I added a verbal commission to the note, and desired that the person who was to carry it, might be cautioned to say nothing of the cause of my delay. The old lady heard more of this message than I intended. She turned pale, and with much emotion said, she was sure the truth had been kept from her: she would see her children, and if they could not come to her she would be carried to them. A more particular detail of the disaster followed; and her daughter assured her both her boys were in a fine perspiration, and the apothecary had no doubt but they would be fit to truant again on the morrow. The grandmother still looked incredulous. "My dear Madam," observed I, "you see their mother composed, and satisfied that the children are doing well: why should you now doubt of their safety?"--"Poor creature," replied she, "she has with myself to thank God's providence and you, for their preservation. She would have lost her senses had they perished, though she is not their mother; but these poor babes have no parents, nor any friends to love them but ourselves." She wept. "However," added she, "their aunt is father and mother to them." Susan mentioned as a sort of apology for her carelessness, that the eldest boy had persuaded Johnny to leave the mill-chamber where they were playing, to go and slide with some boys of the parish. It appeared that he enjoyed for some time his pastime with these children; but Johnny cried, and complained of the cold, and his chilblains, and said he would go home. Frank, his brother, soothed him from time to time, bidding him sit down on his coat, which the vigorous boy gave him. The hailstones sent the boys to their cottages which were at hand, and the truants began their walk, till Johnny would rest, saying he was sleepy, and would "stay a bit where he was."--"You know the sequel," added the grateful Susan addressing her mother, "and what we owe to this young lady."--"Would it be credited," observed the good woman, with visible thankfulness to Heaven, "that a creature so delicate and seemingly feeble, should have been the chosen instrument of a work of such mercy! But he who destined her for the work, will recompense her! Thousands more equal to the trial of strength would have turned aside!"--"I cannot think so," returned I. "Ah, my dear young lady!" answered she mournfully, "I have lived to see that what was every one's business was no one's business. Their poor grandfather might have been saved, had there been one with a heart like yours, amongst fifty, who saw him sink." To divert her from the silence which ensued, I praised her abode, observing that I could not have supposed the house so commodious from the road. "Why, in fact," replied she, "this wing can hardly be said to belong to the miller's house. It is quite separate, except by the back stairs you came up. In summer we enter by the garden, which is our own, we have our little kitchen and parlour below stairs, and four chambers. This wing was built for her