distance;—indications of the traffic which brings the wealth of a thousand seaports to our city quays.  “The mighty heart” of a great Nation is sending thence its life-streams over earth.  Glorious and mighty, and—spite of its few drawbacks—good and happy England!  Turning westward, the tranquil and gentle waters of

“The most loved of all the ocean’s sons,”

are washing the banks of many a lordly villa and cottage, where the hands of industry are busied every day.  And within sight, too, are places memorable in the annals of “holiday folk.”  How closely linked with remembrances of hosts of “honest citizens,” is “the Red House, at Battersea,”—relic of those ancient “tea-gardens,” which even now are beginning to belong to the history of the past.  “Pleasant village of Chelsea,” how abundant is its treasure of associations with the olden time!  Not a house is there, or within view of it, to which some worthy memory may not be traced.  Alas! they grow less and less in number every day!

But I have made a long digression from my story.  During their walk the old soldier narrowly watched his child, to ascertain if she placed her hand on her heart, or her side; but she did not.  She spoke kindly to the little children who crossed their path; and the dogs wagged their tails when they looked into her face.  She walked, he thought, stoutly for a woman; and seemed so well, that he began talking to her about sieges, and marches, and of his early adventures; and then they sat down and rested; Lucy getting in a word, now and then, about the freshness and beauty of the country, and the goodness of God, and looking so happy and so animated that her father forgot all his fears on her account.  Many persons, attracted by the fineness of the day, were strolling up and down Cheyne-walk as the father and daughter returned; and a group at the entrance to the famous Don Saltero Coffee-house, regarded her, as she passed, with such evident respect and admiration, that the sergeant-major felt more proud and happy than he had done for a very long time.  In the evening, he smoked his long inlaid foreign pipe (which the little children, as well as the “big people” of Chelsea, regarded with peculiar admiration,) out of the parlour window.

Lucy always brought him his pipe, but he never smoked it in the room, thinking it made her cough.  And then, after he had finished, he shut down the window, and she drew the white muslin curtain; those who passed and repassed saw their shadows: the girl bending over a large book, and her father seated opposite to her; listening while she read, his elbow placed on the table, and his head resting on his hand.  The drapery was so transparent that they could see his sword and sash hanging on the wall above his hat; and the branch of laurel with which Lucy had adorned the looking-glass that morning in commemoration of the battle of Toulouse.  Before the sergeant-major went to bed that night he called old Mary, and whispered, “You were quite right about old John Coyne.  Lucy never marched better than she did to-day; and her voice, both in reading, and the little hymn she sung, was as strong as a trumpet.  I’ll give it well to old John, to-morrow;”—but he never did.  The sergeant-major was usually up the first in the house; yet, the next morning, when Mary took hot water to his room she stepped back, seeing he was kneeling, dressed, by his bed side; half an hour passed; she went again.  Mr. Joyce had never undressed, never laid upon the bed since it had been turned down; he was dead and cold; his hands clasped in prayer.  Some of the vessels of the heart, or head, had given way; the wonderful machine was disturbed; its power destroyed in an instant.

Lucy Joyce was now utterly alone in the world; of her father’s relatives she knew little or nothing; her mother was an only child, and her grandmother and grandfather were both dead.  A generous and benevolent lady, aware of the circumstance under which she was placed, offered to provide Lucy with a situation;—but what situation?  She looked too delicate, too refined for service; and she was not sufficiently accomplished to undertake the duties of even a nursery governess, “Have none of their slavery, dear,” exclaimed poor Mary, while weeping bitterly; “take your pick of the things to furnish two little rooms, Miss Lucy, and sell the rest.  I’ve a power of friends, and can get constant work; turn my hand to any thing, from charing to clear-starching, or if the noise wouldn’t bother you, sure I could have a mangle; it would exercise me of on evening when I’d be done work: don’t lave me, Miss, don’t darling, any way, till you gather a little strength after all you’ve gone through; the voice of the stranger is harsh, and the look of the stranger is cold, to those who have lived all their days in the light of a father’s love.  I took you from your mother’s breast a wee-some, woe-some, babby, and sure, my jewel own, I have some right to you.  I’ll never gainsay you.  And to please you, dear, I’ll listen to any chapter you’ll read out of the Book; nor never let the echo even of a white, let alone a black, oath cross my lips.”  But Lucy Joyce was too right-minded to live on the labour of an old servant.  She retained barely enough to furnish for Mary a comfortable room, and accepted, much to the faithful creature’s mortification, a “place” in a family—one of the hardest “places” to endure, and yet as good, perhaps, as, from her father’s position, she could have expected—as half-teacher, half-servant; a mingling of opposite duties; against the mingling of which, reason utterly revolts; inasmuch as the one must inevitably destroy the influence of the other.

It was not in the thick atmosphere of the crowded city—where the most healthful find it difficult to breathe, and where the panting sufferer’s agony is increased fourfold—that Lucy undertook the duties and labours of her new occupation; her way lay through the venerable and picturesque old village of Fulham, and so, beneath the arch and over the “wooden way,” to Putney.  Pleasant and happy the sister villages looked; divided by the noble Thames, and joined by the bridge—the most primitive of all the bridges which cross the broad river.  Mary walked respectfully behind; but, now and then, spoke words of encouragement, while the tears ran down her cheeks.  They paused to look down upon the water, so broad and glassy, athwart whose bosom the long light boats were sporting; the clock of Putney church struck the hour, and Lucy remembered that, for the first time in her life, she was bound to note its chime as the voice of an employer.  The village of Putney was soon passed; yet not without some difficulty to the poor girl; her chest heaved and panted as she endeavoured to walk lightly up the rising ground towards the Heath, where her future home was situated; poor Mary whispering, “Take it asy, dear; don’t hurry yourself, avourneen.”  They