When the table was spread, the corn cakes and pork placed upon it, with some milk, John seated himself with the children beside him, and attended to their little wants, with such kindness of manner, that ere the meal had ended, the little family began to imbibe something of their guest's gay spirit. As they gathered around the fire that evening, the widow ventured to inquire where her visiter was from, and when he informed her he was a Philadelphian, her eyes filled with tears,--that, too, was her birthplace. Looking upon the stranger, now, as a brother whom she had encountered in the wilderness, she poured into his ear her sad story. Her husband and herself, both young, had started some years previous from Philadelphia, for the west--his object being to secure a home of his own, and liking the spot W'here their cabin stood, they squatted, all went cheerfully for a time, but sickness soon came, and the prevailing fever of the country had swept him away from her side, leaving her far from the home of her childhood, with two children, friendless and alone. Sad days had passed since then, and hope was almost dead within her. Beneath a small hillock, surrounded with a little paling of pointed sticks, drove into the ground by her own hands, reposed the remains of her husband, and there lay buried all her hopes for the future. John spoke cheeringly to her, and to divert her thoughts from present sorrow, talked of their far-off home. The widow's little girl nestled in his lap, her little hands clasped around one of his, her head reclining upon his breast, while on a stool at the mother's side sat her little boy, and thus and there the wandering printer called up a panorama of their birthplace. Old Christ Church bells sounded in their ears again a Christmas' peal--together they wandered by the Schuylkill side; or, climbing. Fair Mount hill, looked out upon the wide-spread city; or, trod again its streets teeming with a gay and busy populace--each well-known antique habitation or hall, remembered by both, was spoken of with affection, as a memento of happy days--the wide and dreary prairie, over which the autumn wind was sighing cold and sadly, was forgotten now--scenes far away rose like shadows around the inhabitants of the log mansion, and the hum of the old city drowned the voice of the west wind, as it moaned around their dwelling. There wras the place, and those the circumstances, in which home wore its most heavenly hue. The lone widow that night thanked Heaven in her prayers, that one had been directed across her pathway to cheer her heart with sweet remembrances; and in her dreams, as she wandered again among the scenes of childhood, the faces she met all bore resemblance to the stranger--their tones of welcome sounded like his, and a smile, sweet as ever, rested upon a virtuous mother's lip; she slumbered through the live long night in happiness. The good angel, who registers kindness of