slumber as he leaned back in his chair. I knew that I had been in a delirium, and fancied that I had not yet recovered my recollections; but I was too weak to reason upon any thing which I saw, and in consequence too weak to wonder.

The features of the novice were like those of my wife, but yet not the same; yet the resemblance confused me, for, as I before remarked, I could not reason, and having looked for a minute on the sweet, pale, downcast countenance, I spoke and said, "Is not the dream gone yet?" Mr. Martin and the young lady both sprang up on hearing my voice, the lady drawing back as if in alarm, my excellent friend coming forward, and calmly explaining to me how he happened to be present. "But that fair novice," I replied, "why does she look like my wife? My wife is dead, and has been dead long, and my daughter is dead also to me; why then does any one venture to come here looking like my wife? Tell that lady to go, I would rather not see her, she reminds me of what I have lost," and I began to weep like a child. "Shall I go? shall I go? said the young lady, addressing Mr. Martin. "No, my child," replied the excellent man; "approach and kneel to your father, and kiss his thin pale hand; tell him that you are not lost to him for ever; that his arrival has retarded the completion of the sacrifice, and that you are determined, God helping you, to devote yourself henceforward to perform the duties of a pious daughter, which are more acceptable, let me assure you, in the eyes of God, than those cold services which are the fabrications of impious man." "Oh! Mr. Martin," she replied, still holding back, "but am I not engaged? I have taken the white veil; am I not bound ?" "Come forward," he said with some authority; "first fulfil the duties which God required when he gave you a parent; look again at the book you have in your

and

hand :-' If a woman also vow a vow unto the Lord, and bind herself by a bond, being in her father's house in her youth; and her father hear her vow, her bond wherewith she hath bound her soul, and her father shall hold his peace at her; then all her vows shall stand, and every bond wherewith she hath bound her soul shall stand. But if her father disallow her in the day that he heareth; not any of her vows, or of her bonds wherewith she hath bound her soul, shall stand; and the Lord shall forgive her, because her father disallowed her,' Numb. xxx. 3—5.; and then add what you may of your works of supereroga tion, and your impious will worship, as if you could be aught else when all is done than an unprofitable servant; or as if you could add aught of merit to the one great sacrifice once made for the sins and salvation of a lost world ;" and as he spoke he drew her, half reluctantly, forward, for it was indeed my Mary who stood before me, and who had as yet only taken the white veil; and he still used the same gentle force, till being near the bed, she sunk upon her knees, and taking my hand, she pressed it to her lips, whilst the excellent Mr. Martin pronounced a solemn blessing upon us both, adding, "henceforward let no one presume to dissolve those domestic ties appointed by the Almighty; and grant, oh heavenly Father, that this child may never again be in like manner separated from her earthly father, unless to be united in a still closer bond in that state of holy matrimony which was enacted in paradise, ere yet the first parents of mankind had fallen from their allegiance to their Maker." Whilst Mr. Martin pronounced these words in a very solemn manner, my daughter, still kneeling and holding her lips upon my feeble hand, seemed to be violently agitated, so that her whole person shook with a convulsive motion.

Although I was too weak to enter farther into what

was passing than to understand that I had my child again, and that consequently I had mistaken another for her in the chapel, nevertheless, as it afterwards appeared, a few weeks' further delay would have accomplished the sacrifice of my lovely Mary, who having been persuaded (through the deception of the nuns, aided by their extreme ignorance) to take the white veil, wanted only a few months of the termination of her novitiate under that state.

It has always astonished me how Mr. Martin, by his firmness, so awed the superior as to allow of the visit to me; and perhaps it was only with the expectation of my death, and the fear of her being reclaimed by the British government, (which was then in such high favour with the Sardinian court, that it was thought nothing could be refused it,) that this favour was granted.

At first we much feared that, as the mind of my child was so strongly impressed with the duty of fulfilling the sacrifice she had intended, she would not resist the appeal to her from the convent; but in the eagerness of the superior to recover her prey she acted with injudicious haste, and I received a notice to quit the state as well as Mr. Martin.

My daughter, as if astonished, decided to come with me, and we delayed not. As it was, months passed away before we could bring her mind to see that her return to the world was not a sin not to be repented of. But as I have already made my narrative as long as I at first intended it to be; I shall conclude it in a few words.

When we moved across the French frontier to Antibes, we remained but a short time to recover my strength; we hastened homewards, Mr. and Mrs. Martin and their daughters accompanying us, and passing through Provence, Languedoc, and Gascony, we at length reached Bourdeaux, where we took ship

ping for England; thinking that it would be more easy and safe for Mary not to remain in a Catholic country for a moment longer than needful; an arrangement which, at the time, made her very uncomfortable; but the change of scene was of much use to her, and the society of Mr. Martin's daughters, during the journey, was particularly blessed in bringing her mind to the knowledge of the truth.

When I arrived at home, my father retired from business to his pleasant country house a few miles from London, and there he insisted on my bringing Mary. I could not entirely at once close my affairs, but I passed as much time as I could there, until I had wound up my business, when I also joined them.

·

Mr. Martin and his family reside near, and we see them almost every day; and if, in the course of events, we cannot expect that this most happy arrangement of circumstances can be of very long endurance, yet we may bless God who has made us to feel that he who has revealed his Son to our souls, will assuredly with him give us all things which are best calculated to promote our good on earth, and our happiness in the world to come.

NICE, 4th FEB. 1832.

THE BASKET MAKER.

PREFACE.

THIS story is a very plain homespun narrative, but we have put it near the end of our series, because it belongs to older people than the rest of our stories.

Here we come down into common every day life, into the house of a humble basket maker; and yet I am quite sure that every one of you, my young readers, will admire and respect the humble Alice, as much as if she wore a royal diadem. Thus, whenever it pleases God to make his glory manifest in vessels of clay, however mean they may be, we can not but acknowledge the divine hand; and if we are Christians, we can not but earnestly hope that he will, in like man. ner, also manifest his glory in ourselves.

If my reader is not disposed to descend into lowly life I would advise him not to read my little book, although I could promise him that I will not introduce him into any society which might give offence to his most refined and delicate feelings.

I am a basket maker by trade, and my dwelling for many years past has been on the road between London and Hackney. When I first established myself there, my house, though built in a line with those on either side fronting the road, was so distinct from every other, that one must have called aloud indeed before one could have made a neighbour hear, even in the stillest hour of night; behind my house was all open field, and our little garden was never at that time deprived of the rays of the sun by the shadows of other houses; truly it was a pleasant spot then, and is well enough at this time; and I love it the more because it was there that I brought my dear Aly, only three days after our marriage, for I fetched her from the country as far off as Bulmarsh-heath in Berkshire; and it was there, too, where all my babies, to the number