O how this spring of love resembleth The uncertain glory of an April day, Which now shows all the beauty of the sun, And by and by a cloud takes all away![1] Little more than five years from the time of their marriage had elapsed, before a headstone in the adjacent churchyard told where the remains of Margaret Bacon had been deposited in the 30th year of her age. [Footnote 1: SHAKESPEARE.] When the stupor and the agony of that bereavement had past away, the very intensity of Leonard's affection became a source of consolation. Margaret had been to him a purely ideal object during the years of his youth; death had again rendered her such. Imagination had beautified and idolized her then; faith sanctified and glorified her now. She had been to him on earth all that he had fancied, all that he had hoped, all that he had desired. She would again be so in Heaven. And this second union nothing could impede, nothing could interrupt, nothing could dissolve. He had only to keep himself worthy of it by cherishing her memory, hallowing his heart to it while he performed a parent's duty to their child; and so doing to await his own summons, which must one day come, which every day was brought nearer, and which any day might bring. ——'Tis the only discipline we are born for; All studies else are but as circular lines, And death the centre where they must all meet.[2] [Footnote 2: MASSINGER.] The same feeling which from his childhood had refined Leonard's heart, keeping it pure and undefiled, had also corroborated the natural strength of his character, and made him firm of purpose. It was a saying of Bishop Andrews that “good husbandry is good divinity;” “the truth whereof,” says Fuller, “no wise man will deny.” Frugality he had always practised as a needful virtue, and found that in an especial manner it brings with it its own reward. He now resolved upon scrupulously setting apart a fourth of his small income to make a provision for his child, in case of her surviving him, as in the natural course of things might be expected. If she should be removed before him,—for this was an event the possibility of which he always bore in mind,—he had resolved that whatever should have been accumulated with this intent, should be disposed of to some other pious purpose,—for such, within the limits to which his poor means extended, he properly considered this. And having entered on this prudential course with a calm reliance upon Providence in case his hour should come before that purpose could be accomplished, he was without any earthly hope or fear,—those alone excepted, from which no parent can be free. The child had been christened Deborah after her maternal grandmother, for whom Leonard ever gratefully retained a most affectionate and reverential remembrance. She was a healthy, happy creature in body and in mind; at first