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THE PUMP.

THE village of Tiverton is far from the great roads, and is, therefore, little known by travellers. But all who have seen it are agreed that it is one of the pleasantest places in the country. It is an old settlement, and, therefore, differs greatly from many of the pretty towns which have grown up within a few years. The houses are ancient, but many of them are snug and convenient. The street is very wide and very clean, and lined with fine old trees, which make a delightful shade in summer-time. The little river, which runs through Tiverton, turns several mill-wheels, but is not large enough for vessels of any size.

One of the most remarkable objects in the village, and one which seizes the attention of strangers, is the old town-pump, which stands at the west end of the street, near the minister's house. It is an old-fashioned affair, almost worn out in the service of the good people of Tiverton, who have drank of

its delightful water ever since the town was settled. It is kept in repair by the villagers, and is as much a favourite with them, as their famous chestnuttree, or the steeple of their church. It is pleasant, on a summer morning, just as the sun is peeping, to watch the little clusters which gather, one after another, around the pump. And from that hour until noon, and sometimes till night, you may look out a hundred times, and never see the pump deserted. I have often thought it must be fed by a living spring, and from a capacious reservoir in the neighbouring mountains.

So many people gather around the pump on warm days that it is a favourite talking-place for the villagers. It is to them what a coffee-house is to the people of a town. There they come with pitchers, pails, tubs and buckets, and there they often stay long after they have filled their vessels. The pump is visited by many who have springs or wells in their own yards. They fancy the water is better, and they get a little chat, and hear the news much more freely at the town-pump. The very near neighbours even make free to conduct some of their household operations there, just as if they were in their own areas.

One of the nearest neighbours to the pump, and one of the best women in Tiverton, was Ann

Forbes, a young married woman from Scotland. Her husband was a seafaring man, who left her to take care of herself during a large part of the year. But people used to say that Ann did as well without him as with him, for Eli Forbes was a passionate and an intemperate fellow, and, it was said, did not treat his excellent wife as she deserved; but this never came from Ann, and perhaps it was not true. However, that may have been; Ann had a quiet, meek, contented look, and, when her husband came in from sea, she used to put on her best clothes, and take his arm, and go with him to church; and all the people used to remark what a handsome couple they were.

They had been married two years, and had been in America about eighteen months. In the second summer after they came, a little boy that Providence had given them was taken from them by death. Eli looked very sorry when he came home and heard of it, but he soon forgot it. Ann seldom mentioned the child, but she never passed an hour without thinking of it. If you could have looked into her drawer, next to her mother's psalm book, which she had brought from Scotland with her, you might have seen a little black silk needle-book, and in it a tiny lock of white hair, which she had cut from the head of her Willie when he lay a

corpse upon the bed. Many a solitary hour did poor Ann spend, a stranger in a strange land, during that time of her affliction. She had no companion in her little cottage, except Douce, the dog they brought over with them; and, though she was a wife, she was quite a young woman, and not used to the ways of a new country. Then the neighbours did not always understand her manner of talking, some smiled, and a few ill-bred persons laughed outright. Yet she well knew that, in her native village, that dialect had sounded sweetly enough in the ears of many a young companion.

The days seemed long while Ann waited for her husband's return from sea. Sometimes she would lie awake, and listen to the howling storm until she trembled. Then she would wake shuddering out of some horrible dream, in which she had seen him swallowed by the waters. But the end of it always was, that she prayed to God most fervently for his safe return, and for his conversion and the salvation of his soul. For Ann had been brought up from her very infancy to believe in God as a hearer of prayer, and to fly to him in every difficulty. In her solitude, the best companion she had was the little Bible with silver clasps, which her aged father gave her on the dock at Greenock, when she was about to leave home for America. Oh,

how many tears trickled down her cheeks, and dropped on the pages of that book! They were not always tears of sorrow; for religion has unspeakable joys to bestow on those who love God; and Ann Forbes often found this to be so when she was spinning by herself, or when she sat and looked out on the pale face of the moon, and thought of her husband, her Scottish kinsfolk, and, last and best, of her God, the maker and upholder of all.

As Ann was returning one morning from the store, she was met by the post-master's wife, who told her that there were two letters for her in the office. She hastened to call for them, and took them home, that she might read them all alone. Before she broke the seal, she was surprised to observe that the direction upon the back was not in the handwriting of her husband. Yet the letters were from a foreign port, where she expected him to be. This troubled her mind, and she opened the first of them with a weak and trembling hand. She had not read far before she uttered a piercing shriek, and fell back upon the bed, at the edge

of which she had been sitting.

Here she lay for

some time in a kind of stupor, her breast heaving, and her eyes fixed upon the ceiling. She was unable to go on with the letter. She had read

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