each other who shall have the greatest number of admirers; and they exult when they make a conquest, as it is called.

"I was at chapel on Sunday: I heard a very popular minister; but had you, Martlet, been there, I know what you would have said. You would have told me, that his language was not sufficiently plain; his action too theatrical; his voice in praying not subdued enough; and you would have told me, that simplicity in language and manner ought to characterise the preacher of truth.

"I know it is impossible for me to receive your letter before the sixth of the present month, but I think I cannot wait longer than the tenth; and, oh, Martlet! should I ask for a letter, and the answer be that there is none, what shall I do?-I know not. I must say, in conclusion, that if you are not ill, it is very unkind of you not to write. This is the first time I have had reason to speak to you of unkindness ; you have ever been kind, ah, very kind to me, and think not but that Mary will ever be kind to you!"

CHAPTER V.

MARTLET returned home a few days before Mary, but as soon as he heard of her arrival, he hurried to the dwelling that contained the object of his tenderest thoughts and brightest anticipations. What his emotions were as he approached the door, let those who have been absent for only a short period of time from the object of their attachment, who have felt the loneliness and sorrow of separation, let those tell. Their meeting was of the most endearing description; he caught her in his arms, and in a tremulous voice she exclaimed,

66

O, Martlet, did you think the time long !" He was happy to find Mary unchangedthe same simple unaffected girl. Martlet

knew that she had been in society to which she was unaccustomed, in a polished and fashionable family; and he had often sighed to think that she might be tempted to lay aside the mildness and unassuming modesty

of her character. What, said he, if that which to me constitutes her greatest charm should render her the subject of ridicule to others! What if they should tell her that there is no dignity, no knowledge of the world in simplicity of manners and character! Mary is young and inexperienced, and she may not be able to confute their sophistry. She may perhaps even think that, from their superior knowledge and station, they ought to know better than she.

The lovers continued to enjoy each other's society, to go to chapel together, and to feel the bliss of mutual affection, till a series of afflicting domestic calamities once more separated them; and we shall now have to follow Martlet to the metropolis of the British empire, and to see him thrown at once on the wide world, dependent on his own individual exertions for his support.

In the short period of a year, he saw his father and sister numbered with the silent dead. His employer, too, relinquished business, and Martlet was necessitated to think of going to London, where he had a few relatives, for

employment. He felt a momentary joy at the idea of seeing the great mart of talent and genius of every description; but how could he leave Mary? He thought that if he obtained employment, he might soon be in circumstances to take her to himselfto possess the object

of his devoted attachment.

Among the many castles in the air that engrossed the mind of Martlet, we must not omit to mention, that he imagined he might easily in London gratify an almost unconquerable passion for knowledge, with which he was inspired. He had a strong desire to discover religious truth, and he valued learning as a means of successfully investigating it. With a melancholy peculiar to himself, he often expressed his dread of ignorance and "Days, months, years, my friend," he often said to me, "rapidly roll on, and I think that of all things in old age there is nothing so dreadful as ignorance. An old and ignorant man is a mournful object. Oh, what are we if we are destitute of knowledge? where is our boasted dignity, elevation above the brute creation, and how is it reasonable

error.

to suppose us destined for immortality?" He declared that he could be happy, though his food were the herbs of the field, and his drink water from the running brook, if he might be allowed to devote a year or two of his life to the pursuit of knowledge and truth. He said, he never could believe that it was the will of the great Giver of mind, that man should toil all his days merely to satisfy the wants of the body, whilst the immortal mind is suffered to lie, like a barren soil, uncultivated; and he often quoted the words of Shakespeare:

"Sure he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not

This capability and god-like reason
To rust in us unused."

I told him that it was not necessary for the improvement of the mind that man should devote the whole of his time to that object; and I pointed out many individuals who, while they supported themselves by their industry, yet had made considerable intellectual acquisitions. This had little effect upon Martlet; he replied by saying, that the man