class="line-i1">"When drinking every gale from kindred earth,

and she determined to seek for happiness once more within its precincts. "Often as I have been disappointed in the search," said she, "and severely as I have felt its loss, let me at least endeavour to use those blessings yet left me for the good of others: and is wealth alone the only blessing left me?" continued she, as she walked pensively up and down the avenue which led to her house. "Alas! I have now no relations whom I can share it with, no one whom I can call an intimate friend! My fortune would make many profess to be such, but I have proved the fallacy of such friendship, and know on what ground they are formed. I will seek the Campbells: if they are like their parents, they will not be parasites, for they were content with little, and thought the bread they ate the sweeter for being procured by their own industry." With these sentiments she called at the farm, within a few weeks after her arrival at Rosewood, and found Mr. and Mrs. Campbell sensible of her condescension, though not servilely so. They were both well informed, and paid her the respect which was due to her as the owner of their farm; nor were they ashamed to acknowledge her their superior, not only from her possessing more money, but from the difference the distinctions of society had made between them. She found the farmer sitting with two children on his knee, and his wife with an infant on hers, in the very place where the late Mrs. Campbell used to sit, and to whom she had often ran with the sweet things her father brought her while a child under her care. The shelves, the chairs, and oaken tables were the same as when she lived there, except that several books were added to the simple library her foster parents possessed. On entering the room quite unexpectedly, she was not at first recollected as the lady they had seen at church the Sunday before; her face was particularly expressive, but it was marked with melancholy; and her voice faltered as she apologized for her abruptness; nor could she refrain from tears on observing the extreme likeness of the farmer to his good old mother, whose features she perfectly recollected. "It is Mrs. Meridith!" said he, on seeing her advance farther into their large stone kitchen; and setting the children on their feet, who were lost in astonishment at the appearance of a stranger, he jumped up and hastened to offer her a chair. Mrs. Campbell also rose, and remarking the agitation of her countenance, imagined that something had alarmed her, and she had fled to their house for shelter.

"Will you take any thing, Ma'am?" said she, "I am sure you are very much frightened."

"No, no," replied Mrs. Meridith, "but the recollection of old times and old friends were at the moment almost too much for me; these walls and that face are no strangers to me:—do you not recollect me, Mr. Campbell?" continued she, holding out her hand to him. With a countenance expressive of pleasure, yet with the utmost respect, he took her offered hand.

"Certainly, Ma'am, I do," he replied, "and esteem myself obliged that you should still remember me."

"Alas!" said she with a sigh, "the loss of so many later friends has made me wish to see those of an earlier date; not that I did not often think of those I left at the farm, and only wish there were now more of them for me to meet. Your dear mother I know is dead; but my sister Anna, where is she? Ah! that little girl puts me in mind of her—and of a still dearer tie," added she, with a sigh half suppressed, while her eyes were suffused with tears.

"It is her child, Madam," returned Mr. Campbell; "I lost my sister when she was born, and she is ours now."

"Poor little thing," said Mrs. Meridith, drawing the child towards her, "your mother dead also! May you find in the present Mrs. Campbell as kind a nurse as I did in the former, and you will not know your loss. But your brother," continued she, "is he living?"

"Yes, Madam, and has taken a farm about fourteen miles from hence, and is married."

"My poor Anna!" repeated Mrs. Meridith, "how sorry I am that you are not here! she was the only one I ever called sister, Mr. Campbell: who did she marry?"

"A young man from the neighbouring town, Madam; but he was far from a kind husband to her: she lived with him but little more than a twelvemonth, and I fear it hastened her death, for she was so beloved by her own family, that she felt his unkindness doubly keen. This little one is now three years old; on her death-bed she begged us to take it, and its unnatural father has never inquired for it since; nor have we heard of him, except that he was gone as a soldier or a sailor, and perhaps ere this is dead in battle."

The little girl looked hard at him as he related this tale, seeming not to understand of whom he spoke, but as if wishing to be certain it was not herself, she took him by the hand with an inquiring look, saying, "You are my father, a'nt you?"

"Yes, my dear, and always will be a father to you," he replied, with an affectionate kiss. "But give me leave, Madam," added he, "to introduce my wife to you," who still stood contemplating the features of the lady, and hushing the baby in her arms, who seemed disposed to cry at a scene so new to her.

"Did I not know her, when a child?" asked Mrs. Meredith.

"I believe not, madam; her name was Dallwyn, and her father the owner of the farm my brother occupies."

"I can only say, that I shall be happy to know more of her," returned their kind visitor, "and to see her often. Thirty years have not obliterated the kindness of your family from my memory, and I cannot forget that to your mother's care I owe my preservation in childhood. Neither have I forgot your own efforts to please me, when I used to call you my brother William; you were always kind."

"And you were so to me, Madam," returned Mr. Campbell, with a smile; "that shelf (pointing to the place where she used to deposit the sweet things she reserved for her brothers on their return from school) often reminds me of you."

Mrs. Meridith smiled also. "Ah! those were happy days," said she; "would I could forget many that has intervened!"

"Madam, I am sorry any of your days should have been less happy," replied the farmer, "but let us hope that there are yet happier ones in store."

Mrs. Meridith felt that the soothing voice of friendship, though from so humble an individual, was a cordial to her heart, and she thanked him for expressing it. "I wish," said she, "to forget all distinctions of rank between us, for I have found very little to recompense me for the trouble these have given; and for the future I hope you and your wife will look on me as your friend, and treat me as such."

"Your friendship, Madam," returned Mr. Campbell, "I should be ungrateful not to prize, and I hope I shall do nothing to forfeit it; but though you are so kind as to forget the distinction there is between us, I trust we never shall. Consider us,