He held his hat towards us, with nothing importunate in his manner, but rather with a look of confidence in us, mixed with habitual resignation. His thanks were: “Heaven bless you!--Long life and success to you! to you and yours! and may you never want a friend, as I do.” The last words were spoken low. He laid his hand upon his heart as he bowed to us, and walked slowly away. We called him back; and upon our questioning him farther, he gave the following account of himself:-- “I was bred and born--but no matter where such a one as I was bred and born, no more than where I may die and be buried. _I_, that have neither son, nor daughter, nor kin, nor friend on the wide earth, to mourn over my grave when I am laid in it, as I soon must. Well! when it pleases God to take me, I shall never be missed out of this world, so much as by a dog: and why should I?--having never in my time done good to any--but evil--which I have lived to repent me of, many’s the long day and night, and ever shall whilst I have sense and reason left. In my youthful days God was too good to me: I had friends, and a little home of my own to go to--a pretty spot of land for a farm, as you could see, with a snug cabin, and every thing complete, and all to be mine; for I was the only one my father and mother had, and accordingly was made much of, too much; for I grew headstrong upon it, and high, and thought nothing of any man, and little of any woman, but one. That one I surely did think of; and well worth thinking of she was. Beauty, they say, is all fancy; but she was a girl every man might fancy. Never was one more sought after. She was then just in her prime, and full of life and spirits; but nothing light in her behaviour--quite modest--yet obliging. She was too good for me to be thinking of, no doubt; but ‘faint heart never won fair lady,’ so I made bold to speak to Rose, for that was her name, and after a world of pains, I began to gain upon her good liking, but couldn’t get her to say more than that she never _seen_ the man she should fancy so well. This was a great deal from her, for she was coy and proud-like, as she had a good right to be; and, besides being young, loved her little innocent pleasure, and could not easy be brought to give up her sway. No fault of hers: but all very natural. Well! I always considered she never would have held out so long, nor have been so stiff with me, had it not been for an old aunt Honour of hers--God rest her soul! One should not be talking ill of the dead; but she was more out of my way than enough; yet the cratur had no malice in her against me, only meaning her child’s good, as she called it, but mistook it, and thought to make Rose happy by some greater match than me, counting her fondness for me, which she could not but see something of, childishness, that she would soon be broke of. Now there was a party of English soldiers quartered in our town, and there was a sergeant amongst them that had money, and a pretty