and received comfort and support in her afflictions. Two years passed wearily and heavily away, although Isabel had gained a greater degree of calmness and resignation than she had dared to hope for, and then came another and more terrible shock. The crew of the ship in which Ernest and his mad companion had embarked, irritated by some harsh usage from the commander, and instigated by de Castigne, had mutinied and turned pirates; they had been captured by a vessel and brought into port, and Ernest was now in prison, awaiting his trial. Not a moment did Isabel hesitate with regard to the course she should pursue. To go to him, to comfort and console him, to remain with him during the dreadful period of his confinement, was the course which her heart prompted, and, agonized as she was, she set forth, alone, to seek the poor criminal. Dreading lest she should meet some old familiar face among the numerous passers in the well-known streets, Isabel, on her entrance into the city, procured a cheap conveyance to take her to the prison. On her way she passed the splendid dwelling which had been her home in happier days; lights were glancing in the windows of what had been her nursery, and at the sight came rushing back the memories of the past, soon to be dispelled by the fearful realities of the present. The vehicle stopped at the iron gate of the prison, and having obtained permission of the keeper, Isabel was conducted through the dis mal stone galleries, and down flights of steps into. the damp corridor leading to the cells; and her guide having unbarred the iron door and removed the massive bolts, she was ushered into the presence of her guilty son. For a moment she regarded him in horror-struck silence, while he, unable to recognize in the wan, gray-haired woman before him, the stately and handsome woman from whom he had parted less than three years before, stood before her, bending upon her a glance so fierce that she shrank before it. "Ernest!" she at length faltered forth, and with a faint, wild cry, the miserable man fell at her feet, and pressed to his ashy lips, convulsively, the hem of his mother's garment. During his confinement on shipboard, and since, in that lonely cell, his mind had returned to its natural state; for strangely had it been perverted in its intercourse with the reckless and dissolute Pedro de Castigne. Horror and remorse had taken the place of the wild, fierce desperation which had led him on to the cruel and terrible deeds in which he had been an actor. He was again gentle and childlike, and listened with tearful earnestness to the tender words of his griefworn mother, as she urged him to seek forgiveness where he had most deeply sinned. With tears of heartfelt penitence did he confess and mourn over his apostasy and downfall. He spoke with shuddering horror of the dreadful crimes which he had committed, and lamented with bitter, though unavailing sorrow, over the untimely and disgraceful doom to which he had consigned himself; he, who had been so highly gifted, so carefully instructed! His mother sought to soothe him with kindly words, and promises from Sacred Writ, and at length, wearied and exhausted, he sank into a profound slumber, with his head pillowed on his mother's knee. "And is this," thought Isabel, as she gazed on his sleeping face, "is this the babe for whose birth I so longed the fair child by whose sick bed I knelt in agony, and so earnestly prayed for his life, the noble boy to whose nurture and instruction I devoted the best years of my life, the manly youth whom I looked up to as the future support of my declining years? Yet oh how much dearer is he now than ever he was in the brightest days of his prosperity!” The remainder of my story is painful, but it shall be very brief. Isabel remained with her wretched son till he was brought to trial. She stood near him at the bar, and listened in fearful suspense to those on whose words hung life and death. She nerved herself to bear the worst, and heard with unblanched cheek the sentence which doomed her only son to the scaffold. She returned with him to the dungeon, from whence he was to emerge once more, to become the gaze and talk of a vast and heartless multitude; she clasped his cold hand, and bade him farewell for the last time on earth; she heard the shout which told her that all was over, that she was a lonely, childless widow, and then her sight grew dim-she remembered nothing further! In a remote corner of the little church-yard in the village where she had passed so many chequered years, did Isabel consign her son to his last dreamless sleep! She heard the clods rattle on the coffin, saw the earth heaped upon what had been her idol, and then returned to her home, desolate indeed! But not long did the weary spirit remain in bondage. Ere the grass had grown on the grave of Ernest Somers, his broken-hearted mother was laid by his side. Peaceful be thy slumber, thou martyr to maternal love! and in that better land to which thou didst fondly point him, mayest thou meet thy poor wanderer, ransomed from sin, and washed white in the blood of his Redeemer ! Reader, 't is an ow're true tale! I have drawn my characters from life. Nor is Isabel Somers the only mother who has seen her dearest hopes thus crushed and blighted, as many a poor, stricken heart will bear me witness; but never, thank God, has storm or blight, disgrace, or even death, had power to dim or quench the lamp which burns on ever, with holy and steady light, from the cradle to the grave, through all chances and changes, in the true MOTHER'S HEART! THE AULD WIFE. "John Anderson, my Jo, John, How often has that beautiful and touching old ballad of Burns' risen from my heart to my lips, as I have witnessed the devotion of old Hannah Evans to her still more aged and infirm husband; the quickness with which she discerned his slightest wants, the alacrity with which she ministered to them, her gentleness, and the numberless little kindnesses she seems to delight in bestowing! To me, her unwearied love and devotion seem to diffuse a bright "light" amid the numerous shadows that darken woman's life; and so I am tempted to pen a sketch, which, imperfect though it be, may perhaps convey to you some idea of one who is deserving of far higher praise than this simple tribute to her excellence. Hannah Lee was the youngest child and the only daughter of parents who were born, bred, and married, and who hoped to live and die, in the same quiet village. They dwelt in a venerable cottage, weather-stained and moss-roofed, near the church; for, in addition to his peculiar calling, (he was a carpenter,) old James Lee had succeeded his father as village sexton. Beneath that lowly roof he had received life; it had been the scene of |