But this peaceful life of domestic enjoyment was not destined to continue. Within a few years subsequent to his marriage, there occurred one of those sudden revolutions in trade which periodically sweep, with the force of a deluge, over the commercial interests of our country.—Mr. A—— was ruined!—He became dependent upon the resources of his parent for the support of his wife; but pride would not permit him to grant the urgent request of his mother that he would share that support himself; and he fled his native country for a time, to woo the breeze of Fortune beneath other stars. After two long years of toil and danger among the furs of the North-West, the hides of California, the _biche-le-mer_ and birds-nests of the Eastern Archipelagoes, he arrived at the great entrepot of the Celestial Empire with a cargo insuring him an ample competence, just in time to receive intelligence of the death of his wife, leaving to his charge an only child! She had been the star of his destiny!—That star was set, and darkness enshrouded his soul! Recovering from this terrible shock, he shunned the very idea of returning to the scene of his former happiness. She for whom he had braved the deep!—had toiled—had grappled with the sun of the tropics,—the ice of the pole—had left him desolate!—the infant, whom no parent welcomed to this world of trial, was a stranger to him!—one whom he had never beheld! and the only remaining link which bound him to his country was his affection for an aged mother. But who is not aware that the noon of manhood—its mid-day strife and bustle—are unfavorable to the glow of filial affection? Maternal love,—the deepest—the purest—the least selfish of human emotions!—knows no ebb—no diminution on this side the grave! Time, which may sap or shatter every other sympathy, adds strength to this at every revolution of its fatal glass! Not so the attachment of the offspring!—Like a delicate flower which sheds its fragrance freely on the morning or the evening air, but denies all sweetness to the bold glance of noon, this feeling flourishes only at the commencement and the close of our career. When, at length, in the decline of our energies, both mind and body verge once more towards the feebleness of infancy, how painfully the affections of earlier years flow back upon us!—Then would we gladly repose our aching temples—aching with the memory of many an unkind word or action—upon the bosom from which we first drew sustenance! and we yearn after a mother’s love with a longing that will not be repressed!