In a Scotch village the Manse is sometimes the only good house, and generally it is the best; almost, indeed, what in old times the Mansion used to be in an English one. In Mr. Bacon's parish, the vicarage, though humble as the benefice itself, was the neatest. The cottage in which he and Margaret passed their childhood had been remarkable for that comfort which is the result and the reward of order and neatness: and when the reunion which blessed them both, rendered the remembrance of those years delightful, they returned in this respect to the way in which they had been trained up, practised the economy which they had learnt there, and loved to think how entirely their course of life, in all its circumstances, would be after the heart of that person, if she could behold it, whose memory they both with equal affection cherished. After his bereavement it was one of the widower's pensive pleasures to keep every thing in the same state as when Margaret was living. Nothing was neglected that she used to do, or that she would have done. The flowers were tended as carefully as if she were still to enjoy their fragrance and their beauty; and the birds who came in winter for their crumbs, were fed as duly for her sake, as they had formerly been by her hands. There was no superstition in this, nor weakness. Immoderate grief, if it does not exhaust itself by indulgence, easily assumes the one character, or the other, or takes a type of insanity. But he had looked for consolation, where, when sincerely sought, it is always to be found; and he had experienced that religion effects in a true believer all that philosophy professes, and more than all that mere philosophy can perform. The wounds which stoicism would cauterize, religion heals. There is a resignation with which, it may be feared, most of us deceive ourselves. To bear what must be borne, and submit to what cannot be resisted, is no more than what the unregenerate heart is taught by the instinct of animal nature. But to acquiesce in the afflictive dispensations of Providence,—to make one's own will conform in all things to that of our Heavenly Father,—to say to Him in the sincerity of faith, when we drink of the bitter cup, “Thy will be done!”—to bless the name of the Lord as much from the heart when He takes away, as when He gives, and with a depth of feeling of which perhaps none but the afflicted heart is capable,—this is the resignation which religion teaches, this the sacrifice which it requires. This sacrifice Leonard had made, and he felt that it was accepted.