unction, she would burn in hellfire for ever, with all heretics.

It was striking to mark, as indignation took the place of woe in the widow's heart, how her attenuated and bending form returned to its natural height; how her voice rose and her eyes brightened even in relating their conversation. The dignity of becoming indignation suddenly kindled her whole frame, and you could scarcely identify the drooping creature, dying under the misery of eating grief, who had but just risen from the side of her writing-table.

"I am Protestant," she said; " I don't believe in what you say, and my daughter does not wish for your services." "Then I won't get her this medicine that would cure her." "I would not give her anything you prescribe till I saw it analysed. If I ever wish for you, I will send-for the present, go away." "Then I will call again to-morrow," said the pertinacious persecutor. "You need not-I will not admit you;" and so, at last, the pair departed, having done what they could, in their view, to save the dying girl from eternal misery.

How unprotected are the poor from these bold impostors, and how unprotected are the rich from the more insidious and ensnaring measures which they adopt in their advances to them! Their perseverance in trying to compass one dying proselyte is a rebuke to the more supine plans of Protestants. Yet this is the sect against which Protestant America can see no cause to be on its guard-the

planters of which are artists, musicians, teachers, domestics, Sisters of Charity, politicians, who unweariedly put in their seed and leave it to grow, while we are asleep in erroneous security.

At last, then, I had seen a really poor native. But it was not squalid-it was respectable poverty -and, in the woe of a wandering mind, independence and gratitude were visible. She uttered no thanks to the "good spirit" who paid her rent-but she sent the silken pillow which she sewed by the couch of her dying child, as a gift to the "good spirit's" wife.

We went a few days after to try to procure her a room in the Home for decayed gentlewomen. But we failed at that time, though very desirous to break up the tribe of associations with that chamber and that bed, and to place the mourner within reach of a little society, if by any means the sorrow which preys on her spirit might be diverted.

The proper name of the institution I allude to has escaped me, and that is not to be regretted, as, of the numerous houses we visited, whether they were philanthropic, educational, or established for purposes of state, this was the solitary instance in which the doors were not cordially thrown open, the economy of the place described, and reports offered. Perhaps the matron was new and unaccustomed to her office-or perhaps the person who repulsed us was a bad substitute for the matron. However it was, it gives me great pleasure to think

of the hearty reception afforded to me, a stranger, without a claim, in every place, with the exception

of this.

We were told the number of inmates was made up at the moment-and poor Mrs R was left still to imagine she held conferences with her child, though she "knew not where she was gone to."

CHAPTER XXV.

VARIOUS COUNTRY DISTRICTS.

TRAVELLERS who pass through Virginia and Maryland tell of broken fences, unproductive fields, crumbling mills and dwellings, and the most unsightly and melancholy of all ruins-those of wooden houses. It is not easy to describe or to account for the very disagreeable impression produced by frame-house ruins. In an ancient stone wall, the fallen part makes an irregular mound on which vines and mosses grow, while that which stands has a degree of picturesque beauty in its decay. But if the ruin be that of an edifice of wood, though it were but recently smart, with its correct angles and bright paint, it is ugly in decay, having none of the dignity of agedness about it. You may find one long line of planks prone on the ground, another warped and bending here out, there in, with ragged and broken boards projecting, while the roof, with its forked rafters, is hanging to the standing wall, and seems to long to drag it down to that which is already prostrate. Mosses, lichens, mould,

nettles, toad-stools-all horrid things which a witch might cull to seethe in her cauldron, are springing up around. The desolate appearance of the place is painful, as you feel a persuasion that the quondam inhabitants also are in a state of decay. On those estates where human ingenuity lies prostrate at the feet of cupidity, where, man does the work of the ox and the ass, and where, generation after generation, the spade and the hoe have, without variation, worked the same earth, the fertile land is turned into barrenness. It becomes so unproductive as not to pay the labour, and is gradually left to fall out of cultivation, and its buildings to drop to decay.

"What a mouldy appearance all the country we traversed this week has!" I heard a lady say, inquiringly, after her return from the south. A free thinker could have explained the cause of the mould, but it would not have been well taken to act the part of a free speaker. For, to confess truth, brother Jonathan is not so free as he would like to think himself. It is marvellous to see him at the north, smother his aspirations, and whisper his thoughts in subjection to the south. It is marvellous to see men who have rid themselves of dishonest gains and dishonouring institutions, submit to be made manhunters and slave-catchers in their own free homes. It is marvellous to hear a man say he would suffer the penalty of the law, rather than obey the summons that the magistrate is entitled to give him to