child. His days, and the greater part of his nights likewise, he spent in public-houses, and only visited his home to commit some new act of robbery.

When Peggy left the infirmary, her first care was to visit the kind neighbour who had taken charge of her child during her confinement, and it was some alleviation to her misery to find, as she now did, that her little innocent had been carefully tended, and was at that moment in excellent health. But the unfortunate woman was not yet aware of the state of utter desolation to which her home had been reduced by her worthless husband; when, therefore, she saw its bare walls, its naked apartments, and comfortless hearth, her heart sunk within her, and she wept bitterly. It was now that she felt the full extent of her misery, and saw, with unprejudiced eyes, the melancholy and striking contrast between her present and former condition. She could no longer conceal from herself the appalling fact, that she was now fast verging towards the last stage of destitution, and was absolutely without a morsel of bread. Even hope threatened to desert her, and leave her a prey to a distracted mind and broken spirit. Poor Peggy, however, determined to make yet another effort for the sake of her child, and on his account to endeavour to fight her way a little farther through the world. With this view she sought for, and at length, though not without great difficulty, succeeded in obtaining employment as a washerwoman. But here a serious obstacle presented itself. How was she to dispose of her child? She could not both work and nurse; yet work she must, or both must inevitably starve.

From this painful predicament she extricated herself by determining on putting the child out to nurse, and devoting to its maintenance whatever portion of her little hard-earned gains that duty should demand. Poor Peggy, however, did not come to the resolution which stern necessity imposed upon her, of parting with her infant, without feeling all that a tender and affectionate mother must always feel in taking such a heartrending step. It is true that she knew she could see her child at any time; for she resolved that, wheresoever she placed it, it should be near her; but then she foresaw, also, that she must necessarily be often many hours absent from it, and a mother's fears pictured to her a thousand accidents which might befall the infant, when she was not near to save or protect it. It was, however, impossible for her to do otherwise with the child than put it out to nurse, and she accordingly began to look out for a suitable person for that duty; and such a one, at least she thought so, she at length found; but she did not resign her infant to the charge of this person without having previously made the most minute and strict inquiries regarding her character, and being perfectly satisfied, or at anyrate so far satisfied as the testimony of those who knew the woman could make her; but, as the sequel will show, she was, after all, cruelly deceived, and so

probably were those who had spoken to her good name. Having made arrangements with this woman regarding her child, and having put the latter under her care, Peggy commenced the laborious life to which she was now doomed: for her husband appeared to have wholly deserted her, as he had never looked once near the house after he had completed its spoliation.

For about twelve months after this, nothing occurred in Peggy's obscure and humble life worth recording. She toiled early and late with unwearying assiduity to support herself and her child, and felt a degree of happiness which she had not hoped ever again to enjoy, from the consciousness of being in the discharge of a sacred duty, and from a belief that her infant was sharing in the benefits of her exertions, by receiving all those attentions which the dearly-won earnings she appropriated to its maintenance were meant to procure for it. But at the end of the period above-named, a circumstance occurred which showed how basely and wickedly she was deceived in the latter particular. One day, when washing in a gentleman's house where she was frequently employed, Peggy, in the temporary absence of the household servants, happened to answer a knock at the door, when a beggar-woman, with a child in her arms, wrapped closely up in a wretched cloak which she wore, presented herself, and solicited charity. Peggy, partly urged by curiosity, and partly by her parental feelings, gently removed the cloak to have a peep of the mendicant's child; but what was her amazement, her horror, on discovering that the child was her own! She uttered a scream of mingled surprise and terror; distractedly tore her infant from the wretch who had possession of it; and pressed it to her bosom with an energy and vehemence that seemed to indicate a fear of its being again taken from her. The mendicant in the meantime endeavoured to make her escape, but was seized and conveyed to the police-office upon a charge of child-stealing. From the examination which followed, however, it appeared that the child had not been stolen, but borrowed, or rather hired at so much per day, by the infamous woman in whose possession it was found, from the still more infamous person to whose care it had been confided by its mother; and it further appeared that the latter wretch had long been in the practice of letting out poor Peggy's child in the way just mentioned, which, we need not add, is a method frequently adopted for exciting charity and imposing upon the humane. Peggy of course lost no time in seeking out another guardian for her child, and was at length fortunate enough to find one on whom she could place full reliance. With this person the child remained a twelvemonth, at the end of which period Peggy succeeded, though not without great difficulty and much pleading, in procuring her little boy to be admitted into an orphans' hospital.

During all this time her worthless husband never once looked

Peter

near her, or took the smallest interest either in her own fate or that of her child. She indeed for a long time did not know even where he was, or what he was about, but at length heard that he was working in a quarry in the neighbourhood; and she was soon made aware of his vicinity, by his frequently coming to her in a state of intoxication to demand money of her; and she was often compelled to give it to him, to prevent him affronting her, or probably depriving her of her employment by his obstreperous conduct. Such torments, however, cannot last for ever. was at length found to be somehow implicated in a drunken scuffle at Cramond, in which one of the parties was deprived of or lost a few shillings. Whether Peter was guilty or not in this affair, is of little consequence. He was seized by a sheriff's officer, and removed to the county jail at Edinburgh. Up to this point of Peter's career he had been simply a worthless wretch, and perhaps not past being reclaimed; but being now lodged in one common receptacle with twenty villains more or less criminal, for a period of about three months previous to trial, he embraced the opportunity of becoming a thoroughly confirmed blackguard. A notorious swindler, who happened to be confined in the same ward, acted as instructor in crime to the party, and Peter was a most apt scholar. On his trial, he was not convicted, and was therefore set at liberty; but his excellent schooling in jail soon led him into a desperate affair of housebreaking, for which he was in due time tried and despatched to Botany Bay.

In the midst of these troubles and trials, something like better fortune smiled on poor Peggy. A respectable elderly gentleman, a bachelor, to whom she had been warmly recommended by one of the ladies who were in the habit of employing her, took her into his service: and here for two years she found a peaceful and comfortable home: but at the end of this period the old gentleman died, and Peggy was again thrown upon the world, friendless and houseless; and to add to her misfortune, the changes which even a very short period rarely fails to bring about, had, during the two years of her service, effected such alterations in the families by which she was formerly employed, that they were no longer open to her. It is true she had saved a few pounds during her service; but this sum, she felt, would soon disappear; and before it was all gone, she fortunately obtained some employment in the way of washing shop-floors, three of which she cleaned out at sixpence a-week each, and a writer's office at a shilling, and this was now pretty nearly all she had to live upon.

Inadequate as these means were, Peggy was thankful of them. Half-a-crown, however, was but a miserable sum to live upon for an entire week, to clothe her, feed her, and pay house-rent. It could procure her none of those comforts to which she had been accustomed when in service, and it was a sum on which she

would not then have placed much value: but times were changed with her, and poignantly did she feel this, and bitterly did she regret the unhappy step which had at once taken her from a comfortable and happy position, and plunged her into that misery with which she was now struggling. As she thought on these things, poor Peggy's heart sunk within her, and she began to despair of ever again enjoying happiness in this world. Reflections such as these preyed so much on the unfortunate woman's mind, as nearly to unfit her for the little work she had to do, and threatened to lay her on a bed of sickness; and added to all this, what a change had taken place in her personal appearance! Her once neat and well-shaped form was now thin and emaciated her dress, though still clean and tidy, bore but too evident indications of the extreme poverty which had overtaken her; and her once ruddy and cheerful countenance was pale, haggard, and deeply marked with the grave melancholy lines of thought. No one, in short, could now have known the once pretty Peggy-the little, lively, handsome servant girl. But although poor Peggy had now begun to despair of ever being better, Providence had not deserted her.

On passing through the market-place of the city on a day when it is frequented by people from the country, Peggy was suddenly accosted by a decent elderly man in such a dress as is generally worn by the smaller order of farmers. This person was Peggy's uncle. He was in easy circumstances, but having been highly displeased with his niece's marriage (against which he had remonstrated in vain), in consequence of his having heard very unfavourable but too well-founded reports regarding the character and habits of her husband, he had withdrawn his countenance from her, and she, aware of this, had never once thought of seeking his assistance in her distress. Although of a somewhat stern temper, Peggy's uncle was yet a worthy and kind-hearted man, and his unfortunate niece's sadly altered appearance, which his keen eye at once detected on thus accidentally meeting her, instantly excited his sympathy, and banished all his resentment, and determined him in the step he now took. "How are ye, Peggy?" said the old man, taking her by the hand, and looking earnestly but kindly in her pale emaciated face. "Dear me, lassie," he went on, "what's the matter wi' ye? Ye're sairly changed sin' I saw you last; ye're no like the same woman. Are ye well enough?" Peggy made no reply, but burst into tears. "Come away, lassie," said her uncle; 66 this is no a place for giein' vent to feelings o' that kind; come in by here, and tak some kind o' refreshment, and we'll speak owre things at leisure, and away frae the public eye." Saying this, he led Peggy into an adjoining publichouse, and there learnt the whole story of her wedded life.

The old man's feelings gave way before the recital of the humble but affecting tale; a tear started into his eye; he took

2 L

Peggy by the hand, and told her that his house was open to her whenever she chose to enter it; and added, that he thought, under all the circumstances, the sooner she did this the better. In short, before the uncle and niece parted, it was fixed that Peggy should, on the very next day, repair to Braefoot, her uncle's farm; which she accordingly did; and as he was a widower, and without any daughters of his own, she soon showed herself to be worthy of all the kindness shown her by her relative, by the activity she displayed in the superintendence of his dairy and household affairs, of which she obtained the sole and uncontrolled management, and thus once more found herself in the enjoyment of comfort, and of, at least, comparative happiness. With a due consideration for her maternal feelings, as well as for the "credit of the family," Peggy's uncle speedily removed her child from the charitable institution in which he had been placed, and brought him home to his own house, greatly to the delight both of mother and son. Only one cankering care now preyed on Peggy's mind, and that arose from the possibility of her husband returning to his native country to blight her prospect of future quietude. Even from this unlikely occurrence, however, she was at length happily relieved, by intelligence of Peter's death. For repeated misdemeanours in the family of a respectable settler near Sidney, he underwent summary transportation to the penal settlement at Macquarrie's Harbour. Here, among a gang of desperate felons, loaded with chains, and labouring ten hours a-day to the knees in water, he was not long in sinking under the effects of a broken moral and physical constitution. The report of her husband's unhappy death was not unfelt or unwept by our humble heroine, but the load of uneasiness which was now removed from her mind, soon led her to be grateful for the relief; and she was with little difficulty brought to agree with her uncle and the sympathising neighbours around, that her loss was, on the whole, "a light dispensation.”

Such is the story of Peggy Dickson; but let it be recollected by those of her class who may read it, that while all of them are liable to the miseries which she endured, by entering into a rash and inconsiderate marriage, few have such an uncle to rescue them from the last consequences of that unhappy step as she had the good fortune to be blessed with.

STORY OF ISBEL LUCAS.

A NUMBER of years ago, a woman of the name of Isbel Lucas kept a small lodging-house in the southern suburbs of Edinburgh. She was the daughter of a respectable teacher in the city, who, at his death, had bequeathed to her, as his sole sur