In a moment the brow was smooth, the lip smiled again, and the eyes, softened into the expression of infancy, were once more raised to the enquirer's face, as he replied, "A year, and two months, sir, and a week, and a few days."

in the half-frowning expression of his brow | cost of postage had rendered the interthe thought that he well knew nerved that change of letters very rare; and such as young arm by day, and moulded the did pass were of that meagre, formal nightly dream of the fond boy. Richard character generally observable when the continued with a downcast look of ab- parties, having had no practice in epistostraction to press the blade of his knife lary communication, and being accustomed upon the rough table before him, until he to the unrestrained freedom of daily perhad bent it nearly double, when Mr. Bar- sonal intercourse, feel utterly at a loss to low, in a lower voice said, "How long is express by the hand what would overflow it, exactly, since they went, Richard ?" rapidly enough from the lip, or even the eye. Ripening years, and being thrown upon his isolated exertions, together with the success hitherto attending his diligent progress, had insensily led Richard into new trains of thought as to the future. His present loneliness was but a probation, contentedly submitted to in the fond prospect which, at the end of a vista of toil, seemed to shine in all the sunlight beauty of a young man's dream. A cottage was there, and in that cottage was pictured a group of happy faces, for the originals of which he had only to recal the domestic party recently broken up: and those among his rustic companions who marvelled that Richard Green should be at once the most silent and the most cheerful of their laborious band, knew not how the buoyancy of his animal spirits was sustained by the vivid imaginings of a mind more delicately moulded than those around him.

"What an accurate time-keeper is true love!" thought the minister, but he said it not. Richard continued to read his looks, and resumed, "The last letter I got did not seem to be written in good spirits that is, it was merry but not cheerful like. Somehow, sir, it made me laugh, but my heart did not feel warm and comfortable after reading it." And Richard seemed puzzled how to describe what his auditor perfectly understood.

"Who was it from ?"

"From Mary, sir; and it seemed written at different times." Here the boy again dropped his eyes, and tried the temper of his blade by bending it as before.

"Have a care of that knife, Richard: edged playthings are dangerous. Go on with your feast; by and by we will talk more together of the absent."

"I'd rather talk now, if you please, Mr. Barlow, I've eaten and drank enough."

"But others have not; and I must go round the table: afterwards we will speak together."

This conversation passed in a low tone, the youth being seated at a corner, which enabled them to discourse with comparative privacy. He was forced to acquiesce; but more he ate not; following with frequent and rather impatient glances the slow progress of the Pastor among his flock; and between whiles contemplating in every possible point of view a bunch of honey-suckle that adorned the breast of his open jacket.

Mr. Barlow had touched the key-note at the precise time when all within him was best attuned for a response. The joyous occasion, the loveliness of the landscape, the softening effect of the hour as the broad and beautiful harvest-moon gradually rose from the extreme verge of that ocean belt, and mingled her cool light with the crimson dyes reflected from the western sky-all combined to render the tide of fond recollection and fonder anticipation overpowering. Mr. Barlow's course seemed interminable: Richard would wait no longer. On a sudden, he recollected that every creature belonging to his father's cottage, and its more immediate neighbours, was then present; and following the impulse of the moment he arose, stole away, and by short cuts over the now deserted fields he quickly reached the spot which of late he had rather avoided.

Little alteration had been made in it; and what little there was the mingled

In fact, Richard had cause for uneasiness without being well able to explain even to himself what it was. The heavy effect of twilight and a luxuriant growth

and showed his abhorence by carefully avoiding the company of such as, in that respect, differed from him: but, like Mary, he had much latent pride, a great deal of self-confidence, unknown to himself and unsuspected by others, for his manners were the reverse of forward or assuming; and a sensitiveness amounting to irascibility on points nearly connected with his family respectability or personal independence. Happily for himself and others, none breathed the air of L. who could utter a disparaging or unkind remark concerning the absentees of his household; or it is probable Richard Green would have astonished those who best knew and most loved him.

of unaltered trees sufficed to veil. He | Immorality in every form he abhorred; drew near, not as he was wont, with half averted eyes unwilling to meet the spectacle of its alien inmates, but under the happy consciousness of being wholly alone and unobserved. Throwing his folded arms on the paling, with knee bent upon a stone where Willy used to sit to watch the manœuvres of his ducks, and with his temple pressed to the stem of a yellow broom-tree which he had himself trained to ornament the little gate, he fixed an open gaze on the beloved home of his childhood, and gave himself up to visions of the past until it seemed strange that no smiling face had yet looked through the casement, or appeared at the door, to welcome his return. A dog which had been ranging the fields, now returning to his charge, seemed resolved to compensate for his truancy by the loudness of his menacing bark at the intruder. "Ah," sighed Richard, "I am a stranger now, and any body's cur may warn me off." There was bitterness in the thought, enough to put his pleasant dream to flight. He slowly rose, and measuring himself against a rustic pole to which the linen lines were usually fastened, close by where he stood, the result struck him. "How tall I am! The 'Squire has put me among his men, too; and I may as well take a man's heart, and set to work in good earnest to make my way in the world for them." He turned away, but again looked round: the recollection of the parting night came full upon him-the chapter, the prayer, the stifled anguish of the hour, and the burst of lonely sorrow that had succeeded it all rose with perfect distinctness to his mind. He clasped his hands, and breathed a fervent supplication to those loved ones now so far distant; and for himself, that he might be made a means of abiding comfort to them. It soothed his excited feelings; and as he slowly paced his homeward path, the wonted evening hymn of the family in harmonious, though subdued and plaintive tones, cheered his solitary way far more effectually than the sprightliest associates I could have done.

Nor was the fervency of this attachment to be marvelled at: left, by his father's death, the eldest male inhabitant of the cottage, the boy, even in early childhood, had learned to acknowledge the claim upon his protection which no truly masculine character can fail to recognize on the part of the more helpless sex. Often had little Richard Green looked admiringly on while the monarch of their small fowlyard bent a patronizing eye upon the hens and chickens, in whose favour he had relinquished some choice morsel scratched up by his persevering industry from the soil: the call that summoned his feathered protegés to enjoy it never failed to bring Richard also; and with delighted interest did the child contemplate the character which he regarded as his future model.

One day he had confided to Helen his cogitations on the subject, a broken potatoe

being the prize under discussion among the fowls. "Look," said he, at Strut, what a good fellow he is. The old black hen, you know, is Speck's mother, and the cock was Speck's chicken; so Blacky is Strut's granny and all the tiny chicks belong to his family. Now you see Helen, how he goes about peeping and scratching and hunting, and when he finds a nice thing, instead of gobbling it up all alone, he calls them, and looks on better pleased to see them enjoy it than to eat it himself. And then if any body Richard was a pious youth; but, like meddles with the hens or chickens, what the rest of God's children, he had a con- a fuss he gets into! We are good tinual battle to fight with a deceitful heart, friends; he follows me about, and pecks a corrupt nature, and an insidious tempter. from my hand; but if I catch a fowl, and

frighten it, bounce he flies at me, tries to | fondly, so exclusively loved; but nothing resembling the reality had ever crossed his imagination. At times, he thought of the shows, the gay shops, the fine people,

strike with his spurs, and tells me as plain as he can speak he is going to tear my eyes out." "It is pretty to see so much love and the lots of company that a town must concourage in a poor bird, Richard."

"I think, Helen, it is love makes him brave, for he will run away on his own account, though he fights on theirs. But I was going to say I will be like Strut when I am a man. I will take care of my granny as he does of his, and of the rest as he does of the chickens. To be sure I have no mother, as Strut has; but then I have you, Helen, and I will take care of you, and give you a big share out of all I can earn."

tain, and the sigh that would escape arose from no desire to share such gratifications, but rather from a half-jealous doubt whether they might not wile away from him a portion of the only thing he coveted

the love of that endeared circle. "People in towns are very polite, and dress smart, and pay compliments," thought Richard, "but what is the good of that? Helen used to say she never should see a ribbon so fine as the rainbow, nor any crowd of people so amusing as the bustling waves of yonder sea, and the birds that dip and paddle among them. No, no, the town won't drive me out of their minds; or if it does a little by day, they will remember me when the Bible is spread open; and put my name foremost in the prayer."

With these feelings strengthening and expanding daily in his bosom, Richard Green, now almost a man in age and size, exhibited a specimen of manly English character, such as it will be found where men have not herded together in pursuit of selfish ends until all the finer touches are worn away, and "every one for him- On the evening above referred to, this self" becomes the heartless maxim. Would tide of thought had set in with more than its young Green have given credit to any wonted force: it occupied him, even till midbody who had told him that thousands of night, haunted his dreams, and oppressed delicate little girls were habitually op- his spirit when rising with the lark to purpressed, overworked, starved, beaten, and sue his daily toil. It was, therefore, with that by men, frequently by their own no small degree of gladness that he refathers, to swell the gains of their labour?ceived a message from Mr. Barlow, desiFathers and elder brothers are very often ring to see him before noon; and with a employed in the mills, as spinners, slob-lighter heart he repaired to the parsonbers, &c., with liberty to engage and to pay the children of their department. They are themselves paid by the piece, consequently it becomes their interest to have the given work completed in the shortest possible time; and if they have young daughters, or little sisters, they of course save or rather gain considerably by employing them: and it is an awful fact, that under the hardening influence of covetousness or the cravings of wretched want, more barbarous usage awaits the girl at the hand of a father or brother than that of a stranger. No tyranny is so dreadful as domestic tyranny: and he who sacrifices natural affection at the shrine of mammon, becomes a monster among God's works.

age, assured of being indulged in the subject so precious to him: nor was he mistaken, for the pastor at once entered upon it, making particular inquiries as to the date and contents of his last letter from M., and displaying an anxiety that gradually awoke in Richard's mind a sensation of alarm.

"Have you heard any thing about them yourself, sir?" he asked.

Mr. Barlow did not give a direct reply. "It is natural, Richard, that one who has watched over you all from the cradle, I may say, should feel a little anxious for those who are so far removed: particularly as your dear grandmother is aged, and has passed all her life surrounded by kind neighbours and old friends, who are different from the common acquaintance she may meet with in a large town, where each is too much occupied in pur

suing his own interest, amid great compe- | your industry here, they may be enabled Your master, the squire, is well pleased with you, and means to help you

tition, to pay much regard to the stranger that is within their gates."

to do.

"But you know, sir, my aunt Wright and on, if you continue the sober, industrious, her family are there." steady lad that he now considers you to be."

"True. Has your grandmother written much of them as being affectionate, pious relations?"

Richard cheerfully promised; and after a few more admonitions he was directed to go to the gentlemen whose messenger he was to be: and while the benevolent pastor resumed his studies, the young peas

exuberant joy by bounding along, and leaping over every object in his way. Whatever apprehension might momentarily have clouded his mind had now vanished in the blaze of rapturous delight at the certain, the near prospect of beholding again all that his heart loved. His fancy pictured the meeting-the delightful even

Richard was struck, for the first time, with this omission: he looked perplexed and distressed. Mr. Barlow resumed. "I would not, my dear lad, have you alarmant sallied forth, glad to give vent to his yourself; but from the general report I have had, and other circumstances, it would be a relief to my mind to know positively what prospects of comfort our absent friends have for the approaching winter. Our letters do not furnish this information, and I have some notion of letting you go and make inquiries. A friend of mine, some miles off, wants to send a trusty mes-ing he should pass, seated round the teasenger to M., on business that you are very well able to transact; he will pay your expenses, and allow you for the loss of time; and last night I got your Master's leave for a week's absence before you enter upon your new employment. Of course, you are willing to go."

"Willing! oh, sir, Mr. Barlow, ever since I can remember, you have been, next to God, the best friend' to me and mine; but you never, never in all my life, did me such a kindness as this, sir!" And he burst into tears.

"Well, well, my dear boy, I hope it will all be for the best; but it cost me some thought and prayer before I could make up my mind to send you even for such a purpose, into the busy, wicked world of M., and I must have your promise, Richard, your positive promise, that you will not remain there, but come back again within the time specified."

"Surely, sir. I go on a message, and I would not deceive or disappoint my employer."

table with every smiling face turned full towards him, listening to his budget of news. "Of course," thought he, "things will be smarter, and my country jacket will look awkward among the town fashions; but they wont like me a bit the less for that, certainly, I shall look down upon them; for the tallest of them must be a head shorter than me-thanks to country air and good hard work," he added, leaping over a five-barred gate, and giving chace to a playful young colt that bounded away on his sudden appearance.

CHAPTER XV.

THE BENCH OF JUSTICE.

It was about ten o'clock in the morning when Richard Green, after thirty-six hours' hard travelling, sprang from the "Right: you must also promise not to roof of the coach in M., and having shoulmake any engagement to interfere with dered his basket, set off at a rapid pace in your service here. A stout, healthy, ac- quest of the abode on which his thoughts tive young fellow like you might perhaps had so long dwelt. To find the street was find ready employment, and the temptation not difficult; by dint of inquiry he also diswould be great to remain with your covered the obscure lane; but when, after family: but do not yield to it: you would threading for some time the filthy maze, repent when too late having cut off from he had forced himself and his basket them the prospect of returning to their na- through the narrow entrance of the court, tive place, which by God's blessing on he felt provoked at having lost so much