heart more than the finest polish of artificial manners. Her real anxiety for the comfort and pleasure of others, and total forgetfulness of self, formed that highest species of flattery which no one can resist; while her attention to domestic duties, her care for the poor, and her punctual observance of religious services, combined to render her all that one wishes to find in that most important of all stations—a curate’s wife. She was proud—in the best sense of the word—of her descent from Robert Walker; and Robert Walker would have been proud of her. She was so attached to the place—and a less promising or more laborious post could hardly be conceived—that she had often been heard to declare that nothing should remove her from it, even should any chance deprive them of the curacy. At length the author resolved to resign the living; and among other reasons for doing so, one (of which he has the least reason to be ashamed) was that he might be instrumental in procuring the succession to it for those who were so well worthy to hold it. But, alas! how mysterious are the ways of Providence! She, who had looked up to this event as the highest point of her earthly ambition, was destined never to enjoy the object of her hopes. Within a very few weeks after this resignation, she was taken off by the immediate stroke of death, by a complaint of which she had long entertained reasonable fears. Yet she died, as she had lived, in the service of her Master and His Church. She was found by her husband dead on the sofa, with the Prayer Book beside her, open at the place where she had just been hearing her only child, a boy of about eight years of age, read aloud to her, according to her custom, the service for the day. Thus departed a true descendant of Robert Walker! Thus the author’s leave-taking of his late flock was converted into _her_ funeral sermon. He need not add _what_ topics would naturally suggest themselves as appropriate to the melancholy occasion! The author has thus put the reader in possession of some of the reasons why the character of Robert Walker should have been one of especial interest to himself: and he has now only to explain the artifice which has been employed, in order that the public might have it before them in all its beauty.