“My child,” answered her mother, “she left word with some of her friends that if any news came to them concerning him they should write to her immediately. She received only one letter bearing news of him. It said he had returned before the widow had left England. It was reported by the young man’s proud family that he was dead, for they knew their son’s disposition would be to fulfill his promise to the ‘little cottager,’ as they called his promised bride. They were bound it never should be. At the last meeting before he went to war he frankly told his father he should marry the girl on his return home; he might disinherit him if he chose—he would have a few shillings of his own and he would take his wife over to the new land he was going to fight on. This exasperated the father to such an extent that he brought his fist down on the table and swore an oath it never should be. The son did seem not to heed his father’s words, as he was sure the lady would prove faithful and he would soon return and claim her, in spite of all earthly beings. The lady watched and waited until nearly autumn for a letter from her loved one which never came. During that time she received news of her lover’s death, then broken hearted, she urged her mother to leave the place which, with each day, brought memories of the two loved ones who never would tread o’er its well-remembered threshold. The young lady lived single eight years. She employed the time in teaching primary school in the suburbs of the city of New York. Time, the great healer, brought consolation to the wounded heart. At last she accepted the hand of a young merchant. The old love was buried beneath the new, but never forgotten. The young lady’s brother learned the trade of a mechanic but did not like it very well, and like Washington turned to agriculture as soon as he earned money enough to buy a farm. The widow often went to view the grave of her beloved companion, and when her life on earth was ended her children laid her silent form beside him she loved.” “Why, mamma!” exclaimed Nettie, the tears trinkling down her fair cheeks, “it was my own grandmamma, as I can just remember when papa and Uncle John took her deceased form away and did not get back for a long time,” said Nettie, speaking slowly. “Why, mamma, can the young lady you have been speaking about be yourself?” “Yes, my daughter, it is the same.” Nettie was standing by her mother’s chair, stroking the fair brow of her only parent, deeply thinking over all she had been told. Soon she said, “Mamma, it was very sad indeed, but I do not see why it should be a warning to me.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VI.