris bosom. And now did lire emigrant family reap the reward of - their kindness to the orphan. Biidget had been the first to perceive, and the lust to mention tlie declining health of Mrs. Gutleton. But from the moment that her keen observation revealed the truth to Iter, she had set about relieving the house wife of her can's. Heretofore sire had been the active performer of Mrs. C.’s wishes i the details of the household economy. •She had been an obedient daughter, and leaving to her adopted parent the direction, had contented herself w ith the execution.- Now anew and wider field of duty present ed itself, and without any obtrusive offi ciousness which should lead the invalid to suspect that wlnit she imagined the secret of her ill health, was discovered, Bridget grad ually and gently assumed more and more of the care of the household, until the Invalid was entirely relieved from solicitude. She fancied, for some time, that she had still the weight of her matronly duties on her hands hut they seemed to her lighter than ever before. Otic evening, as they sat beside each other, awaiting the return of the fath er and sons from the farm, l heW light broke upon the invalid. She had detected nti anxious look in Bridget’s kind and intel ligent countenance —she understood in a moment the whole of her self-denying con duct, wise and tender beyond her years— and tin* matron fell on the orphan’s neck and wept, Ftoin that moment the truth broke upon the forest household. The illness of one of its heads, which hope had repelled hitherto, us u forbidden topic, and which affection had striven to regard as momentary and there fore an unnecessary cause for despairing converse, was now frequently and sadly spoken of. All fell, ami none more confi dently than Mrs. Cnilelon, that **thc time jof her departure was at hand.” Bridget was her constant attendant, her nurse, her } Hiigil; and if affect ion could hare averted j decease, I er life would have been made im 1 mortal. But death came—not ns aiude, jor an unexpected visitant. He seemed to enter the little chamber as nnislcssly and • kindly as any other attendant upon the s:rk ! —ami Mrs. Cmleton drunk hit cup os meek i ly as she had partaken those proffered by j her tender friends.; “ She sank to re*t with out u struggle.