4

"Go up again, Mrs. Timmins," said Mr. Emery," and search in the maids' rooms for a riband which will match this shred."

Mrs. Timmins immediately followed Mr. Emery's advice; and while she and Mrs. Bibs were absent an awful pause ensued, during which Betty changed colour twenty times, and seemed ready to faint.

At length the steps of the two matrons were heard on the staircase; and a moment afterward, Mrs. Timmins appeared with Betty's bag, in which were not only a few shreds of the same kind of riband, but a small portion of the wire of the gold tassel, which had been caught by these shreds, and torn off in the haste with which the young woman had snatched the purse out of the bag.

The terrified Betty was unable to withstand all this evidence; but bursting into tears and falling on her knees, she confessed all she had done, and the part which Charlotte had taken in the business. And these two young women thought themselves well off in being permitted to leave the house without further punishment.

Thus it appears that nothing is more difficult than to injure those who are truly upright and honest, and that the Almighty may bring our foul deeds to light by circumstances which it would be impossible to guard against.

After this circumstance Joan was thoroughly restored to the confidence of Mrs. Timmins, and continued in her service for three years or more, during which time there was nothing remarkable in her whatever but her fidelity; for her person was clumsy, and she never could get rid of her countrified gait, or quite lose the strong accent in which she spoke. With her needle she was slow, and far from handy; and there was no natural sprightliness in her manner. But Mrs. Timmins overlooked all these things, in consideration of her rare and undeviating honesty; "For," as the good old servant would often say to her lady, "I can hire a seamstress to sew linen; I can call in a neighbour to converse with me; I can get a clever cook and clean housemaid for money; but where, my lady, is the servant to be met with to whom I can give my keys, and be sure not to be robbed, or into whose hands I can put a purse of untold gold and have a faithful account of every penny? Why, my lady, there is now some comfort in being ill and keeping my bed; I am sure, when I come down at

the end of a week, a fortnight, or a month, to find all things in order as I left them."

Lady Oakwood smiled at Mrs. Timmins's idea of the comfort of being ill, and ordered that Kitty and John should be remembered every Christmas as long as their daughter did so well.

And now I must finish, in as few words as possible, the history of Joan.

When this young woman had reached the age of twenty-one, my lord's family was greatly afflicted with the typhus fever. It was a terrible time. My lord was first taken ill; then my lady and several of the servants; but all so near together, that there was not time to remove the children before they took the infection.

My lord's only son was at that time just eleven years old. He sickened immediately after his parents; and their anxiety respecting him was the more dreadful, because they could not attend to him. As Mrs. Bibs was ill too, Mrs. Timmins had put Joan to attend on my lady, when she herself could not be with her; and Lady Oakwood had found her so very kind and attentive, so wakeful, so tender, that she would not rest when she heard her son was ill, till she had transferred this tender nurse to him, recommending the child to her care with tears in her eyes.

Here, indeed, was a triumph of fidelity over every other quality. Joan went to the young lord, and was his watchful and faithful nurse night and day, till the little boy was pronounced out of danger; at which time this trusty girl, wholly exhausted and worn out, was carried to her bed to be nursed through the same fever from which the rest of the family were then recovering.

Joan lay long on a bed of sickness; and the little lord, when able to leave his room, used daily to come to her door to inquire after her, always declaring that he should have died if Joan had not been so kind to him all night and all day.

Joan at length got better; and as soon as she was able to bear it, he came to her, and taking her to a window of her room which looked into the park (for during her illness she had been moved into a room more airy than her own), "There, Joan," he said, "look out at that window: do you see the lake ?"

"Yes, sure, my lord," said Joan.

"And that wood on the other side, by the temple ?” “Yes, my lord, I do,” replied she

"And that little bit of green land above the wood, where the white horse is feeding?"

"Yes, I sees it, my lord," said Joan.

"And do you see the chimneys of a cottage peeping up above the trees?"

"Yes, my lord," replied the young woman.

"That is a pretty cottage, Joan," said the little lord, and it has a garden, and rose-trees, and pinks, and old man, and it is nicely furnished; and there the person is to live who is to teach the poor children that belong to the cottages in the dingle; and that person is to pay no rent, and to have five shillings a week. Now can you guess the name of that person?"

No, sure, my lord, no," said Joan; "no, indeed." "But I can," said the little boy; "and it is Kitty Clark; and her husband will not have farther to go to his work than he has now. And I got the place for your mother, Joan, because you were so good to me when I was sick, and you prayed for me in the night when I was so very ill; I heard it, though you thought I did not; and so, Joan, I asked papa, and Kitty Clark is to have the house. So don't think I have forgotten your kindness, or that you never once went to sleep all the time I was in pain." So saying, the little boy clapped his hand on hers, and went jumping out of the room, leaving Joan actually sobbing for joy.

Twelve years or more are now passed since the pa rents of Joan went to the cottage which the young lord showed to their daughter; twelve happy and peaceful years, ten of which Joan spent in my lord's house, under good Mrs. Timmins. But by my last accounts, she is married to one of the gardeners, and lives in a cottage in the shrubbery; and as Mrs. Timmins is getting very infirm, there is scarce a day in which she does not come to the hall to help her old mistress.

The young lord is become a truly excellent young man-excellent in the best sense of the word; and he to this day affirms that his first ideas of true religion were given him in the observations he made, during his illness, on the conduct of poor Joan Clark.

And now, my dear reader, I hope that this little nar rative has convinced you that a faithful, upright conduct is more profitable even in this world than many other qualities of a more brilliant and striking kind.

THE

YOUNG FORESTER.

PART I.

In a certain royal forest in one of the southern counties in England, there was, a few years ago, an ancient mansion, which had formerly been the habitation of a noble family, but which of late years had become the residence of persons employed as keepers of the deer.

This mansion, which had been built about the time of Queen Elizabeth, was constructed of large cross and upright beams, filled up with lath and plaster. These beams were painted black, and their projecting ends carved into strange shapes, resembling heads of lions, dragons, and monsters of various kinds. The intervals between the timbers had formerly been washed white, but time had changed their colour into a dingy brown; and in many places the plaster having fallen quite away, admitted the air and light into the inner apartments, through the bare laths. The upper stories of this ancient dwelling projected considerably over the lower ones. According to the fashion of the days in which the building had been first erected, the windows were high and narrow, with small casements formed of a thick greenish glass, through which any outward object could be but indistinctly seen. The house presented two regular fronts, one towards the north, and the other to the south; each front consisting of two gable ends, most curiously and particularly adorned with sundry strange carvings and curious devices of the kind before mentioned. A large door presented itself in the centre of each front. The situation of this dwelling was, as I before said, in a royal forest: on three sides the trees and brushwood encroached upon the house, excepting where they were in some degree kept off by the old

garden wall: but towards the south, through a wide opening in the forest, appeared a beautiful prospect of plain country, with corn-fields, cottages, villages, and churches -beyond which was the sea, extending itself as far as the eye could reach.

When the house was first deserted by its more noble inhabitants, and appointed by the ranger of the forest as a habitation for the keepers of the deer, care had been taken to divide it into two dwellings, by closing up all the doors of communication in the centre of the building both above and below; and at the same time the mansion had been stripped of all its most valuable ornaments and furniture. There still, however, remained some pictures of ancient date in the long galleries and chambers above stairs, together with a few old-fashioned bedsteads and testers, whose faded and decayed hangings had once been very rich and valuable.

Having now described the house, which was by no means so comfortable a habitation for a poor family as a tight and neat little cottage would have afforded, I shall proceed to describe the two families which occupied this roomy dwelling about the date of my story, which, as nearly as I can judge, is fifty years back from the present day.

The old mansion was, as I have already told my reader, divided into two distinct tenements: one fronting the north, and having no prospect but that which trees and bramble bushes, mixed with old garden walls and ruined outhouses, could offer; and the other looking towards the south, which was far the most lightsome and agreeable of the two dwellings, not only enjoying the rays of the sun, which never visited the other side, but at the same time commanding as wide and pleasant a view as any country could afford.

In this last house lived one John Webb, a person who had acted for many years as gamekeeper in the family of the nobleman who was ranger of the forest. Having been a favourite with this nobleman from a boy, this person was, on his marriage, promoted to the place of head keeper of his majesty's deer; a situation which, considering the temptations it held out to dishonesty and insobriety, he was by no means qualified to occupy. John Webb, from having lived long in a great family, and having associated a good deal with the nobleman himself in his quality of gamekeeper, had acquired such