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you came forward in that hour of distress and proffered your heart and hand, Samaritan-like, for my relief. Since then, though unworthy, I have been permitted to share your sociableness, and lastly, to crown all, you offer me and mine protection and a home. Sir, gratitude is the only compensation that I am able to bestow; nor shall that be sparingly contributed while I live."

"My worthy friend," replied Lecatt, "were I to perform acts of kindness for the sake of either the praises of men or any earthly reward, then would I not be a Christian nor a man towards my fellows. Nay, far be it from me to do good with the selfish view of exacting the last penny from a sufferer, for in that case, where would be the virtue of the action? I consider to exercise the part of a brother towards all men, is a duty obligatory and imperative, enforced by the command and life of a Saviour who never saw a penitent in want and passed him heedless by."

As may be expected, Jones did not disagree to the proposition of Lecatt, who, though a philanthropic man in a true sense of the word, had besides another impetus in this work of charity.

Conversation soon after was brought to a close, and the two separated for the night; one feeling peaceful from a source of having conferred happiness, and the other considerably elated by the reception of it.

Alonzo, after being gently expostulated concerning the hopelessness of again finding his mother, became after a little while resigned to his fate.

A sudden illness of the grandmother, which at first appeared simple, gradually augmented until her life

was despaired of. But with good attention, the sickness abated, and she was convalescing when the ship, under full sail before an eastern gale, dashed gayly up the well-known Thames.

CHAPTER XIII.

"O THOU dead

And everlasting witness! whose unsinking
Blood darkens earth and heaven! What thou now art,
I know not! but if thou seest what I am,

I think thou wilt forgive him, whom his God
Can ne'er forgive, nor his own soul. Farewell!

I must not, dare not touch what I have made thee."

BYRON'S CAIN.

AGAIN, patient reader, we find ourselves on the beautiful peninsula of Virginia. We say beautiful, because there is scarcely any spot of the western continent that can compete with this in finery of situation and elegance of scenery.

The land is about twenty miles in width more or less, bounded upon one side by the Chesapeake, and upon the other by the Atlantic, whose billows roar along and break in perpetual grandeur upon the east

ern coast.

Its ocean scene is one of singular interest. To an observer, as far as vision can penetrate, the blue waters are spread out in one vast sheet of limpid brine. At a great distance, just above the horizon, is seen the stately steamer and cloud-like ship, resembling spirits of ocean, bound upon their dangerous missions. Here,

also does a certain passage in the book of Job occur to the memory, in all its beauty and truthfulness:

"Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddling-band for it, and brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors, and said: Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther, and here shall thy proud waves be staid."

Such a prospect as this, to the eye of one whose birth-place has assigned him to regions much less inviting, would be a soul-cheering sight. Yet there are some who inhabit such places, that can gaze unmoved upon these wondrous works of "nature's God," from the fact that, being born and bred among them, they appear as familiar and uninteresting as the fields they till.

But time, so precious to us all, is passing stealthily and rapidly by, compelling us to leave incomplete the purposed description, and points us to the promised

task.

Jones was gone. Aunt Amie, lonesome and sad, returned to the house.

She had never lived alone, nor did she at all desire to do so now; but it was "massa Jones' will, and not her own."

Not on account of a fear of punishment, but for the love of obedience, (so rarely found in those of her color,) which her master's kindness had excited in her not altogether insensible breast.

Night came down darkly around the cottage of the absent fisherman, and the old woman, imitating the

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example of Ham's progeny, began to be afflicted with that incurable misfortune which belongs to the uneducated, namely, "superstition," and she felt a gloom oppressive and frightful settle upon her.

Her apprehensions increased with the accumulating darkness, until her imagination was wrought up to such a pitch, that she came to the conclusion not to go to bed at all, but sit up in the corner and nod over a few coals till daylight brought relief.

Strange to say, the trembling expectant of an appearance of a ghost, was not long to be kept in suspense, by the coming of Vansant, the Dutchman, who had been out that day upon a gunning excursion in the bay, and being detained until nightfall, had mistaken his way, and sailed up the Onancock instead of Pungoteaque, the creek on which Manchester Scarborough resided; there being so minute a difference between the outlets of the two, and so near each other, that it was an easy matter to be confounded, especially a person like Vansant, who had just enough experience in nautical science to be classed under the sailor-made phrase, "a green-horn."

Observing that he had made false calculations, and the night being very dark and chilly to the external feelings of one whose clothes were completely saturated, he thought it best to land; and seeing the glimmer of Aunt Amie's light as it shone through a little window, he hastily made fast his boat, and arriving at the door, gave it several hard knocks.

This startled the old woman not a little, and believ ing it to be the reality of her fancy, she crouched lower

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