himself in Philip's arms, instinctively put his hand up to the man's features, and on feeling that he wept, his own countenance brightened with a smile of happiness, such as he had not for many a day felt under his roof. "Oh," said he, "you care about me-You do care something about me after all. Don't cry. I'm now glad you struck me, for I know what I didn't know before. I never thought any body but one could shed a tear for me. I wouldn't care how I was treated if I thought there was a little love for me." A mutual glance of sorrow and regret passed between the husband and wife at the melancholy words of poor John. The good woman, under the influence of repentance for what he had been made to suffer through their means, sat down, and putting her apron to her eyes wept bitterly, and Philip, himself affected, but anxious to end a scene that was becoming too painful, entreated the boy to go to rest. He consented, and after the pain and exhaustion of what he had suffered, meekly laid himself down in his own cold and solitary bed. In a few minutes afterwards they passed the place where he lay, and putting the candle near his face, they saw that he was asleep, and free, at least until another day, from the early sorrows of his melancholy life. CHAPTER IV. It matters little what many of the erroneous "Well, well," said they, "keep your heart up, we will not be so harsh to you as we have been." "I wouldn't think any thing of the harshness," maxims of idle philosophy may teach us. A heart, said the boy, "if your hearts cared ever so little about me, and I didn't mind whether you showed it or not, if I but knew it." "No wonder for you to speak as you do," said the wife; "for, God help you, my poor child, you have never known a day's happiness." "Indeed," said he, "I'm very happy night and day: I'm happy, and that's what you didn't know." Another glance passed between the husband and wife, and the latter burst into tears. They were ignorant of the source of his happiness, and when contrasting his words with the misery they had known him to endure under their own roof, they could not avoid being melted by the extraordinary meekness of a heart which could belie its own sorrows in order to win upon their affections; for such was the motive to which they attributed what he said. “Ellen,” said the husband, "wash his head and let him sleep, it will serve him; and Willy," he added, “don't fret, I'll be more a father to you than I have ever been yet." By the words of Philip however a memory had been awakened, which indeed had seldom slumbered. The boy put his hand on the man's face, who had but just before struck him so heavily, he then drew it down his breast, feeling his coat and his buttons as he went along. His countenance, as he did this, but especially when he had finished, wrought with these convulsive emotions of the facial muscles that are so peculiar to the blind. At length, after a silence of some minutes, they perceived, for the first time in their lives, that tears were rolling in torrents from Lis sightless eye-balls. Their sympathy was strongly excited: "Willy," said the woman, "what is it brings the tears from eyes that I have never seen shed them before? I Lope, dear, it's not any pain in your head?” "It's my father," said the child, "and my mother-I'll go to their graves in the morning. I wish I was with them, I would then be an orphan no longer, and want a friend no more." acquainted merely with the miseries of life, as they are termed, can never be altogether unhappy, unless it be also tainted with its crimes. What signify the poverty and distress which the poor are doomed to suffer, when contrasted with the remorse of a guilty conscience, and the throes of a spirit divided between a fear and a love of evil? In how many thousand instances would the wealthy offender against law and religion be glad to secure a pure heart at the hour of sickness and death, by exchanging his wealth for the humble and virtuous conscience of the poor man? Let not the reader, therefore, conclude that because our orphans suffered much, they were therefore unhappy. That which the poor possesses in their purest and most dilightful state, the affections, are after all the only source of true happiness to the rich, and that too in proportion as they approach the simplicity which marks them in the lowly. The next morning, Willy Martley rose a happier boy, in consequence of Philip's severity on the preceding night. It taught him, that however roughly he might have been treated, there was still a feeling of strong but rude compassion in his favor! and to a heart so lonely, and to which kind words had been so few, this was a discovery which filled him with pleasure, that lightened and cheered his spirit. Light as a gossamer is the circumstance which can bring enjoyment to a conscience which is not its own accuser. The next morning Willy, on awaking, heard Philip's voice, ere the man got up. He, however, dressed himself, and approaching the bed, caught his hand and asked permission to speak to him. "Pardon me," said he, "if I have ever done any thing to make either you or yours angry with me. As to what happened last night, there is none to speak of it except some of yourselves, as for me I will never breathe it. I'm not any thing the worse at all events, so that it's not worth talking about. I want to ask your leave to speak to Tom Ellis the pensioner, about teaching me to play on the clarionet. He said once that he would do so, | familiar of them all to the feet of the orphan, for if I could get one." it brought him to his parents' grave. Having "Ay, Willy," said Philip, "but how will you passed over the flag-steps which projected out of get one that's the difficulty." The boy had not thought of this, and knowing his own poverty, and that of Philip, hung down his head and was silent. "At all events," continued the other, "see him about it, perhaps he has an old one lying by him that may do you to learn on." With his little stick in his hand Martley then proceeded towards the cottage of Ellis, who was a pensioner. Tom was within, and on hearing the boy's request, which was modestly and feelingly urged, he at once consented to give him every instruction in his power. the wall on each side, he soon found himself at that spot on which he had for many a day, and many an hour, lost the sense of his bereaved state, in the musings of a heart which drew from their memory, the ideal solace of tenderness which had long passed away. On coming to the grave he sat down beside it, and as was his custom, examined by touch the natural grass and daisies which the genial month of May produced over the ashes of those who slept below. Long did he sit there, but who can tell either the hope or sorrow which his brooding fancy shaped from that grave, which is to all who live "But what will you do," said he, "for a cla- and die their consolation and their dread. rionet ?" Our blind boy was ignorant of sentiment, and had never heard that such a word as romance existed; but that mattered not to him. In dressing and adorning his parents' grave, he exhibited that natural feeling from which sentiment and romanes are drawn. His heart melted into the tenderness which produces in its effects those exhibitions of affection that furnish poetry with its most pathetic "I do not know," replied the orphan,-" Philip said that perhaps you might have an old one lying by you that you would lend me. I am sorry to be as I am a burthen and a great trouble to him and his family. If I knew how to play on the clarionet, I would make my bread by it, and maybe make him and them some return for what they've done for a blind, helpless orphan as I am." images. He did not ornament their grave, because "I have not a second clarionet, Willy," said the good pensioner; "but never mind, we'll see what can be done-perhaps I'll be able to get you one soon." The boy then thanked him, and rose to depart, but lingered for a moment, and appeared by his hesitation to have some other wish to proffer. "Will you," said he at length, approaching lis, "give me your hand?" he had heard it was a custom both solemn and beautiful to do so; but he did it because he remembered them with sorrow, and loved to adem the holy spot which to him their ashes had made sacred. The habits of artificial life follow far behind the impulses of nature, and Willy Martley, in keeping the grass green over the grave of he El-parents, presents a purer and fresher emblem of affection than does the duke or earl who ereets Lis marble mausoleum, with an indifferent heart, over a father or a wife, merely because he knows the to be the fashionable and usual mode of expressing sorrow for the dead. "To be sure," replied the other, extending it. The boy then took it in his, felt it for some time, after which he asked to feel his features. Gently and with a kind of timid pleasure he ran his fingers over his countenance until he had traced with accuracy all its lineaments-after which, with an expression of satisfaction he said "I knew your voice and your step before, but I now know your face. Very few have been kind to me, but when any one is I am restless till I feel their countenance." It is most likely that during his reverie the past and the future were blended together in his imag nation. Youth, for once that it looks back, excep to re-enjoy pleasure, looks forward to the promises of hope a thousand times. Martley's heart, there fore, forgot the spot on which he sat, and turned to the orphan girl, whose low sweet voice had He then departed, and the kind pensioner looked made the music of his life almost since his childafter him for some time with a deep compassion hood. Deeply was his spirit troubled. Ali for the situation of a sightless orphan, whose she had never yet avowed her love, he felt thai meekness and affection touched all hearts, and even if she did, his loss of sight and his utter i whose lonely distresses were borne with a melan- capacity for supporting a wife were insurmoualacholy patience that rendered the harsh path of his ble obstructions to his happiness. He then life a line of light and beauty. membered the promise of Tom Ellis—and what After proceeding a short distance from Ellis's will not an humble and almost hopeless heart do, house, he turned to the left and entered a green in grasping at any thing that may possibly preveni paddock, through which a pathway led to the it from sinking? To the lowly orphan, quickened churchyard. Like most blind persons, assisted by by love into more than the sanguine eagerness of his stick, he could traverse with little or no dif-youth, that promise became as strong as faith, and ficulty all the paths and by-ways about the village. on it he scrupled not to build the airy fabric of his That, however, which he now trod was the most future happiness with Jane Campbell. Having formed his humble speculation, he turned, vibra- | pathy conveyed to human sorrow. That voice, ting between love and sorrow, to the grave beside associated with a thousand simple expressions of which he sat, and having once more ran his hands pity for the little cares he confided to her, was over it, he plucked a few daisies, and forming them perpetually heard in his imagination, like the sweetinto a small bouquet, placed them in the tattered ness of unknown music in a happy dream. To coat he wore, and left the grave-yard. use a quotation slightly changed "I will go," said he, "and tell Jane I love her; I'm sure she will believe me, but if she does not ! Ah," said he, "who knows whether ever she felt any thing for me but kindness, because I was bind and an orphan like herself? I doubt, I doubt," he continued," that she could never think of loving a blind boy like me-but I will go to her and know." "She loved him for the sufferings he had passed, There was, however, a better cause than this. Their sympathy was mutual, for so were their affections. She felt an echo of his distresses and neglect in her own bosom; and the compassion expressed by the orphan boy, soon rendered her He arose with the intention of seeking her im- insensible to a figure and countenance still more mediately, but a power stronger than love changed plain than her own. This youthful intercourse of his purpose for the present. Hunger-the hunger the heart, when it originates from the pain it of the ill-fed and the poor, craved its scanty and soothes, leads to the most creative and enduring of meagre dole of miserable food. The boy felt its all attachments-it produces that love which beaueravings keenly, and turning his tottering and tifies its object, however homely, investing it with uncertain steps homewards, he arrived at Philip's graces on which the heart and not the eye sits in house at the close of their stinted breakfast. There he was received with more kindness than usual, for the scene of last night had not been forgotten. lived, never excited surprise, for ever since their The good woman, by the direction of her husband, first interview they had been almost inseparable. had even put past for him on a wooden trencher, Latterly, 'tis true, they could not be so often toa few of the best potatoes and some salt, a mark gether, for Jane was now forced to perform a of attention which, though slight in itself, was woman's task, whether in the house or in the field. looked upon as a matter of deep importance by a This Martley had felt to the diminution of his boy who had never known a friend. pleasure; and during those periods, when he could While breakfasting, he related the conversation not converse with her, he might be seen wanderhe had had with Tom Ellis, and said, "something ing waywardly through the fields, sitting under told him that Tom would succeed in getting the clarionet." judgment. His frequent visits to the cottage where she trees and on green knolls, murmuring short halfuttered sentences to himself, or pulling tufts of His manner was calm and sweet, and less tinged grass or nosegays of flowers in places with which with the habitual air of melancholy which ever he was familiar. On this day, she was in the marked him than usual. The tones of his voice field alone, and he was glad. With little difficulty were softer and more affectionate than before, and he gained the path which led to it, and Jane on altogether his heart appeared to be relieved and seeing him approach, laid down her spade, and cheerful. Poor boy! It was easy to fill up the measure of his enjoyments, when a few kind words from Philip and his family, the hope of the clarionet, and a still more tender impression that his Jane loved him, were capable of rendering his happiness almost complete. But woe to the poor and distressed, had not God made this merciful provision for their state. running over, assisted him across a green ditch, on the sunny side of which they both sat down together. "Why, William," said she, adverting to his little bouquet, "could you get no better nosegay than a bunch of common daisies?" "They're not common daisies, Jane," he replied, "for they grew on my father and mother's grave. I put them in my breast coming to you to-day, because I wish you to believe that what I'm going to say to you is true. Indeed, I may say, Jane, that all the happiness ever you and I had, grew like these little flowers from the graves of our fathers. It was their deaths brought us together, and I have long thought that God wishes we should never part through life." When his frugal meal was eaten, he took his stick and sauntered out to seek the cabin in which Jane Campbell lived. Jane was precisely his own age, tall, pale, and plain. With no possible pretension to beauty, loosely and rather ungracefully formed, she was nevertheless the centre to which the humble love of our orphan faithfully turned. But it was not for personal attractions, which he could not see, even had they existed, that John loved her. She it was who, when his young heart felt oppressed by early care, pitied and consoled "But you've said one thing," said she, not knowhim. Her voice, however, was soft and musicaling properly now to reply to his question, "that I indeed, through a sweeter vehicle never was sym- don't understand: how could these flowers make A blush overspread the pale face of the girl even before he had concluded. you speak truth now more than at any other night, too, asleep or awake, your voice is with me, time?" and your hands, as they are now, putting tenderness and love that I can scarcely bear into my heart. Jane, Jane, if you cannot love the orphan as well as pity him, it would be happy for him that the flower in his breast were growing over his own grave as well as on his father's. I have no other "Because," said he, "my father's last advice to me before he died, was never to tell a lie; and these flowers will keep him and the words he spoke in my heart." "I never knew you to tell one." "Yes, but I never yet spoke to you on the sub-hope, no other happiness,—and if you take that ject I've just mentioned, and they say it's one that many girls are deceived by, because they believe every thing that's said to them." away from me, how can I live? and what will become of me?" As he held her trembling hands in his, she felt his big tears fall fast upon them, and saw those eyes turned the fountains of sorrow, which could never become the fountains of light. William," said the gentle creature, "I never felt what it was to have a breaking heart till this day-what can we do, and we so young and so ment ever I remember. Oh," said she, her tears flowing fast, "I never knew what my own poverty is, and how much I'm depending on others, till now." "But I wouldn't expect to be deceived by you, in any thing; if you would deceive me, the whole world would, for I believe you are the only person in it that cares about me. I mean that is, and always was, a friend to me." "And what would I have done, and how could I have lived, if I hadn't your heart to go to? You friendless? This-this is the most sorrowful mocould see the world, and the sun, and the sky, and the faces of the people—the light too, Jane. Oh, Jane dear, the blessed light of heaven was open to your eyes, and these things would take away your heart from much that you suffered; but I-the darkness was upon me, and the things I thought of that were painful to me, I couldn't turn from. Think then what happiness I felt whenever I met you, that were more than all these to me. Yes, Jane dear; you were the only world and sun that I ever had. Although my eye couldn't rest upon you, I have this many a day felt your light in my heart, and if that was taken away from me, then would I be dark indeed." He had seized the girl's hand in his as he spoke, and by the exquisite sense of touch with which the blind are gifted, felt that her heart was fast melting as he proceeded. The perception of this gave a peculiar degree of tenderness and feeling to the tones of his voice, and quickened that mutual intelligence which, in those that love, passes through the hand, from one heart to another. "William," cried the girl with streaming eyes, "all I could do, was to cry for you-if I could do more I would-even now it's all I can do," 66 'Jane, if your heart was upon me and your hope with me you would not feel the sorrow yo say. But I doubt I doubt-yes—surely, surely it is true-you have pitied me all along, and you don't love me-and why should you? Am I not sightless and unseemly and indeed not one that ought to expect it?" William" she was about to proceed but could not. His tears fell fast, and he murmured something lowly and distinctly to himself-thea taking his little nosegay from his breast, he puts in his bosom next his heart. Slight as the incident appeared, yet, at that particular moment, it had something in it so mournfully hopeless, that his companion, much affected, at length spoke to him— "William," said she," do not-and oh, its early -too early for one like me, placed as I am, and placed as you are, to make such a confession." "Why," said he, again speaking lowly to h self, "why did I, or how could I expect it! but I “Jane,” he replied, in a kind of tranquil enthu- wouldn't, only I thought her heart like my own siasm, "I would not be grateful to God if I didn't one that would love the poorest thing in the world thank him for the state he placed me in; and for rather than hate it. Were not her words kind and all I've suffered, the harshness I receive soon her tears sweet? did not her voice come to me farpasses out of my mind—but you and the thoughts ther than it came to others? I knew her tread of you—your joy and your sorrow with me and among them all. Did she not, when I was a poor for me!—oh, the happiness and delight that they child, lay my head on her breast when I was tired give, who can know but myself? In the day time, by the heat of day and want of rest at night, till! when I'm wandering about the fields, the people fell asleep; and then sit motionless for fear of dissay that the poor orphan is thinking over his own turbing me till I awoke ? and how could I help feelhardships. Oh no! no! my heart's upon you-ing towards her as I did? I know she's poor and upon you, Jane, during the whole length of the hasn't a friend in the world; but to me to me, summer's day. Ever, ever, ever are you in my she's either life or death-my joy or my sorrow thoughts with joy--sometimes with care and some-for ever." times with fear, that sinks me down lest you only She caught his hand-her own tremulous with pity me for my blindnees-and because I am so the love she could neither conceal nor repress. helpless, and have not a friend but yourself. At' “Oh, William,” said she, “it's too early for one "Ever since my father's bed was worn out, it is," replied the boy; "but they can't afford me better. I get the run of the house in food, and of late they're kinder to me than they were— "Well, but will you leave them and come and live with us? My wife Bess consents." 66 so young as I am to make the confession you wish to get from me, but you did me wrong when you spoke of your want of sight as hindering me to love you. God knows I am as blind to your face as you are to mine; but-but my heart is used to you, and it would miss you, William, for we never had happiness but with one another; and how could we, if we were parted, ever have a happy day again? Where could we look for it or to what part of the world could we turn to make up "I would'nt like to be a burthen on them," said for each other's loss? Who cares for me except the other; "but if they wished it, I would rather yourself? and who cares for you but your own live where I am. I cannot but love them that I Jane!" She laid her head over on his bosom as she concluded. The two orphans kissed each other's lips, and both wept from an ecstatic impulse which instantly changed the character of their emotion. "I cannot say," said Martley, till I mention it to them." "But which would you prefer yourself?" have been living with all my life." "Well, but if they would rather you should leave them than stay with them, would you not come?" “In that case,” replied his pupil, “I would be glad to come." Poor things! when we consider their situation, and reflect upon the history of their almost blighted youth, how could it be otherwise than that their very love should be mingled with sorrow and tears. When the full interchange of their affection had taken place, they communicated to each other their bamble plans, on which their future means of support were to depend. He gave his history of the clarionet, to understand which instrument he had Bow a motive, dearer than his own life. She told him that an offer of service had been made to her by a neighboring family, which she had been permitted by those with whom she lived to accept, Perhaps a stronger proof of our orphan's power but that the amount of wages had not been yet of conciliating goodwill could not be given than the determined. He could not oppose this, though a dialogue which took place between him and his passing shadow came over his brow, on reflecting foster-father's family, in the course of that night. that he must in that case meet her seldom. His On mentioning the offer that had been made to security in her affection, however, consoled him, him, he was met by the same question which Ellis and they parted, each satisfied with what the other had put to him. proposed to do. "Then," said Ellis, " go and ask them if they let you, all's right; and harkee, Willy, any time they get cross to you and treat you badly, tell them you have a friend and a friend's roof to come to where you'll be better treated than ever you were with them." "Thank you, thank you, Mr. Ellis,” said the boy; "but don't ask me to speak harshly to them, for I couldn't do it." CHAPTER V. "Hear what they'll say, at all events," replied Ellis ; "and let me know to-morrow." 66 "Do you wish to go yourself?" said Philip; answer us that." "You know," said Martley, "that I've been my whole life a burthen and a helpless burthen upon you all, and it's only natural you should like to be free from the trouble of supporting one that can make you no return for it--but still He paused, for he feared to proceed, thinking of From this time forward the cares of life lay lightly on their hearts; Jane went to her service, and Martley paid daily visits to Tom Ellis, on whose good graces he appeared to gain rapidly. The pensioner, a warm-hearted but somewhat indolent man, was stirred into activity by the eager-course that they were tired of him. ness and regularity of the boy's inquiries about the clarionet. At length he actually set to work, and in about three weeks succeeded in collecting from the neighbors day after day, a sum large nough, reckoning what he advanced himself, to by a second-hand instrument, quite sufficient for the purposes of a learner. Nor did he stop here. In the course of about a week, he felt such an atachment for his pupil that, with the consent of is wife, he offered him his house as an asylum. "I have no children, Willy, as you know, and 've little to do to fill up my time. Come then and ve with us-you'll get plenty to eat and a fair ed to lie on. Is it true that you've nothing but a undle of straw at night, with Philip?" "But what?" said Philip. "If I thought," said the other, and paused again. 66 Willy, never heed what we might think at all," said the wife; "say what yourself would like-to go or stay." VOL. VII-63 "Will Philip allow me," said the boy, "and not be angry?" Yes," returned Philip, "say as she bids youI'll not be angry.' "Then," said William, "I'd far rather stay; and will stay, if you'll let me.' "Poor Willy," said the wife, "God knows you have an affectionate heart, and so far as my consent goes you may stay with us." "And must," observed Philip; "we took you |