Such, till she was twelve years old, had been the fate of Margaret Burnside. Of a slender form and weak constitution, she had never been able for much work; and thus from one discontented and harsh master and mistress to another, she had been transferred from house to house--always the poorest--till she came to be looked on as an encumbrance rather than a help in any family, and thought hardly worth her bread. Sad and sickly she sat on the braes herding the kine. It was supposed that she was in a consumption--and as the shadow of death seemed to lie on the neglected creature's face, a feeling something like love was awakened towards her in the heart of pity, for which she showed her gratitude by still attending to all household tasks with an alacrity beyond her strength. Few doubted that she was dying--and it was plain that she thought so herself; for the Bible, which, in her friendlessness, she had always read more than other children, who were too happy to reflect often on the Word of that Being from whom their happiness flowed, was now, when leisure permitted, seldom or never out of her hands; and in lonely places, where there was no human ear to hearken, did the dying girl often support her heart, when quaking in natural fears of the grave, by singing to herself hymns and psalms. But her hour was not yet come--though by the inscrutable decrees of Providence doomed to be hideous with almost inexpiable guilt. As for herself--she was innocent as the linnet that sang beside her in the broom, and innocent was she to be up to the last throbbings of her religious heart. When the sunshine fell on the leaves of her Bible, the orphan seemed to see in the holy words, brightening through the radiance, assurances of forgiveness of all her sins--small sins indeed--yet to her humble and contrite heart exceeding great--and to be pardoned only by the intercession of Him who died for us on the tree. Often, when clouds were in the sky, and blackness covered the Book, hope died away from the discoloured page--and the lonely creature wept and sobbed over the doom denounced on all who sin, and repent not--whether in deed or in thought. And thus religion became within her an awful thing--till, in her resignation, she feared to die. But look on that flower by the hill-side path, withered, as it seems, beyond the power of sun and air and dew and rain to restore it to life. Next day, you happen to return to the place, its leaves are of a dazzling green, its blossoms of a dazzling crimson. So was it with this Orphan. Nature, as if kindling towards her in sudden love, not only restored her in a few weeks to life--but to perfect health; and ere long she, whom few had looked at, and for whom still fewer cared, was acknowledged to be the fairest girl in all the parish--while she continued to sit, as she had always done from very childhood, on the _poor's form_ in the lobby of the kirk. Such a face, such a figure, and such a manner, in one so