CHAPTER IX.

"Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitation;"

-" for more are the children of the desolate, than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord."-Isaiah.

Two years were spent by Mary, in close attendance upon her suffering cousin, whose mind as well body, required skilful nursing, and the tenderest care. She saw in Ferdinand a constitutional tendency to unbelief; and though it might have been a self-evident fact that a real work of grace was commenced in his soul, if he had not like Thomas, our Lord's doubting follower, set down his stakes by the wall of open vision, ere he could say "My Lord, and my God," yet she waited with an angel's sweetness for a happy result, recollecting the command "though it tarry watch for it: at the end it shall speak and not lie."

"The bitterness of death was past," for the present; but the youth endured a lengthy ordeal of pain and debility, while his constitution seemed to sustain a severe struggle for life. At length the hectic glow ceased to visit his cheek, the nocturnal sweats were done, an anchylosis was formed, and by slow degrees health was measurably resto

red. But ah! what a change in his once elegant figure. He was now a cripple, indebted to a crutch to help him to go about the house. Pride, however, was humbled, and vanity had withered almost entirely away. Often would he say to Mary, as she handed his crutch, "this is my temporal sword cousin, and if I had your spiritual one, I could be content."

"I shall hear you shout victory, by and by dear, was her usual reply, and behold your valorous exploits with heavenly weapons in fighting for King Emanuel." Depend upon it, Ferdinand, the army of aliens shall flee, and your colors wave in victory on Zion's lofty mountain, where is deliverance, peace and holiness, forever.

Mrs. Seymour gained in grace, what she lost in bodily constitution, that had received a shock by the fever, which she never surmounted through her remaining pilgrimage upon earth. Her nerves remained exceeding weak, and a noise in the street, that once she might have scarcely heard, now oc'casioned considerable agitation; and she seemed to shrink from the sound of chiming bells on the first day of the week with involuntary dread. The church organ was too heavy for her nervous head, and she was obliged to resign her sweetest pleasure, in keeping away from chapel devotions. The smoke of London became as trying to her delicate

frame, as city sounds; and there appeared no alternative between perpetual suffering, and a retreat in the country. Her physicians advised a removal from the metropolis, where she however lingered till medical resources were exhausted upon her afflicted child; and though death ceased to threaten his dissolution, he was pronounced a cripple for life. "I must leave London, I believe, my love," said Mrs. Seymour to Mary, one fine morning toward the last of April. Summer approaches-we cannot shut out the noise, as we do in winter-I am on the rack day and night--Where shall we go Mary? You are my counsellor,-my-earthly every thing, I may say.

The orphan's heart beat quick-her eyes sparkled-her cheek glowed with their native blush-long had her pious mind been forming a plan for permanent usefulness-she had wept and prayed over it for years, in secret places, and amid the night watches-"The Lord is come, thought she, to fulfil my wishes, and now he intends I shall open my lips, to proclaim them."

She was sitting by Ferdinand, who reclined on a sofa, when her aunt addressed her in the terms stated above. It succeeded their family devotions, and Mary had just taken in her hand a volume of Kempis' works, entitled "the Valley of Lillies," to read loud for Ferdinand, as Mrs. Seymour spoke,

Henri was just leaving the room; but on hearing his mother's address to Mary, he obeyed a sudden impression that glanced upon his mind, and he returned to his seat.

Never had John Armly's orphan, or Henri La Blanc's heiress, appeared more lovely, than at this moment. Mary was twenty seven years old on that very day. She owed her birth day to the month of showers amid sunshine, and her life thus far had exhibited an allusive picture of the alternate cloud and clearness of April. The bashfulness of childhood, the timidity of youth, had resigned their power, to the reign of unspotted virtue, and the unaffected modesty of christian womanhood. The eyes of her aunt and cousins were fastened upon her animated countenance with delight and wonder, waiting to hear her reply "You have given me an opening, my dear aunt, said Mary, that I shall improve with pleasure; and while I rejoice that you are desirous of quitting your city residence, this season, my heart is grateful for your kind confidence in, as well as reference to me; and I embrace this favorable opportunity to relieve my mind of a burden that it has borne for some years. My rural infancy, my orphan childhood, are constantly passing before me in retrospect; and the counsels of my revered father are living in my heart. His

example teaches as powerful as his precepts, and his sufferings are written on every line of memory, that are beyond the influence of time to fade. Often in nightly dreams, I see him flying from an incensed father, braving the dangers of the sea, treading on a foreign shore, laboring for hire at the peep of dawn, beneath the rays of a vertical sun, and exposed to the fogs of this climate, so unlike the clear atmosphere of his native sky.-All that a more certain vision unfolds to me, even what these eyes of flesh saw of that sainted man, is on par with the scenes of labor I alluded to, as prior to my birth. My father is still before me, in his short jacket, at work with the hoe, the shovel, the spade. In the sweat of his brow,' he earned the bread that nourished my little body, as it tottered in the path of helpless childhood—and dare I live at ease, in splendor? Shall the orphan of a humble peasant thus dishonor his sainted memory? My father, you all know, my beloved friends, destined me to the labor of teaching in a school-he was sufficiently tender of his Mary-but he wished her to earn her bread. A few nights ago, I dreamed he came to that window where you now sit, aunt Marie, and beckoned me to come to him. I ran instantly, extending my right hand to take his. He said both or none. I held out the other-he did not offer to move his own; but said, 'Mary go to