320 DECEMBER. 



fruitless one. She may find her faithless hus- 

 band, and may weep, and expostulate, and up- 

 braid ; but the heart that is once led from its 

 home by strange charms there is faint hope of 

 reclaiming. 



How far more enviable is the woman that I 

 have now in my eye. I see her crossing the 

 heath, — a little, broad-built woman, in an old 

 grey cloak, beneath which she carries in her 

 arms an infant, and a troop of others, one 

 scarcely appearing older than another, trot after 

 her. She has lost her husband by death, and 

 suddenly finds herself alone, far from friends. 

 She has spirit enough to scorn the assistance of 

 the parish ; she sets out, and trusts to Provi- 

 dence. Grief certainly has made but little im- 

 pression on her countenance ; and her children 

 know nothing of it. They know not what it 

 means to be orphans ; they know not that they 

 are poor; they follow their slowly-progressing 

 mother from place to place, like playful kids ; 

 and when she sits down in some solitary nook, 

 they gambol before her. They enjoy the sun 

 and air ; they are plump and ruddy ; and though 

 they ask for nothing, their looks beg for them, 

 and scarcely a carriage passes but money flies 

 for them out of the window. 



Not so with the last being whom I shall no- 

 tice. This is a widow, old and poor. For years 



