the forehead, hung uncombed upon her shouldersher withered arm stretched without motion on her knee, in form and colouring seemed nothing that had lived her eye was fixed on the wall before her -an expression of suffering, and a faint movement of the lip, alone giving token of existence.

Placed with her back towards the door, she perceived not the intrusion, and while I paused to listen and to gaze, I might have determined that here at least was a spot where happiness could not dwell-one being, at least, to whom enjoyment upon earth must be forbidden by external circumstancewith whom to live was of necessity to be wretched. Well might the Listener in such a scene as this be startled by expressions of delight, strangely contrasted with the murmurs we are used to hear amid the world's abundance. But it was even so. From the pale shrivelled lips of this poor woman, we heard a whispering expression of enjoyment, scarcely articulate, yet not so low but that we could distinguish the words "Delightful," "Happy."

As we advanced with the hesitation of disgust into the unsightly hovel, the old woman looked at us with kindness, but without emotion, bade us be seated, and till questioned, showed very little inclination to speak. Being asked how she did, she at first replied, "Very ill," then hastily added, " 'My earcass is ill-but I am well, very well." And then

she laid her head upon a cold, black stone, projecting from the wall beside the fire-place, as if unable to support it longer. We remarked that it was bad weather. Yes," she answered- then hastily correcting herself" No, not bad-it is God Almighty's weather, and cannot be bad." "Are you in pain?" we asked—a question scarcely necessary, so plainly did her movements betray it. "Yes, always in pain-but not such pain as my Saviour suffered for me- his pain was worse than mine— mine does not signify." Some remark being made on the wretchedness of her dwelling, her stern features almost relaxed into a smile, and she said she did not think it so: and wished us all as happy as herself. As she showed little disposition to talk, and never made any remark till asked for it, and then in words as few and simple as might express her meaning, it was slowly and by reiterated questions that we could draw from her a simple tale. Being asked if that was all the bed she had on which to sleep, she said she seldom slept, and it was long that she had not been able to undress herselfbut it was on that straw she passed the night. We asked her if the night seemed not very long. "No -not long," she answered-"never long-I think of God all night, and, when the cock crows, am surprised it comes so soon." "And the days-you sit here all day, in pain and unable to move. Are the days not long?" "How can they be long? Is not he with me? Is it not all up-up?" an ex

pression she frequently made use of to describe the joyful elevation of her mind. On saying she passed much time in prayer, she was asked for what she prayed. To this she always answered, "Oh! to go, you know-to go-when he pleases-not till he pleases." To express the facility she found in prayer, she once said, it seemed as if her prayers were all laid out ready for her in her bed. But time would fail us to repeat the words, brief as they were, in which this aged saint expressed her gratitude to the Saviour who died for her-her enjoyment of the God who abode with her-her expectations of the heaven to which she was hasting-and perfect contentedness with her earthly portion. It proved on enquiry to be worse than it appeared. The outline of her history, as gathered at different times from her own lips, was this:

Her husband's name was Peg, her own being Mary, she was usually known by the appellation of Poll Peg, and had been long remembered in the village as living in extreme poverty and going about to beg bacon at Christmas-time. Her youth had been passed in service of various kinds; and though she did not know her age, it appeared, from public events which she remembered to have passed when she was a girl, that she could not be less than eighty. Later in life she had kept sheep upon the forest hills, and in the simplicity of her heart, would speak of her days of prosperity when she had two

sheep of her own. She could not read-but from attending divine service had become familiar with the language of scripture, and knew, though hitherto she did not regard, the promises and threatenings it contains. We know nothing of her previous character; that of her husband and family was very bad-but we are not informed that her's was so. The first earnest religious feeling she related of herself, was felt some short time previous, when walking alone in the fields, she bethought herself of her hard fate-a youth of toil, an old age of want and misery—and if she must go to hell at last, how dreadful was her portion. Struck with the appalling thought, she knelt down beneath the hedge to pray -the first time, perhaps, that heartfelt and earnest prayer had gone up to Heaven from her lips.

Not very long after this, as we understand, the old woman was taken ill, and unable to move from the straw, at that time her only bed, in a loft over the apartment we have described-where, little sheltered by the broken roof, and less by the rags that scarcely covered her, she lay exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, without money to support, or friend to comfort her. It was in this situation that her mind, dwelling probably on the things that in health passed by her unregarded, received the strong and lasting impression of a vision she thought she beheld, probably in a dream, though she herself believed that she was waking. In idea she saw the

broad road and the narrow, as described in Scripture. In the broad road, to use her own expressions, there were many walking, it was smooth and pleasant, and they got on fast-but the end of it was dark. On the narrow road she herself was treading and some few others—but the way was rugged-some turned back, and others sat down unable to proceed. She herself advanced till she reached a place more beautiful, she said, than any thing to which she could compare it. When asked what it was like, she could not say, but that it was very bright, and that there were many sitting there. Being questioned who these were she said they were like men, but larger and more beautiful, and all dressed in glitterings,-such was her expression,-and one was more beautiful than the rest-whom she knew to be the Saviour, because of his readiness and kindness in receiving her. But the most pleasing impression seemed to be left by the Hallelujahs this company were singing. She was told by Him she knew to be the Saviour, that she must go back for a little time, and then should come again to dwell with them for ever.

Thus ended her vision-but not so the impression it made. The recollection of the scene she had witnessed and of the bliss that had been promised her, was the source of all her happiness. Turning her eye from earth to heaven, and fixing all her thoughts on that eternity to which she was hastening,