tear--for that was ever as ready as her smile. I might tell more of Blanche Warden, but that my task compels me to hasten to the matter of my story. CHAPTER VIII. The silk well could she twist and twine, And make the fine march-pine, And with the needle work: And she could help the priest to say His matins on a holiday And sing a psalm in kirk. DOWSABEL. With such attractions for old and young it will readily be believed that the Rose Croft was a favourite resort of the inhabitants of St. Mary's. The maidens gathered around Blanche as a May-day queen; the matrons possessed in Mistress Alice a discreet and kind friend, and the more sedate part of the population found an agreeable host in the worthy official himself. The family of the Lord Proprietary sustained the most intimate relations with this household. It is true that Lady Baltimore, being feeble in health and stricken with grief at the loss of her son, which yet hung with scarcely abated poignancy upon her mind, was seldom seen beyond her own threshold; but his Lordship's sister, the Lady Maria--as she was entitled in the province--was a frequent and ever most welcome guest. Whether this good lady had the advantage of the Proprietary in years, would be an impertinent as well as an unprofitable inquiry, since no chronicler within my reach has thought fit to instruct the world on this point; and, if it were determined, the fact could neither heighten nor diminish the sober lustre of her virtues. Suffice it that she was a stirring, tidy little woman, who moved about with indefatigable zeal in the acquittal of the manifold duties which her large participation in the affairs of the town exacted of her--the Lady Bountiful of the province who visited the sick, fed the hungry, clothed the naked and chid the idle. She especially befriended such nursing-mothers as those whose scanty livelihood withheld from them the necessary comforts of their condition, and, in an equal degree, extended her bounty to such of the colonists as had been disabled in the military service of the province,--holding these two concerns of population and defence to be high state matters which her family connexion with the government most cogently recommended to her care. Though it is reported of her, that a constitutional tendency towards a too profuse distribution of nick-nacks and sweet-meats amongst her invalids, gave great concern and embarrassment to the physician of the town, and bred up between him and the lady a somewhat stubborn, but altogether good-natured warfare. She was wont to look in upon the provincial school-house, where, on stated occasions, she gave the young train-bands rewards for good conduct, and where she was also diligent to rebuke all vicious tendencies. In the early morning she tripped through the dew, with scrupulous regularity, to mass; often superintended the decorations of the chapel; gossiped with the