Letters came to Moss Glen--at stated intervals, then more irregularly, picturing only the bright spots in his sailor life (for Will was proud, and they were to be scanned by his father’s eye.) The usual temptations of a sailor’s life when in port were not unknown to him. Of every cup the syren Pleasure held to his lips, he drank to the dregs; but there were moments in his maddest revels, when that angel whisper, “God keep my boy,” palsied his daring hand, and arrested the half-uttered oath. Disgusted with himself, he would turn aside for an instant, but only to drown again more recklessly “that still small torturing voice.” * * * * * “You’re a stranger in these parts,” said a rough farmer to a sun-burnt traveller. “Look as though you’d been in foreign parts.” “Do I?” said Will, slouching his hat over his eyes. “Who lives in that little cottage under the hill?” “Old Farmer Low--and a tough customer he is, too; it’s a word and a blow with him. The old lady has had a hard time of it, good as she is, to put up with all his kinks and quirks. She bore it very well till the lad went away; and then she began to droop like a willow in a storm, and lose all heart, like. Doctor’s stuff didn’t do any good, as long as she got no news of the boy. She’s to be buried this afternoon, sir.” Poor Will staid to hear no more, but tottered in the direction of the cottage. He asked no leave to enter, but passed over the threshold into the little “best parlor,” and found himself alone with the dead. It was too true! Dumb were the lips that should have welcomed him; and the arms that should have enfolded him were crossed peacefully over the heart that beat true to him till the last. Conscience did its office. Long years of mad folly passed in swift review before him; and over that insensible form a vow was made, and registered in Heaven. * * * * * “Your mother should have lived to see this day, Will,” said a gray-haired old man, as he leaned on the arm of the clergyman, and passed into the village church. “Bless God, my dear father, there is ‘_joy in Heaven_ over one sinner that repenteth;’ and of all the angel band, there is one seraph hand that sweeps _more rapturously_ its harp to-day for ‘the lost that is found.’” MR. PUNCH MISTAKEN. “A man will own that he is in the wrong--a woman, never; she is only _mistaken_.”--_Punch._ Mr. Punch, did you ever see an enraged American female? She is the expressed essence of wild-cats. Perhaps you didn’t know it, when you penned that incendiary paragraph; or, perhaps you thought that in crossing the “big pond,” salt water might neutralize it; or, perhaps you flattered yourself we should not see it, over here; but here it is, in my clutches, in good strong English: I am not even “_mistaken_.”