“The vessel was to sail Monday, just one week from the day John surprised us so as I was making our own little kitchen tidy at home. We were all on board ship early in the morning. To be sure, how frightened I was! but I had made up my mind not to be down-hearted, and I bore up against it all. We had a good passage, and, as soon as we had got our little matters safe on shore, we set out to look for John’s brother, who kept a shop for seeds and such like; we soon found the shop, but it was a sad time for us when we got there. But la, Miss,—there’s the clock striking twelve, and you not in bed! What will your mamma say to me for keeping you awake with my old woman’s tales? but it is not often I talk of by-gone days, and when once I begin I hardly know how to stop.” CHAPTER II. What spirit e’er so gentle shall be found, So softly reared in humble privacy; What form so fragile on wide earth’s vast round, Shrinking from every blast beneath the sky, That will not brave severest destiny. Bear, uncomplaining, want and cruel wrong, And look on danger with unblenching eye, If love have made that gentle spirit strong, Love, pure, approved by Heav’n, led that frail form along. _Manuscript Poems._ Lucy would not hear of going to bed till she had heard the rest of Milly’s adventures. “You must go on, nurse. I cannot let you stop—you know I love any story, and you know I love you, and so you may guess how much I must be interested.” “You are very good, Miss, to say so. Mine’s a very plain homely tale, but you always was a kind young lady, and somehow, when I have got over the first talking about my poor husband, and all our troubles, I can’t say but there is a kind of pleasure, like, in going over it all again.” “Now there’s a good nurse, mind you tell me every thing. What had happened when you got to your brother-in-law’s?” “Ah! poor man! he was dead—dead and buried. He died just three weeks after he wrote to John; and, though the widow kept on the shop, she could not do for us as he would have done. Poor soul! she was left with five young children, and she was almost beside herself with care and trouble. However, she took us in, and told us we should not have to pay for lodging while we stayed there, but she could not afford to keep us. She told John who was the proper person to apply to, to get what they call a grant of land, and he went next day to see about it, for he was loth to be a burthen to the poor widow.