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Though with little of what is called sentiment, or poetry, or fancy in his mind (for harsh was the teaching of his childhood, and meagre the occasions of self-culture ever since), the beauty of creation is by no means lost upon him, and he notices at times its wisdom too. With a fixed habit of manly piety, ever on his lips and ever in his heart, he recognizes Providence in all things, just, and wise, and good. than so; simply as a little child who endures the school hour for the prospect of his playtime, Roger Acton bears up with noble meekness against present suffering, knowing that his work and trials and troubles are only for a little while, but his rest and his reward remain a long hereafter. He never questioned this; he knew right well Who had earned it for him; and he lived grateful and obedient, filling up the duties of his humble station. This was his faith, and his works followed it. He believed that God had placed him in his lot, to be a labourer and till God's earth, and, when his work is done, to be sent on better service in some happier sphere: the where, or

the how, did not puzzle him, any more than divers other enigmatical whys and wherefores of his present state; he only knew this, that it would all come right at last; and, barring sin, (which he didn't comprehend,) somehow all was right at present. What if poverty pinched him? he was a great heir still;-what if oppression bruised him? it would soon be over. He trusted to his Pilot, like the landsman in a storm; to his Father, as an infant in the dark. For guilt, he had a Saviour, and he thought of him in penitence; for trouble a Guardian, and he looked to him in peace; and as for toil, back-breaking toil, there was another Master whom he served with spade and mattock and a thankful heart, while he seemed only to be working for the landlord or his bailiff.

Such a man then had been Roger Acton from his youth up till now, or, if sadness must be told, nearly until now; for, to speak truth, his heart at times would fail him, and of late he had been bitter in repinings and complaint. For a day or two, in particular, he had mur

mured loudly. It was hard, very hard, that an honest industrious man, as he was, should so scantly pick a living out of this rich earth : after all said, let the parson preach as he will, it's a fine thing to have money, and that his reverence knows right well, or he wouldn't look so closely for his dues. [N.B. Poor Mr. Evans was struggling as well as he could to bring up six children, on a hundred and twenty pounds per annum.] Roger, too, was getting on in years, with a blacker prospect for the future, than when he first stood behind a plough-tail. Then there were many wants unsatisfied, which a bit of gold might buy; and his wife teased him to be doing something better. Thus was it come at length to pass, that, although he had endured so many years, he now got discontented at his penury;-what human heart can blame him?-and with murmurings came doubt; with doubt of providence, desire of lucre; so the sunshine of religion faded from his path;-what mortal mind can wonder?

CHAPTER II.

THE FAMILY; THE HOME; AND MORE REPININGS.

Now, if Malthus and Martineau be verily the pundits that men think them, Roger had twice in life done a very foolish thing: he had sinned against society, statistics, and common sense, by a two-fold marriage. The wife of his youth, (I am afraid he married early,) had once been kitchen-maid at the Hall; but the sudden change from living luxuriously in a great house, to the griping poverty of a cotter's hovel, had changed in three short years the buxom country girl into an emaciated shadow of her former self, and the sorrowing husband buried her in her second childbed. The powers of the parish clapped their hands; political economy was glad; prudence chuckled; and a coarsefeatured farmer (he meant no ill), who occa

sionally had given Roger work, heartlessly bade him be thankful that his cares were the fewer and his incumbrance was removed; "Aye, and Heaven take the babbies also to itself," the Herodian added. But Acton's heart was broken; scarcely could he lift up his head; and his work, though sturdy as before, was more mechanical, less high-motived and many a year of dreary widowhood he mourned a loss all the greater, though anything but bitterer, for the infants so left motherless. To these, now grown into a strapping youth and a brighteyed graceful girl, had he been the tenderest of nurses, and well supplied the place of her whom they had lost. Neighbours would have helped him gladly, sometimes did; and many was the hinted offer, (disinterested enough too, for in that match penury must have been the settlement, and starvation the dower,) of giving them a mother's kindly care; but Roger could not quite so soon forget the dead; so he would carry his darlings with him to his work, and feed them with his own hard hands; the farmers winked at it, and never said a word