“Ridgely was ordered to join his regiment and proceed to Ireland, where a rebellion had recently broken out. In departing, he bathed the little orphan with his tears, and renewed the gift to his sister, not knowing that he should ever behold her more. The child grew; the charms of her mind and person fast unfolded in the {491} sunshine of my mother's love, and she soon became the joy and pride of her heart. Her father returned to England when she was four years old, and had the long wished for happiness of clasping his beloved child, the image of his lost wife, to his bosom; and the shattered fragments of his heart were gathered again around his infant daughter. How gratifying to him, to see how powerfully she felt the tie of birth! The highest boon she could ask, was to sit on her father's knee, and lean her bright check on his heart, while she persuaded him to stay with her, and she would love him ‘as much as aunt Ashton.’ Among the ‘dire chimeras’ of the nursery, she had heard many tales of the ‘wild Irish,’ and her little heart beat with anxious fears for her father's safety; she could not be quieted until he promised not to go among them any more. “But now the young Morna was herself to be the adventurer. Major Ashton (my father) was commanded to embark with his regiment for the American colonies. This was unexpected and sad news to my dear parents; but there was no time to parley. The yoke of servitude began to sit uneasily on the necks of the colonists, under the growing demands of government—and an increased army was necessary to enforce submission. With decision and promptitude worthy of a better cause, my father obeyed the summons. The military hero is bred in the school of suffering and self-denial. A separation from all the endearments of social and domestic life, he considers one of the necessary consequences of the service, and he submits with dignity. Such was the conduct of Colonel Ridgely, in parting with his only child. His tears fell on her cheek, while with trembling fingers he threw back the thick curls from her forehead, that he might behold all of a face so lovely and so beloved. It was happy for Morna that she could not comprehend the fullness of his agony. She knew that she was her father's darling, and her heart beat in unison with his as far as she understood his feelings; but the page of the future is gilded with bright hues in childhood, and she readily yielded to the soothing assurances of her aunt, that either she would return to England, or her father be sent to America. So she was comforted, and her thoughts were diverted by the wonderful and mysterious preparations (as it seemed to her) her aunt was making to go away. In the course of a month she bade adieu to the white cliffs of Albion; and after a tedious voyage of thirty-eight days, Morna's uncle pointed out to her the distant shores of the western world. She gazed on the prospect