Hitherto you have not heard of any spiritually minded person connected with my early life; yet there was one, I feel sure, though my recollections are confused and imperfect on that point; and one to whose prayers, if not to her teaching, I surely owe something.

My father's mother was a fine, sprightly, robust old lady, rather small in stature, and already bending a little under the burden of years at the time when I first recollect her as mingling in the visions of my childhood, though I know that even from infancy I was the delight of her warm honest heart. She was simplicity itself in manners, her blunt speeches sometimes clashing a little with her son's notions of polish and refinement, as also did her inveterate antipathy to the reigning fashion, whatever that might be. I remember her reading me a lecture upon something novel in the cut of a sleeve, ending by this remark: "I never wore a gown but of one shape; and because I don't follow the fashion, the fashion is forced to come to me sometimes by way of a change. I can't help that, you know, my dear; but I never was fashionable on purpose." She added some pious remarks on vanity and folly, which I soon forgot; but the other dwelt on my mind because it chimed in with my own love of independence—a prominent characteristic with me; too often carried to the excess of self-willed obstinacy. However, I dearly loved and exceedingly respected my grand mother, and used in my heart to glory in her smooth clean locks, half brown, half grey, combed down from under a snowy cap of homely make, when she had successfully resisted alike the entreaties and examples of contemporary dames, who submitted their heads to the curling-irons and powder-puff of a frizeur, preparatory to an evening party. I used to stand proudly at her knee, admiring the high color of her cheek, and uncommon brilliancy of her fine dark hazle eye, while her voice, remarkably rich and clear, involuntarily swelled the chorus parts of our magnificent music.

She was a Percy, not by name, for that had been lost in the female line some generations before, but the pedigree in my possession shows how just was her vaunt in that respect. For vaunt it she did, to us at least, often bringing it forward to check any tendency to behavior unbefitting those who claimed descent from

"The stout earl of Northumberland,"

with whom I ought to be well acquainted, for the singing of Chevy Chace in proper time and tune with her, was the only secular accomplishment in which my dear grandmother personally labored to perfect me, except knitting and curious old-fashioned needlework. The pride of ancestry took strong hold of my mind, and such an ancestry accorded but too well with my romance, innate and acquired. It stood me, many a time, in the stead of better things, when nerving myself to endure affliction and wrong; and therefore I notice it, to warn you against exposing your own children to the same snare.

Next to the fashion, if not in an equal or superior degree, I think my grandmother most abhorred the French. Indeed her strongest denunciations against the reigning modes were usually clinched with the triumphant assertion that they were "French fashions." No marvel if her spirit was stirred within her by the horrors of revolutionary France, and her Protestantism strengthened by the butcheries of "Ninety-eight." I knew that she was a protester and a tory of no common stamp; and I knew that she brought her Bible forward in support of every opinion that she uttered. Rarely did I visit her without finding her buried in the study of that blessed book; and I know that she strove to teach me much of its meaning; but our change of residence proved a great bar to personal intercourse, and she never wrote letters. I sometimes trace impressions on my mind, made in early life, which I am sure must have been through her means, and though the good seed died on the ground, while the weeds took root and flourished, still, here and there a grain might sink below the surface, to spring up after many days.

And now I must record my first sorrow, although I cannot dwell upon it as on some other things. My brother had been nearly two years absent, on service in the Peninsula, when an apoplectic attack arrested my lather in the midst of life and health and vigor, and every promise of lengthened years. The premonitory visitations of repeated strokes were disregarded, for we could not, would not, realize the approach of such an event, and persisted in believing them nervous; but just when all cause for alarm seemed at an end, and I was rejoicing in the assurance of its being so, I was called from my pillow at midnight to see that tender and beloved parent die. The bereavement was terrible to me: I had always been his principal companion, because no one else in the family had a taste for those things in which he delighted—literature and politics especially—and since my brother's departure, instead of seeking to replace him by friends of my own age, I had turned wholly to my father, never desiring to pass an hour out of his society, and striving to be to him both daughter and son. My mother was a perfect devotee to household affairs, every thought occupied in seeking to promote the domestic comforts of her family; while I, indulging a natural antipathy to all that did not engage the intellectual powers, gave her no help there, I was truly cumbering the ground, seeking only my own gratification, and dignifying my selfishness with many fine names, only because it was best indulged in my own dear home. From the period of my loss of hearing, music had been wholly banished; my father seemed to lose all relish for what could no longer minister enjoyment to me, and deeply I felt the force of that affection which could so instantly and wholly overcome the ruling passion of his mind, accompanied as it was with such exquisite skill in that delightful science as rendered him the admiration of all who came within its influence. It redoubled my devotion to him, and most bitter was the anguish of my heart when I beheld him taken away at a stroke.

Was this affliction sanctified to me? Not in the least. I found a luxury in grieving alone, brooding on the past, and painting the probable future in any colors but those of reality. My father had enjoyed two livings with a minor canonry in the cathedral, but the emolument was very small, and his income had not allowed him, as yet, to make any provision for us. A small annuity was all that my mother could depend on, and I resolved to become a novel-writer, for which I was just qualified, both by nature and habits of thinking, and in which I should probably have succeeded very well, but it pleased God to save me from this snare. My brother's unexpected return on leave, with our subsequent changes of abode, paying visits among friends, and keeping my thoughts constantly unsettled, hindered the execution of the project; and when my brother returned to Portugal, we repaired to London, to make a long stay with some near relations. It was there that I met with the gentleman, an officer on leave of absence, whose wife, at the end of six months, I became.

I am longing to arrive at that period when the light of the glorious gospel of Christ first shone upon me through the darkness of many trying dispensations; therefore I pass by much that intervened, including my dear brother's marriage, who returned again to London with his bride and his mother, to resume his staff situation there; and shall only take you with me across the Atlantic, for a few Nova Scotian reminiscences, before proceeding to the scene of my most precious recollections, dear Ireland. My husband had joined his regiment in Halifax, and sent me a summons to follow him out without delay; in order to which I was obliged to embark in a large vessel taken up partially by government for the conveyance of troops, but in which there was a select party, occupying the state cabin, and making their own terms with the captain for the best possible accommodation and provision on the passage. Of this number was I; and certainly a more select, polished and agreeable party of highly bred gentlemen could not have been found. I went under the kind care of one of these, with his wife, who had invited me to travel with them.

Have you ever been at sea? It is a question the answer to which will throw very little light on the matter, unless you also state how it agreed with you: no two races on the earth can be more distinct than those two are upon the water—the people who are sea-sick and the people who are not. It was my happy privilege to belong to the latter class; I never for a moment experienced even an unpleasant sensation from any marine cause, but on the contrary enjoyed exemption from all physical annoyances during a five weeks' voyage, excepting that of hunger. An abundant supply of every thing that was nourishing, in the most palatable form, left no excuse for remaining hungry; nevertheless the demand was incessantly kept up; and I appeal to all who have been similarly affected, whether the munching of hard sea-bread from morning to night under the pressure of a real sea appetite, is not a greater luxury than the choicest viands on shore. To me it certainly was; and surely I had reason to be deeply thankful to the Lord, who, by means of that delicious voyage, and its bracing exhilarating effects, prepared me for a trying winter in the singular climate for which I was bound.

Every day, and all day long, be the weather what it might, I was stationed on deck, generally seated on the highest point of the ship's stern, directly over the rudder, to enjoy a full view of that most graceful and exquisite spectacle, a large vessel's course through the mighty deep. Ours was a splendid one, a West Indiaman, almost rivalling the sea-palaces of the East India Company, and manned in the first style. The troops on board, under the command of a field officer, greatly added to the effect and comfort of the thing, for nothing is so conducive to the latter as military discipline, well and mildly maintained. Although our party was perfectly distinct from those who went out entirely at the charge of government, consisting of several officers and their wives, yet we too were nearly all military, including the commandant, and were strictly amenable to martial law. Of course that soul of domestic and social comfort, punctuality, reigned paramount; every meal was regulated by beat of drum, subordination carefully preserved, and decorum, to the most minute particular, insisted on. No dishabille could appear, in the cabin or on deck; no litter, not an article of luggage visible. All the sick people, all the cross people, and all the whimsical people were stowed away in their respective berths, and such drawing-room elegance, combined with the utmost freedom of good-humor and the unrestrained frankness that results from a consciousness of proper restraint, pervaded our little select coterie, amounting to seventeen gentlemen and two ladies, that it did not need the miserable contrast which I afterwards experienced on the homeward passage, to assure me we were among the most favored of ocean travellers.

How very much do they err who consider the absence of order and method as supplying greater liberty or removing a sense of restraint. Such freedom is galling to me; and in my eyes, the want of punctuality is a want of honest principle; for however people may think themselves authorized to rob God and themselves of their own time, they can plead no right to lay a violent hand on the time and duties of their neighbor. I say it deliberately, that I have been defrauded of hundreds of pounds, and cruelly deprived of my necessary refreshment in exercise, in sleep, and even in seasonable food, through this disgraceful want of punctuality in others, more than through any cause whatsoever besides. It is also very irritating; for a person who would cheerfully bestow a piece of gold, does not like to be swindled out of a piece of copper; and of many an hour have I been ungenerously wronged, to the excitement of feelings in themselves far from right, when I would gladly have so arranged my work as to bestow upon the robbers thrice the time they made me wantonly sacrifice. To say, "I will come to you on such a day," leaving the person to expect you early, and then, after wasting her day in that uncomfortable, unsettled state of looking out for a guest, which precludes all application to present duties, to come late in the evening—or to accept an invitation to dinner, and either break the engagement or throw the household into confusion by making it wait—to appoint a meeting, and fail of keeping your time—all these, and many other effects of this vile habit are exceedingly disgraceful, and wholly opposed to the scriptural rules laid down for the governance of our conduct one to another. I say nothing of the insult put upon the Most High, the daring presumption of breaking in upon the devotions of his worshippers, and involving them in the sin of abstractedness from the solemn work before them, by entering late into the house of prayer. Such persons may one day find they have a more serious account to render on the score of their contempt of punctuality, than they seem willing to believe.

But I have run away from my ship—yet not so; for as every thing shines out most by contrast, it was natural to think on the ugly reverse when recalling the beautiful harmony and order of our regulations on board. We were favored with most delightful weather, fresh and dry and warm; with only one day's hard rain, during which the sea "ran mountains," as the sailors said. I was conducted on deck, "just for one minute, that you may be able to say you have seen such a sea," remarked the gentleman who put a military cloak over me, and led me up the stairs. But who could be satisfied with a momentary sight of any thing so stupendously grand? I resisted all efforts to persuade me into retreating again, and it ended in my being lashed to the mizenmast by my friendly conductor, who declared that his head, the best landsman's head on board, would not stand the giddy scene; in short, that he should be obliged to report himself sick, and exchange our agreeable society below for the solitude of his berth. Of course I dismissed him, and was left among the mountains, alone, save when a sailor passed me on his duties among the rigging, and gave me a smile of approval, while the man at the wheel seemed to regard me as being under his especial patronage. The tars love one who does not flinch from their own element.

Truly, I saw that day the works of the Lord and his wonders in the great deep. Imagine yourself in a ship, large among vessels, but a mere cork upon the waters of that mighty main. On every side, turn where you would, a huge mountain of irregular form was rising-dark, smooth, of unbroken surface, but seeming about to burst from over-extension. How did you come into that strange valley? how should you get out of it? how avoid the rush of that giant billow that even now overhangs your bark? These questions would inevitably rush through the mind; but in a second of time the huge body beside you sunk, you were on its summit, and another came rolling on. Meanwhile the ship would reel, with a slow slanting movement that gradually lowered the tall masts till the yards almost dipped in the brine, and you were either laid back on the frame- work behind you, or well-nigh suspended, looking down upon the water over the ship's bulwarks. I soon discovered why my companion had so carefully buckled the leather strap that held me to the mast; certainly I cannot recall the scene with such steadiness of nerve as I beheld it with. Every now and then a small billow would burst upon the vessel's side, sending its liquid treasure across the deck, and more than one ablution of the kind was added to the fresh-water drenching bestowed by the clouds. Can you fancy the discomfort of such a situation? Then you were never at sea, or at least you left your imagination ashore; for I defy any person not well inured to it, to look on such a scene with so negative a feeling as discomfort; it will excite either terror or delight sufficient to engross the whole mind.

I well remember that, when deeply affected by the grandeur of this and other aspects assumed by the majestic main, I found the highest flights of man's sublimity too low. They would not express, would not chime in with my conceptions; and I was driven to the inspired pages for a commentary on the glorious scene. It was then that the language of Job, of Isaiah, of Habakkuk, supplied me with a strain suited to the sublime accompaniment of God's magnificent work. Sunrise I could not witness, because at that hour no lady might appear on deck, and my cabin had not a side-window; but sunset, moonlight, starlight, with the various phenomena of ocean's ever-varying appearance, these furnished an endless contemplation with which nothing could accord but the language of Holy writ. I did not bring forth my Bible, well knowing the bantering remarks to which it would have exposed me on the score of affectation, but my memory served me equally well in that as in profane poetry; and many a precious word of warning, exhortation, and promise did I recite, enchanted by the sublimity of what, as to its spiritual meaning, was still an unknown tongue to me. Among these, the thirty-second of Deuteronomy, the fortieth of Isaiah, and other passages full of the gospel, were repeatedly called to mind; and above all, in blowing weather, the forty-sixth Psalm delighted me.

You may suppose that I could not wholly forget the fact of being where, in the strictest sense, there was but a step between me and death. The first day of our voyage some one had quoted the expression, "There is but a plank between us and eternity," not with any serious application, but as a fine thought. I do not think that I was ever for a moment unmindful of this; the presence of actual danger was always felt by me: but concerning eternity I had no fears whatever. A general reliance on the boundless mercy of God, a recognition of Christ as having suffered for our sins, and a degree of self-righteousness that easily threw my sins into the shade, while magnifying my supposed merits, these formed the staff whereon I leaned; and when the most imminent and appalling peril overhung us, so that we expected to be ingulfed in the waves without hope of succor, I looked it boldly in the face, confident in my false hope. Although just then revelling in enjoyments best suited to my natural taste, life had in reality no charms for me. From all that had gilded the sonny hours of youth I was completely severed, and the world on which I had launched was a wilderness indeed in comparison with the Eden I had left. I would not have made the slightest effort to escape from death in any form; and though I was not senseless enough to prefer an eternity of untried wretchedness to the fleeting sorrows of mortal life, yet as my conscience was lulled to rest by the self-delusion that I suffered more than I deserved, and had therefore a claim on divine justice, and as I was willing to receive the supposed balance of such debtor and creditor account in the world to come, I was perfectly content to be summoned to my reward. Blessed be God that I was not taken away in that hour of blind willingness.

The extreme peril to which I have alluded overtook us when within a short distance of our destination; we were suddenly caught by a tremendous wind from the south, which blew us right in the direction of Cape Sable, one of the most fatal headlands in those seas. Night closed upon us and the gale increased; sails were spread, in a desperate hope of shifting the vessel's course, but were instantly torn into ribbons. At one time, for a moment, the rudder broke loose, the tiller-rope giving way under the violent strain upon it; and the next minute the spanker-boom, an immense piece of timber, snapped like a reed. It was an awful scene: on the leeside the ship lay so low in the water that every thing was afloat in the sleeping cabins; and the poor ladies were screaming over their terrified children, unheeded by the gentlemen, every one of whom was on deck. The captain openly declared we were bound for the bottom, if a very sudden and unlikely change of wind did not take place. In the midst of all this, I was reported missing, and as I had the privilege of being every body's care, because, for the time being, I belonged to nobody, a search was commenced. A young officer found me, at last, so singularly situated, that he went and reported me to the captain. I had climbed three tiers of lockers in the state cabin, opened one of the large stern windows, and was leaning out, as far as I could reach, enraptured beyond expression with the terrific grandeur of the scene. The sky above was black as midnight and the storm could make it, overhanging us like a large pall, and rendered awfully visible by the brilliancy of the waters beneath. I had heard of that phosphorescent appearance in the sea, but never could have imagined its grandeur, nor can I essay to describe it. Even in perfect stillness the illuminated element would have looked magnificent; what, then must it have been in a state of excessive, tumultuous agitation, the waves swelling up to a fearful height and then bursting into sheets of foam; every drop containing some luminous animalculÆ sparkling with vivid, yet delicate lustre? We were going with headlong speed before the wind, and I hung right over the track of the rudder, a wild, mad eddy of silver foam, intermingled with fire. There was something in the scene that far overpassed all my extravagant imaginings of the terribly sublime. The hurry, the fierceness, the riot of those unfettered waters, the wild flash of their wondrous lights, the funereal blackness of the overhanging clouds, and the deep, desperate plunge of our gallant ship, as she seemed to rend her way through an opposing chaos—it was perfect delirium; and no doubt I should have appeared in keeping with the rest to any external observer, for I was stretching out at the window, the combs had fallen from my hair, which streamed as wildly as the rent sails; and I was frequently deluged by some bursting wave, as the dip of the vessel brought me down almost to the surface. The peril of an open window was startling to those on deck, and the captain, hearing that I refused to relinquish my post, sent the mate to put up the dead-lights; so I sat down on the floor, buried my face in my hands, and strove to realize the magnificence thus rent from my sight.

Yes, God's works in the great deep are indeed wonders. Nothing landward can possibly approach them: in the rudest tempest the ground remains firm, and you feel that you are a spectator; but at sea you are a part of the storm. The plank whereon you stand refuses to support you, ever shifting its inclination; while the whole of your frail tenement is now borne aloft, now dashed into the liquid furrow beneath, now struck back by a head-sea with a shock that makes every timber quiver, now flung on one side as if about to reverse itself in the bosom of the deep. No doubt the sense of personal danger, the death-pang already anticipated, the dark abyss that yawns before the sinner, and the heaven opening on a believer's soul, must each and any of them deaden the sense to what I have vainly sought to describe; and I suppose this accounts for the astonishment expressed by the whole party at my singular conduct, when the youth who was sent to warn me of the peril, described my half-angry, half-reproachful pettishness at the interruption: "Can't you let me enjoy it in peace, Mr. J——? Shall I ever see any thing like it again? Do go away." "But the captain says the window must be shut." "Then take me on deck, and you may shut it." "That is utterly impossible; no lady could stand for an instant on deck, your drapery would bear you over the ship's side." "Then I wont shut the window: so go and tell Captain L—— not to tease me with messages."

This was downright recklessness. I wonder when recalling it to mind, and feel that I could not have thus sported with death after I acquired a good and solid hope of everlasting life. The act of dying had always great terrors for me, until, through adverse circumstances, I seemed to have nothing worth living for, and then I could laugh at it in my own heart. Strange to say, that fearfulness of the passage through the dark valley returned with double force when I had realized a personal claim to the guiding rod and the supporting staff, and the bright inheritance beyond. But before this period of blessedness, of joy and peace in believing arrived, I had to pass through many waters of affliction, and to experience remarkable interpositions at His hand who was leading me by a path which I knew not.

Two of them I will mention. While at Annapolis and at Windsor, I had a horse provided for me of rare beauty and grace, but a perfect Bucephalus in her way. This creature was not three years old, and, to all appearance, unbroken. Her manners were those of a kid rather than of a horse; she was of a lovely dappled grey, with mane and tail of silver, the latter almost sweeping the ground; and in her frolicsome gambols she turned it over her back like a Newfoundland dog. Her slow step was a bound; her swift motion unlike that of any other animal I ever rode, so fleet, so smooth, so unruffled—I know nothing to which I can compare it. Well, I made this lovely creature so fond of me by constant petting, to which I suppose her Arab character made her peculiarly sensitive, that my voice had equal power over her as over my docile, faithful dog. No other person could in the slightest degree control her. Our corps, the seventh battalion of the sixtieth Rifles, was composed wholly of the elite of Napoleon's soldiers, taken in the Peninsula, and preferring the British service to a prison. They were principally conscripts, and many were evidently of a higher class in society than is usually found in the ranks. Among them were several Chasseurs and Polish Lancers, very fine equestrians, and as my husband had a field officer's command—on detachments—and allowances, our horses were well looked after. His groom was a Chasseur, mine a Pole; but neither could ride Fairy, unless she happened to be in a very gracious mood. Lord Dalhousie's English coachman afterwards tried his hand at taming her, but all in vain. In an easy quiet way, she either sent her rider over her head, or by a laughable manoeuvre sitting down like a dog on her haunches, slipped him off the other way. Her drollery made the poor men so fond of her that she was rarely chastised; and such a wilful, intractable wild Arab it would be hard to find. Upon her I was daily mounted; and surely the Lord watched over me then indeed. Inexperienced in riding, untaught, unassisted, and wholly unable to lay any check upon so powerful an animal, with an awkward country saddle, which by some fatality was never well fixed, bit and bridle to match, and the mare's natural fire increased by high feed, behold me bound for the wildest paths in the wildest regions of that wild country. But you must explore the roads about Annapolis, and the romantic spot called "The General's Bridge," to imagine either the enjoyment or the perils of that my happiest hour. Reckless to the last degree of desperation, I threw myself entirely on. the fond attachment of the noble creature; and when I saw her measuring with her eye some rugged fence or wild chasm, such as it was her common sport to leap over in her play, the soft word of remonstrance that checked her was uttered more from regard to her safety than my own. The least whisper, a pat on the neck, or a stroke down the beautiful face that she used to throw up towards mine, would control her: and never for a moment did she endanger me. This was little short of a daily miracle, when we consider the nature of the country, her character, and my unskilfulness. It can only be accounted for on the ground of that wondrous power which having willed me to work for a time in the vineyard of the Lord, rendered me immortal until the work should be done. Oh that my soul, and all that is within me could sufficiently bless the Lord, and remember all his benefits.

I was then unmindful of, and unthankful for his protection; I revelled in the delights of a freedom that none could share but my dog, who never left the side of his associate. Shall I give you a sketch of the group, in some lines composed during one of those excursions? They may partly describe it. I found, them among some old papers.

"I know by the ardor thou canst not restrain,
By the curve of thy neck and the toss of thy mane,
By the foam of thy snorting which spangles my brow,
The fire of the Arab is hot in thee now.
'Twere harsh to control thee, my frolicsome steed;
I give thee the rein—so away at thy speed;
Thy rider will dare to be wilful as thee,
Laugh the future to scorn, and partake in thy glee.
Away to the mountain—what need we to fear?
Pursuit cannot press on my Fairy's career;
Full light were the heel and well-balanced the head
That ventured to follow the track of thy tread,
Where roars the loud torrent and starts the rude plank,
And thunders the rook-severed mass down the bank,
While mirrored in crystal the far-shooting glow,
With dazzling effulgence is sparkling below.
One start, and I die; yet in peace I recline,
My bosom can rest on the fealty of thine:
Thou lov'st me, my sweet one, and would'st not be free,
From a yoke that has never borne rudely on thee.
Ah, pleasant the empire of those to confess,
Whose wrath is a whisper, their rule a caress.

"Behold how thy playmate is stretching beside,
As loath to be vanquished in love or in pride,
While upward he glances his eyeball of jet,
Half dreading thy fleetness may distance him yet.
Ah, Marco, poor Marco—our pastime to-day
Were reft of one pleasure if he were away.

"How precious these moments: fair freedom expands
Her pinions of light o'er the desolate lands;
The waters are flashing as bright as thine eye,
Unchained as thy motion the breezes sweep by,
Delicious they come, o'er the flower-scented earth,
Like whispers of love from the isle of my birth;
While the white-bosomed Cistus her perfume exhales,
And sighs out a spicy farewell to the gales.
Unfeared and unfearing we'll traverse the wood,
Where pours the rude torrent its turbulent flood:
The forest's red children will smile as we scour
By the log-fashioned hut and the pine-woven bower;
Thy feathery footsteps scarce bending the grass,
Or denting the dew-spangled moss where we pass

"What startles thee? 'Twas but the sentinel gun
Flashed a vesper salute to thy rival the sun;
He has closed his swift progress before thee, and sweeps
With fetlock of gold the last verge of the steeps.
The fire-fly anon from his covert shall glide,
And dark fall the shadows of eve on the tide.
Tread softly—my spirit is joyous no more.
A northern aurora, it shone and is o'er;
The tears will fall fast as I gather the rein,
And a long look reverts to yon shadowy plain."

* * * * *

There is more of it, but nothing to the purpose of the present history. It cost me something to transcribe this, so vividly is the past recalled by it. Would to God I might more fully devote to his service every day of the life so wonderfully preserved by him.

In addition to this continuous preservation on horseback, I experienced the same interposing providence when violently upset in a gig. The road where it occurred was strewn with broken rocks on either side, for miles; and scarcely one clear spot appeared, save that on which I was thrown, where a carpet of the softest grass overspread a perfect level of about twelve feet in length, and nearly the same in width. Here I fell, with no other injury than a contusion on the hip. The gig was completely reversed, the horse dashed on till he ran one of the shafts into a bank, and set himself fast.

My sojourn in this interesting country was of two years' duration, marked with many mercies, among the greatest of which was the uninterrupted enjoyment of perfect health, although my first winter there was the most severe that had been known for thirty years, and the following summer one of the most oppressively hot they had ever experienced. The gradations of spring, autumn, and twilight, are there scarcely known, and the sudden transition from summer to winter is as trying to the health of an European as that from day to night is uncongenial to the taste. Here, too, I repented at leisure, and amended with no small difficulty and labor, my neglect of those accomplishments to which my dear mother had so often vainly solicited my attention. The pencil was profitless; I had long thrown it by: books were no longer an adequate set-off against realities, even could I have conjured up a library in the wilderness of Nova Scotia's inland settlement; but the culinary and confectionary branches were there invaluable, and in them I was wofully deficient. Had I not coaxed the old French soldier who officiated as mess-cook to give me a few lessons, we must have lived on raw meal and salt rations during weeks when the roads were completely snowed up, and no provisions could he brought in. However, I proved an apt scholar to poor Sebastian, and to the kind neighbors who initiated me into the mysteries of preserves and pastry. Young ladies cannot tell into what situations events may throw them; and I would strongly recommend the revival of that obsolete study called good housewifery. The woman who cannot dispense with female servants, must not travel. I had none for six months, keen winter months, in Annapolis; the only persons who could be found disengaged being of characters wholly inadmissible. The straits to which I was put were any thing but laughable at the time, though the recollection now often excites a smile. Indeed no perfection in European housekeeping would avail to guard against the devastations that a Nova Scotian frost will make, if not met by tactics peculiar to that climate. How could I anticipate that a fine piece of beef, fresh-killed, brought in at noon still warm, would by two o'clock require smart blows with a hatchet to slice off a steak; or that half-a-dozen plates, perfectly dry, placed at a moderate distance from the fire preparatory to dinner, would presently separate into half a hundred fragments, through the action of heat on their frosted pores; or that milk drawn from a cow within sight of my breakfast-table would be sheeted with ice on its passage thither; or that a momentary pause, for the choice of a fitting phrase in writing a letter, would load the nib of my pen with a black icicle? If I did not cry over my numerous breakages and other disasters, it was under the apprehension of tears freezing on my eyelids; and truly they might have done so, for my fingers were once in that awful condition that must have ended in mortification, but for the presence of mind of a poor soldier, who, seeing me running to the fire in that state, drew his bayonet to bar my approach, and wrapping a coarse cloth round my lifeless hands, muff-fashion, compelled me to walk up and down the spacious hall until the circulation returned, which it did with a sensation of agony that well-nigh took away my senses. This was a most signal escape, for I was wholly ignorant of my danger, and not a little perplexed and annoyed at the insubordinate conduct of the veteran, who was a model of respectful humility. Had he, poor fellow, known how busy those fingers would one day be against his religion—for he was a French Romanist—he might have been tempted to sheath his bayonet and give me free access to the tempting fire, the immense faggots of which would have sufficed to roast a heretic.

Nova Scotia is, I firmly believe, the most generally and devotedly loyal of all our colonies: the attachment of its people to the mother-country is beautiful, and their partisanship in all questions between us and the States most zealous. The only fault I had to find with them was their indifference towards the poor relics of the Indian race still dwelling in the woods, who were to me objects of the liveliest interest even before I had any feeling of Christian duty towards the heathen—or towards such as those who are worse than heathen, being numbered among the members of the Romish church, and utterly, wretchedly ignorant even of such little truth as remains buried under the mass of antichristian error, to make its darkness more visible. The Indians are wholly despised; scarcely looked on as beings of the same race, by the generality of the colonists. Where Christian principle prevails, they become of course important in the highest degree; but I speak of what I saw, when vital godliness was little known among them, and I can aver that even Lord Dalhousie scarcely could succeed in stirring up a momentary interest for the dispersed aborigines. That excellent nobleman devoted himself very warmly to the work of attempting their civilization; and told me that if a few would join him heartily and zealously in the effort, he should succeed; but that, between, lukewarmness on the one side and suspicion on the other, he found himself completely baffled. It was not to be wondered at that the Indians had a lurking dread of experiencing again the hardships, not to say the treachery and cruelty, inflicted on their fathers. I enjoyed a high place in the affection and confidence of those interesting people, the origin of which may help to prove at how light an estimate the poor creatures were generally rated by their white brethren. My claim on their attachment consisted in nothing more than the performance of a bounden duty in sheltering for a few weeks one of their number who had, in a most unprovoked and cruel manner, been wounded by a party of our soldiers and left to perish in the woods.

How beautiful do the white cliffs of Albion appear in the eyes of the returning wanderer who has learned by a foreign sojourn to estimate the comforts, the privileges, the blessings of this island home. No place could be more thoroughly English in feeling, habits, and principles, than Nova Scotia; but it was not England. The violent transition of seasons, so different from the soft gradations by which, with us, winter brightens into summer, and summer fades into winter, marked a contrast far from pleasing; and the intensity of cold, the fierceness of heat, alike unknown in our temperate climate, forced comparisons far from agreeable. Thus, on the lowest ground of a wholly selfish feeling, the approach to nay native shore could not be otherwise than delightful; but viewed as the mother-land, as the great emporium of commerce, the chief temple of liberty, the nurse of military prowess, the unconquered champion of all that is nationally great throughout the world, the sight of our free and happy isle is indeed an inspiring one to those who can appreciate moral grandeur. How much more, in the eyes of the Christian, is she to be esteemed as the glory of all lands, as possessing the true knowledge of God, and laboring to spread that knowledge throughout the world; the land of Protestantism, the land of the Bible.

I really cannot understand the meaning, nor fancy what may be the feeling, of those who profess to have merged their patriotism in something of universal good-will to the household of faith all over the world. It seems to me every whit as unnatural as that the member of a Christian family should forego all the sweets of conjugal, parental, filial, fraternal love, in the determination to feel an equal regard for his neighbor's wife, husband, etc., as for his own; and, moreover, to take an equal concern in the affairs of his neighbor's kitchen as in his own household matters. This sort of generalizing regard would throw our respective establishments into singular confusion, and might betray ourselves into sundry false positions, and very awkward predicaments. However, the comparative extinction of natural affection would form the most prominently reprehensible feature in the case; and I cannot but think that the boasted cosmopolitanism of some good people would wear an aspect not very dissimilar, if rightly and soberly viewed. Certainly I could no more tear the love of country from my heart, than I could the love of kindred; and when my step again pressed the English strand, it was with a sensation almost resembling the fabled invigoration of the Titans, who derived new life, new strength, new enterprise, from coming in contact with their mother earth.

England, indeed, contained little that was personally endearing to me, except my beloved surviving parent; but it was a joyous thing to embrace her once more, after the deep roll of the ocean had separated us for nearly three years; during a portion of which she had been learning to prize her native land, in a disgusting region of all that is most directly opposed to liberty, civil or religious—to honorable feeling, just conduct, honest principle, or practical decency. In short, she had been in Portugal.