“But when people marry, they marry to be happy, not to go through trials and troubles.” “And do you think, Miss, unless Miss Lizzy loves Captain Langley dearly, she will be happy when she is a thousand and a thousand miles away from her friends, and in a strange country? No! no! I knows what ’tis to be alone among strangers, and I knows ’twould have been hard to bear, if it had not been for poor John’s sake!” “Were you very much in love, then, nurse?” and Lucy’s eye twinkled with an arch glance of amusement as she asked the question, for at the moment she saw reflected in the glass her own blooming cheeks, rounded chin, rosy lips, and flowing locks, and the withered face, thin lips, grey hair, and close-crimped cap of the old woman. “Were you very much in love?” she repeated, in rather a drawling sentimental tone. “I don’t know about that, Miss; but he was true to me, from the time I was quite a slip of a girl, and it would have been hard if I had been the one to change. I told him I never would; and I kept my word.” “And did he keep his?” “That he did, poor soul! There was not a better nor a truer-hearted man anywhere, than my poor John was. And though I had known some trouble before, I never knew what ’twas really to grieve till I lost him!” The poor old woman gave a deep sigh; and Lucy said, in a kind and feeling tone of voice,— “Was it in America you lost your poor husband? I know you once were there.” “Ah! sure enough was it, my dear young lady; and not a friend nor a relation (besides my two fatherless babes) had I that side of the water, when I saw my poor John put into the ground. ’Tis that makes me think so much about Miss Lizzy. I am old, Miss, and I have known troubles and crosses; and I can’t help looking forward to what may happen.” “But Captain Langley, you know, has friends and relations in India; and every body says Lizzy will have so many people to wait on her, and beautiful jewels, and all kinds of things! How could you, dear nurse, go into a foreign land, if you had no friends and relations there?” “Oh, Miss Lucy! ’tis a long story; and you had better go to bed, and go to sleep.” “Now do tell me to-night, nurse? I can’t go to sleep, I am sure; and I do feel so interested about you and your poor John.” The old woman’s heart warmed at hearing her husband’s name spoken so kindly; and she was nothing loth to begin her story. “Why, you see, Miss, John and I, we were neighbours’ children, and we used to come home from school by the same path; and we often went nutting and gathering blackberries together, and he was always a civil, good-tempered boy, and the folks used to call us the little sweethearts; and so, when we grew bigger, we wished to get married: but father he said, ‘No, by no means! he would not hear of it!’” “But why did your father object to such a respectable young man?”