agriculture in general, I shall thereby benefit, not only my
own immediate connections and dependants, but, in some de-
gree, mankind at large:--hence I shall not have lived in vain.'

With such reflections as these I was endeavouring to
console myself, as I plodded home from the fields, one cold,
damp, cloudy evening towards the close of October. But
the gleam of a bright red fire through the parlour window
had more effect in cheering my spirits, and rebuking my
thankless repinings, than all the sage reflections and good
resolutions I had forced my mind to frame;--for I was young
then, remember--only four-and-twenty--and had not ac-
quired half the rule over my own spirit that I now possess
--trifling as that may be.

However, that haven of bliss must not be entered till I
had exchanged my miry boots for a clean pair of shoes, and
my rough surtout for a respectable coat, and made myself
generally presentable before decent society; for my mother,
with all her kindness, was vastly particular on certain points.

In ascending to my room I was met upon the stairs by a
smart, pretty girl of nineteen, with a tidy, dumpy figure, a
round face, bright, blooming cheeks, glossy, clustering curls,
and little merry brown eyes. I need not tell you this was
my sister Rose. She is, I know, a comely matron still, and,
doubtless, no less lovely--in your eyes--than on the happy
day you first beheld her. Nothing told me then that
she, a few years hence, would be the wife of one entirely
unknown to me as yet, but destined hereafter to become a
closer friend than even herself, more intimate than that
unmannerly lad of seventeen, by whom I was collared in
the passage, on coming down, and well-nigh jerked off my
equilibrium, and who, in correction for his impudence, re-
ceived a resounding whack over the sconce, which, however,
sustained no serious injury from the infliction; as, besides
being more than commonly thick, it was protected by a re-
dundant shock of short, reddish curls, that my mother called
auburn.

On entering the parlour we found that honoured lady

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