sorrowful year, we had had a hard winter, the snows drifted on the mountains, and for six weeks I never saw the town, and poor Sarah lying sick at home; and when I did get out, I came straight to your mother's, for she had always a pitiful heart, and an open and a full hand too, and she stocked my alms basket full of provisions. Then you came skipping out of the other room, with a flannel gown in your hand, and your very eyes laughed with pleasure, and when you gave it to me, you said, "It is for your wife, and I sewed every stitch of it, John;" and then you was not bigger than a poppet, and could not speak plain yet. When I got home, and told my old woman, she shook her head, and said, you "was not long for this world;" but I laughed at her foolishness, and asked her, if the finest saplings did not live to make the noblest trees? Thanks to Him that is above, you are alive at this day, and many a wanderer will yet find shelter in your branches."
We trust our readers will pardon this digression, and accept the gratitude of the old man, as a proof that all men's good deeds are not 'written in sand.'
After John's departure, Jane remained for a few moments where he had left her, ruminating on his strange request, when her attention was called to a noise in her aunt's sleeping apartment, and she heard, as she thought, crazy Bet's voice raised to its highest pitch. She passed hastily through the passage, and on opening her aunt's door, she beheld a scene of the greatest confusion.
