little wonder maybe (though no small blame) that Roger Acton had not enough of religion or philosophy to rise and thank his Maker for the blessings of existence.

He had just been dreaming of great good luck. Poor people often do so; just as Ugolino dreamt of imperial feasts, and Bruce, in his delirious thirst on the Sahara, could not banish from his mind the cool fountains of Shiraz, and the luxurious waters of old Nile. Roger had unfortunately dreamt of having found a crock of gold, I dare say he will

counting out his treasure,

and just as he was

that blessed beauti

ful heap of shining money, cruel habit roused him up before the dawn, and his wealth faded from his fancy. So he awoke at five anything but cheerfully.

It was Grace's habit, good girl, to read to her father in the morning a few verses from the volume she best loved; she always woke betimes when she heard him getting up, and he could hear her easily from her little flockbed behind the lath partition; and many a

time had her dear religious tongue, uttering the words of peace, soothed her father's mind, and strengthened him to meet the day's affliction; many times it raised his thoughts from the heavy cares of life to the buoyant hopes of immortality. Hitherto, Roger had owed half his meek contentedness to those sweet lessons from a daughter's lips, and knew that he was reaping, as he heard, the harvest of his own paternal care, and heaven-blest instructions. However, upon this dark morning he was full of other thoughts, murmurings, and doubts, and poverty, and riches. So, when Grace, after her usual affectionate salutations, gently began to read,

"The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory —,"

Her father strangely stopped her on a sudden with

"Enough, enough, my girl! God wot, the sufferings are grievous, and the glory long a-coming."

Then he heavily went down stairs, and left Grace crying.

CHAPTER III.

THE CONTRAST.

THUS, full of carking care, while he pushed aside the proffered consolation, Roger Acton walked abroad. There was yet but a glimmer of faint light, and the twittering of birds told more assuringly of morning than any cheerful symptom on the sky: however, it had pretty well ceased raining, that was one comfort, and as Roger, shouldering his spade, and with the day's provision in a handkerchief, trudged out upon his daily duty, those good old thoughts of thankfulness came upon his mind, and he forgot awhile the dream that had unstrung him. Turning for a moment to look upon his hovel, and bless its inmates with a prayer, he half resolved to run back, and hear a few more

words, if only not to vex his darling child: but there was now no time to spare; and then, as he gazed upon her desolate abode so foul a casket for so fair a jewel jewel- his bitter thoughts returned to him again, and he strode away, repining.

At pre

Acton's cottage was one of those doubtful domiciles, whose only recommendation it is, that they are picturesque in summer. sent we behold a reeking rotting mass of black thatch in a cheerless swamp; but, as the year wears on, those time-stained walls, though still both damp and mouldy, will be luxuriantly overspread with creeping plants,— honeysuckle, woodbine, jessamine, and and the everblowing monthly rose. Many was the touring artist it had charmed, and Suffolk-street had seen it often spectators looked upon the scene as on an old familiar friend, whose face they knew full well, but whose name they had forgotten for the minute. Many were the fair hands that had immortalized its beauties in their albums, and frequent the notes of admiration uttered by attending swains; particularly if there chanced

:

to be taken into the view a feathery elm that now creaked overhead, and dripped on the thatch like the dropping-well at Knaresborough, and (in the near distance) a large pond, or rather lake, upon whose sedgy banks, gay-not now, but soon about to be-with flowering reeds and bright green willows, the pretty cottage stood. In truth, if man were but a hibernating animal, invisible as dormice in the winter, and only to be seen with summer-swallows, Acton's cottage at Hurstley might have been a cantle cut from the Elysian-fields. But there are certain other seasons in the year, and human nature cannot long exist on the merely " the merely "picturesque in

Some fifty yards, or so, from the hither shore, we discern a roughly wooded ait, Pike Island to wit, a famous place for fish, and the grand rendezvous for woodcocks; which, amongst other useful and ornamental purposes, serves to screen out the labourer's hovel, at this the narrowest part of the lake, from a view of that fine old mansion on the opposite shore, the seat of Sir John Vincent, a baronet just of age, and the