Caressed by his brother John and by his brother John's friends, Ben often thought that if he were called on to point out the time in his whole life that had been spent more pleasantly than the rest, he would, without hesitation, pitch on this his three days' visit to Newport. But alas! he has soon brought to cry out with the poet, "The brightest things beneath the sky, Yield but a glimmering light; We should _suspect some danger nigh_, Where we possess _delight_." His thirty pound order from Vernon, was at first ranked among his dear honied delights enjoyed at Newport; but it soon presented, as we shall see, a roughsting. This however, was but a flea bite in comparison of that mortal wound he was within an ace of receiving from this same Newport trip. The story is this: Among a considerable cargo of live lumber which they took on board for Philadelphia, were three females, a couple of gay young damsels, and a grave old Quaker lady. Following the natural bent of his disposition, Ben paid great attention to the old Quaker. Fortunate was it for him that he did; for in consequence of it she took a motherly interest in his welfare that saved him from a very ugly scrape. Perceiving that he was getting rather too fond of the two young women above, she drew him aside one day, and with the looks and speech of a mother, said, "Young man, I am in pain for thee: thou hast no parent to watch over thy conduct, and thou seemest to be quite ignorant of the world and the snares to which youth is exposed. I pray thee rely upon what I tell thee.--These are women of bad character; I perceive it in all their actions. If thou dost not take care they will lead thee into danger!!" As he appeared at first not to think so ill of them as she did, the old lady related of them many things she had seen and heard, and which had escaped his attention, but which convinced him she was in the right. He thanked her for such good advice, and promised to follow it. On their arrival at New-York the girls told him where they lived, and invited him to come and see them. Their eyes kindled such a glow along his youthful veins that he was on the point of melting into consent. But the motherly advice of his old quaker friend happily coming to his aid, revived his wavering virtue, and fixed him in the resolution, though much against the grain, _not to go_. It was a most blessed thing for him that he did not; for the captain missing a silver spoon and some other things from the cabin, and knowing these women to be prostitutes, procured a search warrant, and finding his goods in their possession, had them brought to the whipping-post.