Oh, you rich ones might be god-like on the earth if ye would."

"And how, Miss Debby?" inquired Mr. Redwood, pleased with her earnestness; "if you will furnish me an easy rule I may possibly adopt it."

"Make the cause of the poor thine own the rule is not overly easy, squire, as maybe you have found. It is a hard tug to keep up with them scripter rules, they are all a-head of us."

"Miss Deborah's sagacity or experience," observed Westall to Mr. Redwood, "has led her to one of the most satisfactory proofs of the divine origin of our religion." Mr. Redwood averted his eyes, knit his brow, and adjusted the sling of his arm, while Caroline putting up her fan to shelter herself from her father's observation, whispered, "Lord, Mr. Westall, do you not know that papa is an infidel?"

"Your father?"

"Oh yes it is indeed quite shocking,"

-how far the sudden gravity of Westall's face would have prompted her to proceed in her lamentations, is uncertain, for her attention was called by her father, who willing to divert the conversation from the channel into which it had fallen, asked her why she had never mentioned the affair of the canoe to him?

"Oh, I quite forgot it, Sir," she replied, "in my pleasure at seeing Mrs. Westall". and her son, her eyes added, as she sent a sparkling glance to Charles. Her reply did not appear entirely to satisfy Westall, even with the flattering appendage to which her kind look had supplied; after musing a moment he said, "I hope Miss Redwood has not forgotten her friend's presence of mind on that occasion?"

"Miss Bruce's?- certainly notthough it deprived me of the romance of being rescued by you, Mr. Westall, which you know would have been quite an incident for a novel."

"I don't know about incidents," said Debby, who was arrested as she was leaving the room by the allusion to Ellen, “but I think if any body had saved me from the accident of being drowned or ducked, I should not have left it to other folks to tell of it."

There was one unsuspected and most unwilling auditor of this conversationEllen Bruce. She had been indulging herself with the refreshment of a short walk, and was just re-entering the door, and lingering to gaze on the dewy landscape glittering in the moon-beams, when her ear caught Charles Westall's inquiry in relation to herself: she was awkwardly situated, for she could not advance without being observed, nor remain without being an involuntary listener to a conversation that seemed now to have turned upon herself. While she was hesitating, Mr. Redwood inquired of Debby "why Miss Bruce latterly confined herself so much to Mrs. Allen's room?"

"Why," said Deborah, "the fact is, that the old lady is broke to pieces with her troubles, and the moment Ellen is out of her sight she moans for her like a child whimpering for its mother: we all try to spell her, but none of us can do any thing right but Ellen: it is past all belief what she does for the old lady-it is enough to wear out the strength of Sampson. I talk to Mrs. Allen, but she is quite past hearing to reason, though there was never a nicer reasonabler woman than she has been in her day."

"It is quite surprising," observed Caroline, languidly to Mrs. Westall, “what labours these New England women perform."

Surprising indeed," echoed Mrs. Westall, but it's all in habit, my dear." "New-England women-habit!" exclaimed Deborah; "I'll tell you whatit is not being born here or there, it is not habit; it is not strength of limb, but here," and she struck her hand against

her heart, "here is what gives Ellen Bruce strength and patience."

There was energy if not eloquence in Deborah's manner, and Charles Westall, who had listened to the conversation from the beginning, with an interest that had manifestly nettled Caroline, inquired "what relation Mrs. Allen bore to Miss Bruce ?" "None," replied Deborah, and then seeming suddenly to recollect that the fisherman was awaiting her, she left the room.

"This is an uncommon devotion on the part of Miss Bruce," said Westall; "but after what we have heard this afternoon it cannot surprise us-there is something singularly pure and lovely in her whole expression and manner, in perfect unison with her disinterested conduct."

"She is indeed quite a genteel young woman," observed Mrs. Westall. "Pray, Miss Redwood, how is she connected with the Lenoxes?"

"Not at all as far as I can ascertain,"