7? STUDIES OF NATURE, 



no longer charmed with the warbling of the birds, 

 except a few bengalis, on the fummit of the neigh»- 

 bouring rocks, which deplored, with plaintive 

 notes, the lofs of their young. 



At fight of this defolation, Virginia faid to Paul, 

 •* You brought the birds hither, and the hurricane 

 ** has deftroyed them J you planted this garden, 

 ** and it is now no more : every thing on earth 

 ** perifhes; Heaven, alone, is unchangeable." Paul 

 replied : *' Oh ! then, that it were in my power 

 " to beftow fome gift of Heaven upon you ! But, 

 '* alas ! I poflefs nothing, now, even on the Earth.'* 

 Virginia f with a blulh, returned : *' You have, 

 ** certainly, the portrait of St. Patd, that you can 

 " call your own." Scarcely had (lie pronounced 

 thefe words, than Paul ûcw to his mother's cottage, 

 to feek for it. This portrait was a fmall minia- 

 turCj reprefenting Paul the hermit. Margaret re- 

 garded it with fingular devotion : while a girl, Qie 

 wore it, long, round her own neck ; but when (be 

 became a mother, (lie fufpended it round that of 

 her child. It happened that, being pregnant of 

 him, and abandoned by all the World, from merely 

 contemplating the image of this blelfed Reclufe, 

 the fruit of her womb contracled a ftrong refem- 

 blance to it; this determined her to beftow the 

 fame name on him ; and, likewife, to give him for 

 a patron, a Saint that had pafTed his life far from 



Man, 



