Rescue began early to manifest no small degree
of penetration in discerning motive, and discovering
the lay of the land. When her duties placed her
alone with her master, her conversation generally
turned upon the beauty of her mistress; and when
with her, upon the goodness and wisdom of her
master, or his peculiar ways of showing unconscious
affection for his mistress; and she had an exceeding
shrewdness of interpretation, which could give the
most common looks and actions a plausive aspect
of love. Whenever the young and sly savagess
had been so fortunate as to gain the particular
good will of her mistress in this way, she was sure,
by way of compensation, to come forth the next
holiday morning—for they had their days of labour
and their holidays—robed and looped in one of
the new ornamented, new moulded, and cast gowns
of her mistress. Like the shades of the departed
in the faith of the Pythagoreans, the dresses of the
mistress regularly returned to earth, in a new form,
on the tall and powerful frame of Rescue. The
awkward delight, and the complacent consciousness
of vanity, manifested by a kind of ludicrous, tragicomic
gait of the buskin, however ridiculous to the
master, seemed all easy, natural, and graceful to
the mistress. Many were the long hours that the
mistress and the maid peaceably and happily occupied
all their thoughts in these important arrangements
for the transmigration of gowns and dresses.
Rescue learned still more readily to decide touching

[figure description] Page 018.[end figure description]

becoming forms, and colours, and patterns, than to
read and write. Nor did her mistress ever adopt
or new model a dress for herself, without showing
Rescue the engravings in the magazine of fashion,
and taking her judgment in reference to the most
tasteful and beautiful among the varieties of costume
and figure that these engravings presented.
The master sometimes was internally grieved to
find the interest of these important occupations
constantly growing to such a degree, as to make
alarming inroads upon the pleasures of his intercourse
with his wife. When these grave matters
were in discussion, he soon perceived that he played
the wise and the amiable to very little purpose; and
that even his best conversations fell upon the ear
of his wife as interruptions. Rescue always had a
keen eye to the importance of this point, and to
perceive that if she stood well with the mistress,
she need have no fear of being well with the master.
To him the extravagant terms of commendation in
which Rescue praised the dress and personal beauty
of her mistress seemed affected and overstrained.
But when he so expressed himself in private to his
wife, she still saw, in this extravagance, no more
than the amiable enthusiasm of a simple character,
and an affectionate nature.

But, probably, casting their joys and sorrows
into a sum, it falls to the lot of few mortals to be
happier than was this family. Contrary to all that
he had heard said or sung upon the subject, and

[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]

contrary even to his own expectations, coloured as
they were by love, his affection for his wife became
more intense after marriage than before. Her
beauty grew on his imagination. Deportment
which before their union had clearly seemed to him
to be dictated by caprice, now only had the spice
and the zest of variety. He began to have very
clear and distinct perceptions upon the subject of
the origin of the different forms of government.
He learned to trace despotism and chains to other
causes than had generally been assigned by legislators
and political writers. He saw and felt the
mystery of a government kept up without guards
or heralds, or visible symbols of power, which held
in a durance so pleasant, that he even wished not
to shake off his chains. They, perhaps, conversed
upon some point of taste or opinion, or discussed
some project for adoption or rejection. It was often
his misfortune to think differently from his wife. Her
argument was always, or at least for the most part,
maintained in smiles, gently, and without pressing
it to extremes. He generally found himself, after
sleeping in deliberation, the next day in sentiment
with his wife. He would scarcely have remembered
that he had ever entertained another opinion, or
meditated another purpose, had not a certain
knowing smile of his wife, and the remark, “My
love, you thought differently yesterday,” reminded
him that she considered him a good and an obedient
subject.

[figure description] Page 020.[end figure description]

Indeed, if he felt any standing cause for regret,
it was, to observe that his wife, whom he wished
always to contemplate as an angel in intellect and
heart, as she was in person, had brought to those
solitudes no small share of the tastes and habits
which she had fostered in other days, and another
order of things. It was not so much, that the
extreme and minute attention which she paid to her
dress and daily appearance occupied so great a
portion of her time, as to deprive him of much of
her society, though he painfully felt this privation,
as it was, that he could not endure to think, that a
woman so lovely should show such a want of conformity
to circumstances, and keeping, and intellectual
taste, as to bring to that solitude propensities
which were only excusable where every thing about
her was calculated, not only to inspire those tastes,
but to keep her in countenance in indulging them.
Had he been in society, indeed, he would not have
allowed another to embody in words his own feelings
in this case. He always ended these views by
concluding, that the most intelligent and self-disciplined
woman, as well as the most beautiful, had
fallen to his share. Never, probably, had mutual
affection been more constant and intense; and yet
the painful fact must stand recorded on these annals,
that the thermometer of connubial affection had
sensible variations. For the most part, the range
was so slight, as to afford a variety not very unpleasant.
Once or twice the sky was actually

[figure description] Page 021.[end figure description]

overcast, and a real storm ensued. A narrative of
the causes and results is noted here, only that
others, who are sailing down the stream of matrimonial
life, may derive warning from their case.
These storms grew from a speck in the sky, not
larger than the prophet's harbinger.

The origin and history of the first was as follows.
The weather had been peculiarly delightful. For
some days he had felt himself afflicted with something
of that feeling of loneliness, dissatisfaction
with himself, and ennui, which inspired him with a
want, most sensibly felt, of the society of his wife.
A feeling, the direct reverse, seemed at the same
time to have possession of her. For many days
in succession, when he waited for her to go abroad
with him, and cheer his loneliness amidst the verdure
of the groves, she and Rescue were closeted,
and had evidently been laying their heads together
in conclave. Mysterious whispers and looks were
interchanged between them; and while he was
pining with the want of her companionship in his
walks, his sailing, or angling, she appeared all at
once to have found enjoyments which were more
than a compensation for the society of her husband.
In a tone, perhaps, more like complaint than he
ought to have adopted, he asked her when he should
once more have the only enjoyment that he could
possess, the pleasure of her society. With a grave
air, she answered, “All in good time, Arthur, you
shall know.” On the following Sabbath morning

[figure description] Page 022.[end figure description]

the cabinet mystery was explained. His wife met
him at breakfast, in a splendid new dress, which,
she told him with great complacency, was a fashionable
morning dress. The gigantic Rescue, too,
was dizened as fine as a peacock. With a countenance,
in which the triumph of beauty and dress
visibly predominated over the effort to seem composed
and indifferent, she asked him what he
thought of her dress. In his delight at regaining
her society in his accustomed morning walk, and
entirely satisfied, as he was, with her appearance in
any dress; perhaps, too, thinking of something else
at the moment, or not aware of the importance
attached to the reply, and, it may be, inly displeased
that preparing this dress had deprived him of so
much of his wife's society; he answered carelessly,
that he thought it might have been a becoming dress
in London; but he now deemed, that a dress more
flowing, rural, and easy, gave her a better appearance
here. Her arm, which had been folded within
his, dropped. The tears started into her eyes, and
murmuring something about the misfortune of want
of taste, she left him, and took the arm of Rescue,
almost as fine as herself. The strongly marked
olive face of her maid, caught the expression of
the mistress; and, for the first time, her sad and
reproachful countenance charged her master with
cruelty and outrage. Farewell, for that day, to
verdure, and fragrance, and flowers, and communion
of the heart; and the satisfied declarations, “How

[figure description] Page 023.[end figure description]

happy we have been this day!” with which their
evenings used to close. He could hardly forbear
thinking that even the pigeons and hares took part
with hiswife in her discontent. The disappointment
was the more bitter from the circumstance, that his
heart had beat high with the contrast of the pleasure
expected in this walk. However, they had
plenty of that solemn silence, that is supposed to be
so favourable to the proper meditations of the Sabbath.
This brown study, and this meditative silence
lasted four days, though it seemed to be not less
painful to the wife than the husband. On the fifth
day she appeared in her charming, flowing, and
graceful white shepherdess dress. Her beautiful
tresses flowed naturally, and her countenance beamed
with forgiveness and benignity. The happy husband's
heart danced in raptures; but discretion
interdicted him from availing himself of terms of
praise too strongly marked. He was aware that it
would involve unpleasant recollections. The next
day he ventured to praise the good taste of her
dress, and the fineness of her appearance in it, so
heartily, liberally, and sincerely, that the sweetest
expression of content and affection sat on her countenance,
and she declared that she had found all
the heart of her dear Arthur once more.

The next storm occurred about three weeks
afterwards, at dinner. A fine turtle was the dinner
that day. His wife had dictated a different mode of
cooking from the common. While she expatiated

[figure description] Page 024.[end figure description]

learnedly upon gastronomic lore, and when and
where she had eaten turtle cooked in that improved
way, she asked her husband how he liked it. The
question came upon him before he had prepared an
answer, or meditated the consequences. He replied,
inadvertently, “Very well, but by no means so well
as in the customary way.” This drew from her a
defence of the new way more energetic than the
occasion appeared to demand. He remarked coolly
in reply, and still unwarned that a storm was gathering,
that it might be better to more refined tastes
than his; and that, though he thought it not so
good as usual, it was still very agreeable, and
answered well. By this time he saw the danger,
and stammered something else to conceal a retreat.
But it was too late; and the retreat was far enough
from being the fortunate one of the ten thousand.
All this expense of thought, labour, and science,
had been bestowed out of a desire to his particular
gratification; and his view of the thing not only
evidenced bad and vulgar taste, but ingratitude.
Drawing up her form in her chair, and arraying
her polished forehead in its sternest aspect, she got
up rather, it might seem, for Rescue's benefit than
his; for she directed her speech to her, a most
learned dissertation upon the manner of cooking
and managing a turtle, by the scientific corps of
cooks in her father's family. Then forth from
their groves stalked her great ancestors, generation
after generation; and the information followed,

[figure description] Page 025.[end figure description]

that the best cookery had been a science of hereditary
descent in her paternal halls, for centuries.
She did not leave him to draw the palpable
inference, that it argued as much arrogance in
him to give an opinion in a matter of taste of
that sort, as it did want of acquaintance with
good cookery from the beginning. He replied,
perhaps a little tartly, that he did not eat for her
ancestors, but himself. This settled the point,
and she arose with the attitude of outraged dignity,
and withdrew.

These records will be wholly useless, if they do
not remind the reader, that ten thousand matrimonial
broils, which have embittered the existence
of the parties and their families; have originated
from causes as trifling as these. They prove,
too, that even in this abode, where there were but
three persons, two at least were not immaculate;
but that beings generally so affectionate and
happy, were sometimes a little ruffled, like the
rest. Probably, at the moment of her excitement,
had a third person intervened, and said a harsh
thing in confirmation of her feelings against her
husband, she would have turned upon the third
person, and bestowed upon him all the temper and
bitterness that had been originally directed towards
the former. He discovered, too, that these
storms, however appalling while they were passing
by, had the same effect upon the moral atmosphere
of the dwelling, that the terrible tropical

[figure description] Page 026.[end figure description]

storm had upon the physical sky; that is to say,
to purify the air, and produce a more healthful and
delightful temperature afterwards. The sky that
followed, was delightful. After the storm had
wholly blown by, there was such kind, and
earnest, though silent and unnamed efforts to
atone for the past, by triple demonstrations of
love and kindness, that he sometimes asked himself,
if a few stormy days were not worth the
enduring, in order to procure the delightful
weather that followed. In fact, he more than
once repeated to himself the old Latin saw in his
grammar, which, rendered into English, imports,
that “the quarrels of lovers are the renewal of
love.”

When the simplicity and entireness of their
affection returned, how often did they declare to
each other, that if forewarned that sickness or
calamity must have befallen the one or the other,
each would have chosen it, in their own person,
rather than for the other. Each declared, not
in words only, but in look, manner, and action,
that in each other they possessed all the world.
They found the climate not only pleasant, but
salubrious. Their food was abundant, and all
their wants were satisfied with such a moderate
share of labour, as was only enough to mark the
hours of relaxation with pleasure. They had a
strong, kind, and faithful servant, whose gaiety,
good sense, and originality, were an unfailing

[figure description] Page 027.[end figure description]

source of amusement. For beauty and freshness
of landscape, the scenery which surrounded them
was as that of Eden. They had all that nature and
love could supply. All this notwithstanding, they
were obliged to confess to each other, that they
wanted society. It would be a hopeless effort to
define all the circumstances that concurred to
create this want. They were obliged, amidst
the solitary enjoyment of their groves, to admit
how much men depend upon the common charities,
decencies, small comforts, and almost
invisibilities, and the influence of almost imperceptible
relations, for a considerable portion of
the sum of human enjoyment. Let no one underrate
the advantages of society, nor affect to decry
or undervalue that in which he dwells, and where
Providence has cast his lot. No position scarcely
can be imagined in existence, where the happiness
of man does not depend more on moral
causes and relations, than physical enjoyment.
Another circumstance, to which both looked forward
with a tenderness and anxiety which can be
only imagined in a situation like theirs, came in
to increase their sense of the want of the comforts
and the protection of society. When they were
discussing this subject one evening, and the
chances whether her father yet lived, and, if
living, the manner in which he would probably
receive them, a fine large ship hove in sight,
with her sails all spread to the breeze, and

[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]

steering across the southern verge of their horizon.
What a sight to these three isolated beings!
They could easily imagine the life, bustle, and
gaiety of that floating city, and the people on
board, so little aware of these solitary persons
so near them. They fired their swivel and their
small arms. They kindled a high blaze of fire.
They unfurled the flag of the Australasia. All
was equally unavailing to gain her notice. She
moved slowly on, like the imperceptible lapse of
time, across the southern limit of their horizon,
becoming first a white speck in the sky, and then
wholly disappearing. Augusta, seeing her husband
uncommonly gloomy in view of the disappointment,
embraced him with tears of undissembled
affection, declaring, that but for one
circumstance, she should prefer to renounce
society for ever.

Eleven months from the time of their marriage,
his wife presented him with a beautiful
Australasian daughter; the perfect pattern of
Augusta, as he thought; and the literal transcript
of him, as she said. Who will venture to
describe the anxiety of the husband while this
event was pending? Who will describe the
agony with which he walked the grotto, while it
was in question, whether his dear wife should
become a mother for the first time, or he left
doubly desolate and alone, by the prostration of
all his hopes, as a husband and a father? Happily

[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]

the penalty of Eve is paid with ease in the bland
climates of the tropics. The apprehensions and
the anxieties of the father, and the tranquil joys
which none but a mother, on such occasions,
can know, constituted this hour of jubilee and
rejoicing a new era in the history of the grotto.
Rescue, tall as she was before, became more
majestic, and larger than life, on this occasion.
She seemed intuitively to comprehend all the
official honours, and dignities, and immunities,
which the attending lady, on like occasions,
has a right to assume. There seemed to be
danger that she would devour the feeble little
stranger with kisses. When she handed it,
according to prescribed ceremony, in its first
dress, to the father, it was done with an air as if
she had much more sacred rights to it than the
father himself.

But if Augusta was beautiful and beloved
before, what was she now, in the interesting
paleness of maternity, and holding the cherished
babe to her bosom, to unlock for its nourishment,
the fountains of life? Oh! it is then only,
that they who are happily united, know all the
mysterious tenderness and sanctity of the connubial
tie. There was now a new, a tender, and
endless theme for conversation. How could
this dear babe be reared and educated in this
desolate island? Such is human nature. Scarcely
have we gratified the first and highest wish of

[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]

the human heart, before a new one discloses
itself. Augusta had a suitable respect for the
intellectual powers and scholarship of her husband;
but the babe was not yet two days old,
before she had started the inquiry, how it was to
be trained and educated. “Well as you are
qualified, my love,” she would say, “to instruct
our daughter in the solid branches of education,
there is much which the little angel could never
learn, except in society. How could she catch
the early graces of motion, deportment, dancing,
music, the million nameless graces and forms of
society, except by the tact of those who learn
them in the highest circles of polished life?” He
smiled, and asked in reply, where would be the
use of all this, if she were to have no spectators
or admirers, except kangaroos and parrots; and
have her beauty and accomplishments develope
and waste their sweetness on the desert air?
“Now, my dear Arthur,” she answered, “that
is not like you. Is she not the sweetest babe
that was ever seen? Would we not wish her as
accomplished as she is beautiful, if no other eyes
than our own were to behold her?” These dialogues
generally terminated by the endurance
by the poor little thing, that was the subject of
these premature disputes, of a most annoying
amount of kisses from father and mother; then to
pass into the tender, but brawny arms of Rescue.
Never was namby pamby like that of this

[figure description] Page 031.[end figure description]

affectionate Australasian. It would make no mean
figure beside the birth day ode of the emperor
of Timbuctoo.

In a few days, Augusta was as well as before;
though there was an almost imperceptible languor,
that rendered her loveliness to him more touching
than ever. Her eyes, movements, and countenance,
all told that her heart was full. To the
powerful Rescue, half a dozen such babes would
only have been a plaything burden. During
their walks she was generally the bearer of this
lovely charge. Her attachment soon became
such to it, that she showed reluctance to relinquish
it, even to the father and mother. With this little
smiling thing in her arms, and the companion of
their walks, the hours of their existence flowed on,
apparently in a deeper and more mellow satisfaction
than ever. Every conversation placed
the privation of society, and of having no place
in which to rear this dear and cherished babe
amidst its advantages, in a stronger point of
light. They consulted Rescue touching the
chances of leaving the island by the help of her
people. Her eye kindled at the thought of
seeing her parents and her native home again.
She seemed to entertain no doubt, that they
who had been kind to her, and who had saved
her from her enemies, would not fail to be kindly
received by her people. They continued to
glean information from her upon this subject in

[figure description] Page 032.[end figure description]

many conversations; and so eagerly did she enter
into the project of going on a journey to visit her
people, that they began once more to do her the
injustice to fear that she would attempt to escape
from them. They observed her, one evening,
on their return from a walk, looking gloomily
at the blue summits of the mountains above
them. They asked her, why she looked so
intensely in that direction. She answered, with
tears streaming down her cheeks, “Me tink me
see that big hill long time go. Me go round,
round, round. Me come back. Me sure me see
that hill fore now.” “Well, then,” said her
master, “if you were sure that by going over
those mountains you could get home, you would
go away and leave us!” She answered, with
mixed sorrow and indignation, “You no stand
me. Me love father, love mother. Me love
massa and little missee and big missee more
than all the world.”

This conversation led to a series of questions,
in her answers to which, it appeared, that the
faithful creature loved them better than any thing
in the world; but, that next to her love of them,
was her unquenchable affection for her parents,
her home, and her country. As has been remarked,
she represented her people as constantly
engaged in hostilities with the inhabitants of a
neighbouring island; which she had heard her
people say, was so great, as to have no end,

[figure description] Page 033.[end figure description]

that is to say, they inferred that it was a continent;
probably the continent of New Holland.
She described the enemies of her people as being
cannibals; and her people as being comparatively
mild. When questioned continually and
closely upon the subject, she seemed to remember
many things which had not occurred to her
memory in her first vague conversations upon
the subject. She had imperfect recollections
that she had heard among her people, that they
knew where white people dwelt, and had been to
see and trade with them. The final impression
from all these conversations was, that Rescue's
people were gentle and affectionate in their character
and manners; and that some of the British
establishments in these seas could not be very
distant.

Then ensued long and tender discussions of
the comparative chances of happiness in society,
and in the abundance and repose of that charming
solitude. Sometimes at the close of the discussion,
one scale preponderated and sometimes
the other. In the melancholy supposition of the
death of her father without a will, Augusta would
be the sole heiress of his immense wealth. But
if he lived, as her husband thought probable, and
they should find him at New Holland, in the
event of their sailing there, through the aid of
Rescue's people, how would her proud and
aristocratic father receive her in her present

[figure description] Page 034.[end figure description]

condition? Augusta always terminated these discussions
in one way. She was sure that when her
father saw her husband and her dear babe, he
could not but relent. “He will surely acknowledge
us,” she said: “suppose even the worst,
and that he should not,”—“Why then,” he replied,
“most probably, Augusta, you would
leave your husband and return to your father.”
She turned upon him a look of such affectionate
reproach, while the tears started in her eyes, as
left him no wish ever to repeat that charge. “I
hope,” she replied, “my dear Arthur, you do
not judge my heart by your own.” In fact, this
babe seemed to impose an insurmountable obligation
upon both, to encounter any chances, in
order to place it in reach of the advantages of
society. If Augusta's father lived, and would
receive them, they promised to share each others
prosperity. If he refused to receive them, they
still promised never to forsake each other, come
what changes or chances might. They finally
came to the determination, as the result of their
deliberations and convictions, to scale the mountains,
and to send Rescue in advance of them,
among her own people; and ascertain by her,
how the people would receive them. If these
people should be reported by Rescue, as willing
to receive them kindly, they hoped to be able to
induce them to undertake a voyage to the white
settlements. They were assured that if any such

[figure description] Page 035.[end figure description]

existed in that vicinity, they must be those of
Port Jackson, Sidney Cove, or some of the
incipient settlements in New Holland.

Having taken their resolutions, the preparations
were few and easy; consisting only in laying
out their plan, and carrying with them food
enough to last over the mountains. Rescue
assured them, that bread-fruit and fish were
abundant in her country. Every thing that was
necessary and that would not much encumber
them was selected. As on their former attempt
at a voyage, they proposed to leave every thing
in a situation that they might return to it again,
if they failed in obtaining a kind reception from
the savages. If they reached New Holland,
they proposed to give the proper notice, that
those interested in the cargo of the Australasia,
might sail to the grotto, and regain whatever of
their property remained.

Their determinations being fixed, the next
thing was to carry them into effect as soon as
possible. Each feared that the other would relax
from the firmness of fixed purpose, and was
anxious to undertake the expedition at once.
Accordingly they prepared dried meat and fish
to last them five days, and as much bread-fruit
and sweet potatoes, as they could conveniently
carry, and three bottles of wine. He slung part
of the articles in a soldier's knapsack over his
shoulders, and Rescue weighed the remainder in

[figure description] Page 036.[end figure description]

another over hers. In her arms she carried the
dear babe. He shouldered a single musket,
with the cartridge box, and his wife charged
herself only with a Bible. It would be useless
to attempt, because it would be impossible to
give any adequate idea of the feelings of the
parties, when they left this commodious, safe,
and pleasant retreat, which had sheltered them
more than three years. Nature, as if to soften
the bitterness of the parting, had involved the
earth in a thick fog. Had the morning been
bright and beautiful, the last look would have
been too painful, and they would have been too
strongly reminded of the auspices under which
they made their former attempt to leave the
island. As it was, every spot, every grove,
spring and copse, had been consecrated by some
remembrance, either of joy or sorrow. The
numerous, gay, and motley groups of domestic
birds and animals gathered round Augusta, with
their customary cries of recognition and welcome;
nor could she forbear to drop natural
tears, at the thought of leaving all these humble,
irrational friends to take care for themselves,
and return to the habits and the solitude of their
woods. Happily, our nature is so constituted,
that one strong sentiment triumphs over another.
The babe smiled in the arms of Rescue, and was
an object of so much more absorbing interest
than all the rest, as to soften the pain of parting.

[figure description] Page 037.[end figure description]

They carried with them all that ought to occupy
their first affections. Grateful to the Almighty
for the food, shelter, repose and contentment,
that the island had yielded them; and remembering,
that still the palms would be as freshly
verdant, the flowers as fragrant, and the mountains
as blue in the upper regions, after they
should be gone as before; wishing then, that
if future mariners should be wrecked upon these
remote shores, they might find the same happy
shelter amid these shades, and imploring the
guidance and blessing of the Almighty in their
new enterprise—they turned and walked slowly
away.

As they began to ascend the mountains the
mists rolled away, and presented the same magnificent
and glorious view which they had been
accustomed to behold. Rescue sprang forward
from cliff to cliff, with the agility of a chamois
of the mountains. She still kept in advance of
the father and mother, often stopping to cool
the babe in the shade. The little babe, refreshed
by the mountain breeze, uttered its inarticulate
notes of joy, and evinced the same spirit which
makes the lamb bound with that fulness of life,
which it has no other way to express. They
made rapid progress; and by eleven in the morning
were on the table-rock, to repose there for a
moment, before they lost sight of the country
which had sheltered them so many years; and

[figure description] Page 038.[end figure description]

began to descend the opposite side of the mountains.
Augusta looked down upon the landscape
below, and compared this departure to the beautiful
description of the leaving of paradise by our
first parents. Her voice almost failed through
excess of emotion. “Shall we find,” said she,
“a happier country?” “At least,” replied her
husband, “we are not separated exiles. We
carry all our heart with us. Like the birds, we
all go together. But let us not yield to a tenderness,
which may soften our hearts, and unnerve
us for our purposes.”

After a short rest, they began to descend towards
the unexplored valley. The smoking volcanos
were all around them. New configurations
of nature struck their eye, and new aspects of
the winding shore of the sea were spread in the
distance. As they were passing the last elevation,
and descending the declivity, on a sudden
Rescue gave the babe to its father, and began to
spring and caper as usual when much elated,
snapping her fingers, crying, “I see him! I see
him!” Pointing to smokes, which ascended far
down the vale, and the tears streaming down her
cheeks. “There home! There home! There
father and mother!” She continued to look with
a fixed and intense gaze, and tear continued to
roll behind tear, all the time they staid. It was
an affecting tribute of the heart to kindred,
country, and home; the most sacred and indelible

[figure description] Page 039.[end figure description]

instincts in every rightly constituted heart;
nor could they fail to remark the truth and eloquence
of the apostle, where he has said, that
God hath made of one blood, all the nations that
dwell on the earth. It is a new tie to bind us to
our species, to realize that the human heart is
every where constituted in the same way.

The declivity of that side of the mountains was
found much more gentle than the other; and the
sun was declining, and the level of the vale was
yet far below them. As the sun was pouring his
flood of yellow radiance on the sea, and the trees,
and the mountains, they came upon a vast over-arching
rock. Dry grass was gathered in abundance.
Rescue spread it, and arranged it in the
form of couches; while the mother held, and
nursed her babe. Blankets were spread upon
the moss and grass, under the covert of the cliff.
The father struck a fire with his gun, and in a
few moments killed birds for their supper. A
bright fire blazed. A spring welled from the
declivity just by them, and fell over a rock with
a pleasant and bubbling murmur. The birds
sung sweetly the requiem of the parting day.
They supped plentifully and luxuriously, mutually
agreeing to see the future through the
colouring of hope; and returning thanks to God,
that he had so mercifully provided for them at
the commencement of their experiment. Neither
complained of fatigue. All were cheerful.

[figure description] Page 040.[end figure description]

Nothing of sinister omen had occurred, and no train
of gloomy or disheartening ideas, was presented
to their minds. It was not exactly the commodious
and sumptuous place which the grotto
was; but it was clean, dry, and comfortable.
The babe lay on the bosom of the mother, and
the three slept through the night the profound
sleep of confidence and innocence.

With the first light of the morning, Rescue
prepared their breakfast, and they resumed their
descent. They now passed groves, the trees of
which were loaded with bread-fruit. There were
many new fruits in their way, whose qualities
and flavours Rescue taught them. They traversed,
alternately, beautiful little forests, and
then open meadows, dotted with circular clumps
of trees. Numerous limpid brooks wound round
the bases of the mountains, and could be traced
by their gentle brawling murmur, after they were
lost in the woods. From the declivities of the
mountains, the eye easily traced, as on a map,
the country below, as it was, inhabited or uninhabited.
They aimed to traverse the most uninhabited
part of the country, if possible to avoid
a meeting with the people, until they should arrive
at the home of Rescue. In their course,
they came upon the shore of a beautiful freshwater
lake, which appeared to extend a league
in circumference. It was a sheet of water, as
pellucid as air, in a deep basin of basaltic rock.

[figure description] Page 041.[end figure description]

They made a pause under the shade of a spreading
palm that overhung the waters of this lake.
Bread-fruit was about them. They refreshed
themselves with that, and wine and water.
It was a spectacle of untiring interest and delight,
to look down the apparently bottomless
depths of these transparent waters, and see the
strange foliage, and bright verdure of the trees
inverted in the crystal element; and to remark
the thousands of fishes, of every form and hue,
of green, scarlet, and gold; some voluptuously
reposing in the sunbeams, some darting in pursuit
of their prey; and countless millions of the
little fry, swimming in shoals, and sporting in
the visible joys of their young existence. Beyond
this lake was a considerable eminence, and in
approaching it, they still crossed rivulets, winding
towards the lake. The moment they reached
the top of this eminence, Rescue fell to capering
and snapping her fingers, more vehemently than
ever. The tears again rolled down her cheeks;
and she was scarcely able to articulate the
words, Father's house! father's house! At the
same time she pointed them to a cluster of cabins,
half hid among the trees, from which, however,
the smoke could easily be seen, streaming aloft.
They seemed distant something more than a
league. They had difficulty in repressing the
purpose of the affectionate creature to run forward,
and show the dear babe to her parents.

[figure description] Page 042.[end figure description]

They stopped here in the shade, to refresh themselves,
and concert their plans. With renewed
strength and confidence, they then pressed on,
until Rescue's paternal cabin could be distinctly
seen at the distance of half a mile. They paused
in the shelter of a deep thicket. He charged his
musket, and arranged his means of defence; intending,
in case of a hostile reception, to be
some rods in advance of his wife and babe. He
then gave his last directions and his parting exhortations
to Rescue. He told her, that he put
not only his own life, but, what was a thousand
times dearer, that of his wife and babe, into her
hands. If she should prove discreet, and faithful,
he assured her, that she would more than
repay all her obligations to them. She was
charged, in the first place, to ascertain exactly
what kind of reception she could promise for
them; and in the next place, if there was any
chance that they would carry them in their proas
to the settlements of the whites. When she was
favourably assured upon these points, she was to
bring back with her some of the chiefs of the
village. If there was the least doubt about the
manner of their reception, she was to conceal the
circumstance of their being in the vicinity. She
was to make this fact known by a certain cry,
concerted as a signal between them, and was
to make her way to rejoin them as soon as she

[figure description] Page 043.[end figure description]

could do it without suspicion, and they were all
to march back to the grotto.

When they had given her these charges, and
she had made her solemn affirmation to each, she
was admonished, that they would naturally suffer
from impatience; and she was urged to make all
possible dispatch in her arrangements. She
seemed, after all, reluctant to part with the babe;
and earnestly entreated to be allowed to carry
it with her. The father, as she gave it into the
arms of its mother, charged her again, “Be
prudent—be faithful—we put our lives, and this
dear babe into your power; and we have entire
confidence in you.” The countenance of Rescue
manifested, that she felt the importance and
responsibility of her mission. She kissed the
babe, and, with an unexpected delicacy of tenderness,
the polished forehead of the mother. She
turned pale, as she passed the father, uttering, as
she passed, “You save my life—I die for you
too—You soon see if Rescue no good.”

After this kind and faithful being disappeared
from their view, considering the importance and
the uncertainty of her mission, and the impossibility
of making any calculations touching the
issue, they must be supposed to have been in a
state of suspense, as painful and as anxious as
can well be imagined. Augusta was more than
once disposed to upbraid herself for the folly of
having inspired her husband with the purpose

[figure description] Page 044.[end figure description]

to commence such a hazardous and uncertain
enterprise, and to lament the folly of leaving
their pleasant and safe retreat on the other side
the mountains. But so long as a mother can
press her babe to her bosom, and can water its
cheek with the tear of maternal tenderness, she
is not without resource. The hour, however,
that elapsed between the departure of Rescue,
and their hearing the return of trampling feet
through the thicket, seemed as an age to them.
At length, they saw Rescue advancing, with an
eager and joyful countenance, accompanied by
an old savage man and woman, and a young
man, whose countenance instantly proclaimed
him her brother. She had been welcomed by
father, and mother, and brother, as one returned
from the dead; for they had seen her carried off
prisoner, and knew, but too well, the fate that
was reserved for her. The tears of filial love
and joy were on her cheeks. She had told them
what her deliverers had done for her; and had
trained them to entertain the most exalted conceptions
of them, and had given them so many
instructions in what way to deport themselves,
so as not to disgust or annoy their guests, that
they approached them with an awkward embarrassment,
and a respect bordering on veneration.
Their holding back was obviously the
result of good feelings towards them; and in
their whole manner they showed them, that they

[figure description] Page 045.[end figure description]

had derived the most favourable impressions
from Rescue, and that they wished to receive
them with all possible marks of favour and
kindness.

Every thing showed that their interview with
their daughter had been a most tender and affecting
one. They often broke off their conversation
with their invited guests, to run to Rescue,
and renew their embraces. The amount of their
speech was, to invite the strangers to their village.
They promised that they would take them
in their grand war proa to the settlements of the
whites; to which, they affirmed, they could sail,
with a fair wind, in one day. They informed,
that between this island and the country of the
whites, was another island, inhabited by their
own people; and that between that island, and
the country of the whites there was but a narrow
strait. They pointed, with looks of aversion
and horror, in another direction, where a green
skirted shore was dimly discernible over the
water, and there, they gave them to understand,
was the country of their enemies. Every thing
in their words and manner, tended to inspire confidence;
and Rescue, who possessed quick tact
and discernment upon the manners and thoughts
of her people, assured her master and mistress,
that entire reliance might be placed upon their
proffers of aid and good will. They followed

[figure description] Page 046.[end figure description]

the savages, Rescue leading the way, beside her
parents, with the babe in her arms.

It is unnecessary to repeat the minute description
which ensues in the journal, of the details of
their reception among the savages. Their stay
among them was too short to enable them to
record more of their domestic habits and modes,
than such as were obvious to the eye, in a
sojourn of one night. The manners even of a
savage people can be learned only by long and
intimate inspection. Nothing could be more
cordial than the reception which they gave their
guests. When they actually arrived among them,
no veneration could longer withhold them from
the expression of their feelings. They yelled,
danced, and shouted round them, with a frantic
joy, that blanched the cheek of Augusta, and
caused her to cling closely to her husband, and
press her babe with the spasmodic earnestness of
maternal apprehension. All this was discovered
by Rescue, and it went to her heart. She was
in the midst of them, endeavouring, in their own
language, to assuage the ferocity of these demonstrations.
But it was all in vain. The winds
might as easily have been controlled. They
pressed about their guests, examining their
clothes, and touching their hands, to ascertain,
as it seemed, the cause of the difference of complexion
between them. At length, with infinite

[figure description] Page 047.[end figure description]

exertion, Rescue persuaded the crowd away from
them. A deliberation was held among the
leading men of the village, and they were
informed, that, as soon as might be, they would
conduct them in a proa to the neighbouring
island, and would persuade the people of that
island to transport them to the white settlements.
A hovel was cleared, in which they were invited
to pass the night; and they were promised, that
on the following morning, they would carry
them over to the adjacent island.

They passed, as may well be supposed, a most
uncomfortable night. They dared not refuse
the shelter of the offered hovel, though it was
small, dirty, and smoky, and every way uncomfortable,
tormented with the cries of the savages
through the night, and annoyed with insects and
vermin. Their food, too, was prepared in the
most filthy and disgusting manner; and yet, so
instructed by Rescue, they seemed to eat with
pleasure. To have refused the offered hospitality
would have been to incur mortal enmity. The
cool air of the morning refreshed them, as they
once more emerged from their filthy hovel, and,
preceded by a crowd of savages, advanced
towards the sea-shore. Still, as they advanced,
new crowds of savages gathered round them, raising
the same horrid yells, and uttering the same
annoying demonstrations of joy. They remarked
with pleasure, that their first friends every where

[figure description] Page 048.[end figure description]

displayed the air of vehement and earnest protectors,
and still as the people crowded round
them, distressing them with the eagerness of
their curiosity, crying out that they were spirits,
beings of a higher order, and ought to be protected
by a taboo.

When they arrived at the sea-shore, there
seemed to be some hesitation about furnishing
them a proa and transport to the neighbouring
island. Noisy and fierce debate ensued. But
their first friends carried their point. They
were motioned to follow the chief men of the
sea-shore villages, to a large proa, or war
canoe. Another was brought along side. There
was a great flourish, a simultaneous yell, and a
pointing of their spears and war clubs, in token
of defiance, in the direction of the country occupied
by their enemies. Their armour was put
on board. A great number of warriors crowded
in. The sails were set. Augusta was pointed
to a bench, over which her husband spread a
blanket. Rescue sat down on the bottom of the
proa, holding the babe between her father and
mother, and looking intently in the face of her
mistress. She, meanwhile, it was evident from
the paleness of her countenance, felt the unpleasant
predicament of being surrounded by these
fierce and unmanageable beings, and was painfully
reminded of the auspices, under which she
had commenced the former attempted voyage of

[figure description] Page 049.[end figure description]

escape. The sails filled, and they flew before
the breeze toward the island, distant, as it seemed,
three or four leagues, and enlarging every moment,
as their own island receded and diminished.

In less than two hours, they entered a little
harbour in the island, and landed. The island
had the aspect of being far more sterile than that
which they had left. It was in many places
bare of all vegetation, exposing a naked surface
of black volcanic rock. Here they encountered
another host of yelling savages, with the same
fierce and annoying curiosity. There now ensued
another debate between these islanders and the
people who had brought them there. Rescue
interpreted the amount of their discussion. The
character and wishes of their guests were explained
to them. On their part, they affirmed
that the white settlements were not far distant,
and that they were willing to take them there for
a proper compensation. This point was soon
arranged and stipulated to their satisfaction. They
who had brought the white strangers so far, were
now to leave them to the care of these islanders.
Now ensued a scene, which threatened more
danger than any they had yet encountered
among the savages. The parents and brother
of Rescue, as well as many people of her village,
were clamorous to have her return with them.
The struggle, too, in her own feelings, appeared

[figure description] Page 050.[end figure description]

to amount almost to agony. On the one hand
was her country and her parents. On the other
her deliverers, who had raised her to the dignity,
thoughts, and joys of a new kind of existence.
She clearly inclined to following her deliverer.
He, on his part, was filled with apprehension,
that if the struggle in her thoughts should terminate
in favour of following them, it might not
only exasperate the savages to the point of
breaking off the treaty, but excite them to massacre
their guests. On the other, so dear had
she become to her deliverer, that the idea of her
leaving them was exceedingly painful. Beyond
all that they could have hoped, the savages left
Rescue a free choice, to make her own election.
Never had they witnessed a more afflicting
internal struggle. She wept, and wrung her
hands, and tore her hair, and sobbed, and embraced
her father, and mother, and brother,
again and again, as if in agony. Never was
keener distress visible upon any human countenance.
It was an affecting spectacle to see the
alternate preponderance of these opposite affections.
Augusta finally inclined the scale, by
handing her the little babe, which, terrified with
the grim countenances of the surrounding savages,
looked with the smile of infantine recognition in
her face. She seized the little thing, kissed it,
and watered its face with tears. “Me never
leave you!” she exclaimed, and the point was

[figure description] Page 051.[end figure description]

manifestly settled. She once more embraced
her parents and friends, but with more calmness
and moderation than before, taking a leave of
them which promised to be eternal. Soon afterwards,
all her friends and the people of her village
returned in their proas. Their new friends
could not arrange their preparations in season
to commence their voyage that day, and they
were obliged to spend a night of discomfort
there, under endurances not unlike those of the
preceding evening, in a smoky hovel, and devoured
by vermin.

Again they were obliged to supply the wants
of nature as they might, with food so prepared
as to excite unconquerable loathing. But, instructed
by Rescue, they seemed satisfied, and
assumed as much appearance of eating with
appetite as they could. When they resumed
their voyage the next morning, the grief of Rescue
was renewed. She now felt, that she was
leaving her own people in good earnest, and for
ever. But if a momentary purpose of relenting
and returning to her own place passed over her
mind, it was but the purpose of a moment. She
wept, and tore her hair, and held out her arms
towards the island of her birth, now only dimly
visible in the distance. She uttered her own
farewell, in the energetic phrase of her own
country; took the babe in her arms, and entered
the proa, which waited for them, and in a

[figure description] Page 052.[end figure description]

moment they were embarked again. The wind
was fair. The proa sailed swiftly. The savages
seemed to be perfectly tranquil in the expectation
of the issue of the voyage. No unpleasant
incident occurred to excite even apprehension.

By mid-day the proa rounded a projecting
headland, and to the astonishment and inexpressible
satisfaction of the parties, two or three
small vessels with their sails all spread, were
seen making towards a harbour. The savages
raised their yell of joy. The husband and wife
kissed their babe, and experienced sensations in
view of these palpable marks of approach towards
their own people, that no words could
adequately express. “There,” said the husband,
“are the vessels of your country—but how,
Augusta, shall we be received?” “My dear
Arthur,” she replied, “let us not in this joyful
moment, manifest such ingratitude to the Almighty,
as to distrust his merciful protection for
the future. While I can look on my husband,
and my babe, nothing beside shall disturb me.”

It was to no purpose that they strove to persuade
the savages to carry them directly to the
town. Though they were at peace with the
whites, they seemed apprehensive and shy, and
not at all disposed to come in direct contact with
them. They turned their proa to a point, and
landed. The stipulated compensation, consisting
of a musket, and divers other articles, which

[figure description] Page 053.[end figure description]

they had brought from the grotto, was paid.
Their friends seemed entirely satisfied, and manifested
more feeling at parting from them than
could have been expected from beings of their
appearance.

Here, then, were the three forlorn beings, who
had so long been banished from social nature,
left alone on a rocky point, in full view of a
considerable town, which appeared in the distance,
arising among the tall dead trees. Now,
that the great crisis of meeting her own race
again was at hand, Augusta evidenced what she
suffered from the conflicting thoughts and views
that pressed on her. Her countenance was
alternately flushed, and pale as death. She was
soon to learn, whether she was an orphan; or if
her father lived, whether a man so rich and
aristocratic, would receive her as the wife of a
poor and obscure American. The contrast between
her present condition, a wife and a mother
under such circumstances; with her former lot,
a beautiful heiress, the pride of her circle, and
the chief object of admiration, could not but
press heavily upon her thoughts. The extinguished
pride, jealousies, hopes and fears of
society, and of other years, so long dormant in
the repose of the grotto, again arose to her own
astonishment and dismay, in her bosom. She
began anxiously to examine her person and
dress, and that of her husband; and to question

[figure description] Page 054.[end figure description]

Rescue about her appearance. Happily for her
under such circumstances, the master passion of
maternal affection prevailed in her bosom. She
kissed and nursed her babe, and as the feeble
thing fell asleep on her bosom, these stormy
apprehensions gradually subsided.

They consulted together a few moments, and
took up their march for the town. At the distance
of half a mile, she and Rescue stopped
under a shady tree, and her husband went forward
to announce their arrival, and secure a
reception and lodgings for them. They mutually
inculcated calmness and philosophy; though
it must be admitted, that the harrowing excitement
in the countenance of his wife, was but a
poor preparative for imparting the necessary
firmness required on this emergency. He found
a much more prompt panoply, in summoning to
his aid that kind of desperation, with which a
soldier on a forlorn hope, repairs to the deadly
breach to enter a city by storm.

In a lane leading to the harbour, he met a
plain, respectable looking man, and making an
effort upon his palpitating heart, he addressed
him. But he perceived in a moment that his
excitement and agitation within were not only
painted upon his countenance, but impressed
upon his tones and his voice. The man paused,
and surveyed him from head to foot, without a
reply. Making another effort, he asked, “What

[figure description] Page 055.[end figure description]

town is this, sir?” “Sidney Cove, sir,” was the
reply. “I would not have thought,” he continued,
“to have met any person here, speaking
English, who would have needed to be told the
name of this town.” Immediately he explained
to the stranger the causes of his ignorance, and
the circumstances of his case, inquiring, with an
anxiety that can only be imagined, if Mr. Wellman
were still living. Astonishment was marked
in the manner of the stranger. He answered,
that it was probable Mr. Wellman still lived,
though no longer in New Holland; that two
years since, upon the revolt of the soldiery, and
the breaking out of the troubles in the country,
he had become dissatisfied with it, and had
returned to England. He well remembered the
circumstances of the Australasia's shipwreck.
Mr. Wellman escaped, with ten others, in the
long boat, to an island, near which the ship was
wrecked. He was afterwards conducted to this
place by savages. His only daughter perished
in the shipwreck. He was at first pleased with
the country; but the commencement of the
troubles, and chagrin on account of the loss of
his daughter, conspired to disgust him, and two
years since he had embarked for England.

Such was the intelligence imparted by this
stranger. He made a few additional inquiries
touching the state of affairs in the country, and
heard the advice of the stranger, in regard to

[figure description] Page 056.[end figure description]

the proper lodgings for him and his wife in the
town. With this intelligence he returned to
his wife. So dark and gloomy had been her
imaginings, and so different a picture had her
thoughts coloured during this distressing period
of suspense, that the real state of the case struck
her with delighted surprise. It is true, they were
destitute, pennyless, and, they learned from this
information, wholly friendless. But then, they
assured themselves that there could be no people,
especially no English people, so inhospitable as
not to afford an asylum to destitute strangers in
their condition. Assured that her father still
lived, and delivered from the terror of an immediate
meeting with him in her present condition,
she became not only composed, but cheerful
and gay. A temperament naturally buoyant
gave the future such an aspect in anticipation as
she wished to behold. She assured her husband,
that she had no doubt but upon the strength of
her father's name, they might obtain money
enough to answer the immediate necessities of
their condition. She considered herself as happily
restored to society; and as ordinarily happens
in such cases, her confidence and joy were
infused into the bosom of her husband.

CHAPTER II.

[figure description] Page 057.[end figure description]

“The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit from the unworthy takes.”

When they arrived in the town, the novelty
of their appearance and their story soon drew
about them all the idle babbling people that are
usually found in such a place. Their curiosity
was still more annoying than that of the savages.
They had to repeat their story a hundred times.
At first there was a show of much sympathy, and
they received a great number of invitations to
partake of the hospitality of various considerable
citizens. They were gazed at as lions. They
ascertained that a thousand different editions of
their story went abroad. Most of the people
entertained precisely the same apprehensions
with Mr. Clenning, touching the reception he
would probably receive from the father of his
wife. Almost every one repeated that it was a
shame that such people should not be supplied
with money, whether the loaners ever recovered
it from Mr. Wellman or not. The profligate
drew hopes from the extreme beauty and destitute
condition of his wife. The excitement and

[figure description] Page 058.[end figure description]

sympathy thus manifested soon passed away, and
left the inhabitants to the natural callousness and
hardness of heart, and avarice, that are generally
prevalent in a new place, with a character like
that of Sidney Cove. They soon found the generous
professions, that were so frankly made to
them on their arrival, vanishing into thin air;
and they would actually have come from the
abundance of their solitary island to want bread
in the midst of their own people, had not one man
of real generosity and sympathy appeared, who,
moved by hearing their case, unsought and unsolicited,
came forward, and offered them the loan
of one thousand dollars, to be repaid by Mr.
Wellman, when they should arrive in England.
Augusta had spent two days in tears, and in
apprehensions that admit of no description,
amidst the cold and grim looks of the people of
the place where they had taken temporary board.
They did not explain all their straits to Rescue;
but her intuitive sagacity partly comprehended
the case; and she began a kind of rude pastoral
ditty, so often repeated afterwards, about the
comfort of their green island, and the meanness
and hardness of heart manifested by what she
phrased the bad white peoples.

With this opportune offering of benevolence,
Mr. Clenning hastened home to his disconsolate
wife and faithful servant. “Courage,” said he,
“my dear Augusta. God and man have not yet

[figure description] Page 059.[end figure description]

forsaken us.” Their bill was paid. Their landlady
became meanly submissive and annoying
in her officiousness. Better apartments were
taken, and these people of such strange fortunes
were at once enjoying themselves in society.
Nothing in their new condition furnished them
with more amusement than the wonder and
curiosity of Rescue, in a region, which was, of
course, all a land of unexplored wonders. Sidney
Cove was a new and thriving place. Living was
very expensive, and there was no such feeling as
confidence between man and man. Nothing
struck her with more surprise than the folly of
making subsistence, and every thing, depend
upon the possession of such little round pieces of
metal as dollars; which, she affirmed, were of no
manner of use, except to furnish playthings to the
little Augusta. The utility and value of money
were things altogether beyond her apprehension.
The hardened and insensible character inspired
by avarice, impressed her with settled and unutterable
dislike. Her thoughts were incessantly
occupied in unfavourable comparisons between
the hard modes of subsistence there, and the
exuberance of the pleasant island they had left.
Nevertheless, when a vessel about that time
sailed for the island, to bring away the remains
of the wreck of the Australasia, left at the grotto,
and she was offered a passage back there, she
utterly refused, unless her master and mistress

[figure description] Page 060.[end figure description]

would accompany her. As soon as she found
how indispensable was money to subsistence,
with her own peculiar goodness of heart and
docility of character, she immediately put herself
in earnest to learn the duties of her new position;
and her master was at once astonished and affected
to learn, that during the period that intervened
before they had obtained the loan of
money, she had hired herself in the intervals of
labour and nursing at home, to attempt to gain
some of those dollars that she found so necessary
to subsistence.

Mr. Clenning and his wife were soon modestly,
but respectably, provided with all that was
necessary for propriety of appearance, conformable
to their uncertain expectations. He had
much feared the effect of the return to society
upon the tastes and wishes of his wife. It gave
him inexpressible satisfaction, to observe that
she was considerate; and in all her arrangements,
rather looked to their present means, than to the
inclinations inspired by her former condition.
“Now,” said he, as he made this discovery,
“Augusta, you have done that in society, which
I had thought impossible: you have inspired me
with increasing love and admiration, in discovering
that you are as considerate and wise, as you
were always lovely.”

The beauty and expectations of his wife gave
them an easy and immediate introduction to the

[figure description] Page 061.[end figure description]

best society in that place and vicinity. They
found the new and strange arrangements of
society, the country itself, and its natural productions
still more whimsical and striking, than
they had expected to find it. In the island which
they had left, they had seen but few things out
of the common analogies of nature except the
structure of the kangaroo, and the singular plumage
and form of some of the larger birds. Here
every thing was out of any nature that they had
ever yet contemplated; and the dame seemed to
have wrought in her wildest frolics. Most of
the trees were nearly branchless like masts, and
as hard, and almost as heavy, as iron. The
kind of trees most precious and valuable in
other countries, as useful for the most beautiful
cabinet work, were here annoying from their
abundance; while trees of common use for
timber were scarce. Here were birds without
wings or feathers, of the size of a deer, and
covered with hair instead of plumage. Here
were four footed beasts, with the beaks of birds,
black swans, and white eagles; ferns, nettles, and
weeds growing to the size of trees; rivers, whose
sources were in the sea, and their outlets in the
interior swamps; here were moles that laid
eggs, wooden pears, and cherries with the stones
upon the outside of the cherry. In fact, to describe
all the amusing vagaries of nature here,
would have been to describe almost every

[figure description] Page 062.[end figure description]

natural, animal, and vegetable production in the
country.

The character of the people was, if possible, a
thousand times more outré and whimsical than
the aspect of physical and animal nature. Here
women and children so beautiful, that in other
countries they would have been objects of general
admiration, were so common as no longer
to excite interest or surprise. Most of the former
had been prostitutes, and the latter illegitimate.
They were regularly introduced, first to the assemblies
of the immaculates; for here the grades
of society are obliged to be marked by the most
palpable distinctions, and separated by the most
inaccessible barriers. The high birth and former
standing of Augusta, gave her husband a
reflected lustre; and they received every desirable
attention from all classes of society. Her
appearance and manners won her unbounded
admiration. It was plain to perceive, that this
order of things strongly tended to awaken habits
and feelings, which had been extinct for years;
and which her husband fondly hoped had been
radically extirpated. But the moment it came
to her ear, which it shortly did, that she was considered
as having sacrificed herself in being
united to her husband, and that she was the object
of improper hopes and pursuit by some of
the profligate adventurers there; that they supposed
they might find advantages in her

[figure description] Page 063.[end figure description]

estimation, on account of their birth and bearing, in
comparison of her husband; from that moment
the disgust of a naturally virtuous and innocent
mind, produced a recoil of horror and disgust,
in reference to the society, and an earnest disposition
to fly from the country for England.

The comments that would be naturally made
by the dissipated and licentious, upon the manner
in which the courtship and marriage of Augusta
with her husband, had been conducted, induced
both to desire, that their marriage should be
there solemnized anew with the rites of religion.
Accordingly they were married in the church at
Sidney Cove, with all the rites and ceremonies
of the Episcopal church. Augusta pronounced
her second vows, in presence of a crowd of
spectators, apparently with as much alacrity,
steadiness, and affection, as her first. When the
ceremony was over, and in their retirement they
embraced their dear babe, they felt how much the
mind depends on the associations of publicity, solemnity,
and the force of divine and human ties,
sanctioned by public opinion in making up its
estimates of things. Never had either embraced
that infant before, without feeling an indefinable
something that was wanting to the instincts of
parental affection.

If they could have found amusement in originality
of character, and the view of extreme
beauty without virtue and self respect, and too

[figure description] Page 064.[end figure description]

often without repentance; they would have found
it in the visits which they occasionally made in
company with their friends among the immaculates,
in the society of the “maculates.” They
visited a ball room, filled with a blaze of apparent
fashion and beauty; and the company had all
the factitious airs, graces, and tone of the highest
and most polished society. Most of them were
reclaimed convicts. Every one had borne in
some way a deep stain. Never had they seen
such an exemplification of the “Apple of Sodom.”
The sensation from the scene was bewildering.
It was a painful labour to force the conviction
on the beholders, that this splendour of beauty;
this bewitching aspect of grace and sweetness;
this vain show of a few hours; gave place, in the
more free and unrestrained intercourse of their
retirement, to all their native habits, and the use
of their gross and vulgar colloquy. What a
history of the “road to ruin” could each one of
these syrens have given! Here the pick-pocket
bowed most gracefully to the prostitute. There
all the maudlin cant of sentimentality passed between
a worn Celadon and Amelia. Each was
ready to furnish materials for the biography of
her neighbour; who, probably, at the same moment
was occupied with some other person, in
rendering the same kind office to her. At home,
and among people of their own class, all calls
for this kind of observance having ceased, the

[figure description] Page 065.[end figure description]

paint being washed away, the tinsel torn off, and
the clear light of day let in upon the scene; the
whole aspect and character of the people stood
forth in its naked and undisguised deformity.
Then the disgusting slang of the colloquial intercourse
among themselves, was heard. Then
they were the first to ridicule their own assumption,
and acting of decency in private. If these
annals might be stained with samples of their
horrid dialect, their interior language, their terms
of art, and their previous callings, a vocabulary
sufficiently ample and disgusting might be given.
Well and deeply was this maxim engraved on
the minds of Mr. Clenning and his wife, that the
“true is the only beautiful.”

As respected the general society of the colony,
all the elements of bitterness, scandal, heart-burning,
mutual rivalry, jealousy, and distrust,
that are so apt to have an abundant existence
in small, detached, and newly formed societies,
existed here in combinations and forms, and to
an extent that would have been ludicrous and
amusing, if the predominance of evil in the picture
had not thrown over it the aspect of disgust.
“This,” they said to each other, “is not society.
This is not that for which we left the innocence
and repose of our happy island.” Both duty
and hope prompted Augusta to wish to return to
England. She still flattered herself that her
father would receive her graciously, and take

[figure description] Page 066.[end figure description]

her and her husband home. Besides, they never
forgot that they had a resource from dissatisfaction
and disgust abroad, in the endearments and
privacy of their interior intercourse with each
other. With Rescue and their babe, they took
long walks amid those new and interesting scenes.
In addition to the deep verdure and boundless
extent of the inaccessible forests, that had, until
lately, slept from the creation, undisturbed by
the sound of the axe, there was the interest of
cultivated fields, fine gardens, sheep pastures,
and orange groves bending with their golden
fruit; and this impressive blending of nature and
art, struggling for the mastery on the ruins of
these ancient woods, rendered the scenery of the
country a source of exhaustless interest to the
lovers of nature. The strength and vigour of the
cultivated vegetation cheered the eye, and refreshed
the heart. From these walks they always
returned to their home, satisfied and happy;
with more confident hopes, and more enlarged
feelings, and more adoring conceptions of the
God of nature.

Already had Mr. Clenning touched gently
upon his wish to fix his family finally in his own
native country. He often spoke of it with all
the earnest feeling of instinctive patriotism. So
often, and so eloquently had he compared his
own great and good country with all others, that
he made a firm convert of Rescue to his own

[figure description] Page 067.[end figure description]

predilections; and in her view, the United States
were the home of all that is pleasant and desirable.
Once or twice these themes had been
urged with a warmth of nationality, that aroused
that of Augusta, and drew from her in turn, a
contrasted view of great, glorious, and unrivalled
England, as it stood in her thoughts. They
were daily importuned to fix themselves permanently
in New Holland. But he had no dreams
of happiness and final retreat, but in his own
country. He did by no means fully enter into
the sanguine confidence of his wife, that her
father would receive them kindly. He thought
it probable that his pride, if not his affection,
might induce him to allow his daughter a pittance
of his wealth, on condition of their agreeing
to settle in America, where he might not be
reminded of what he would doubtless deem his
daughter's misalliance and disgrace. Hence
his own hopes and dreamings of the future, constantly
rested in America. A thousand circumstances
conspired to make them both anxious to
leave New Holland. Of their thousand dollars,
only enough remained to pay their passage to
England; and in that country, there appeared
no chance to renew their means. Nameless circumstances
of disgust were created constantly for
him in the deportment of the people towards his
wife, whom they affected, even to his face, to pity
as a ruined heiress.

[figure description] Page 068.[end figure description]

They, of course, took a passage in the first
packet ship that sailed for England; and were
traversing the immense wastes of ocean for that
country. Augusta trembled, indeed, and turned
pale at first, at the thought of once more committing
herself to that faithless element on which
she had suffered so much. But they cheered each
other, that their interest and duty alike required
them to encounter this long voyage, and they
mutually agreed, that if they once found a safe
and comfortable harbour, they would cast anchor,
and wander no more. It is true, he often smiled
upon his wife, with dissembled confidence in his
countenance, when his heart ached with the apprehension
that her father would make their
divorce or separation the only term upon which
he would be reconciled to his daughter. Rescue,
too, whose heart instinctively turned towards the
green groves in which she was born, had received
no pleasant associations with the country of
money, luxury and art, and she carried a heavy
heart upon the water. She often gave them to
understand, in her own peculiar dialect, that she
had seen enough of white people at Sidney Cove.
She had imbibed a settled conviction, that her
master and mistress were the only good white
people in the world. “Oh, missee,” she would
say, “good island! Sweet island! Fine trees;
plenty bread-fruit; no work hard; all good; all
happy; no want dollar to keep from starve;

[figure description] Page 069.[end figure description]

missee always smile. Oh, me wish we stay there!
Bad people at Sidney Cove.” Still in the end
of her lament, the faithful creature always gave
them to understand that she had rather endure
the scourge of living with white people with
them, than live in the perennial freshness of her
own groves without them. These demonstrations
of unshaken attachment from Rescue, the increasing
strength and beauty of their little daughter,
training her to run alone notwithstanding the
rocking of the ship, hearing the delightful lispings
of her first articulations, mutual tracing of father
and mother in the developing sweetness of her
countenance; these joys of innocence, nature
and affection, cheered the long voyage. They
had some gales, but no severe or dangerous
storms. They embarked in December, and in
March they saw the white cliffs of Albion, and
soon afterwards landed on the busy shores of the
Thames, and were added as a drop to the ocean
of human existence, in London.

With a hundred dollars, and Augusta holding
to his arm, and Rescue carrying their prattling
daughter, they entered London in the dun fog
of a March evening. The tall and outlandish
form of Rescue, was but too well calculated to
attract for them a painful degree of notice.
They felt the strange and unpleasant sensation
of treading their first reeling steps on terra firma,
after having been so long accustomed to the

[figure description] Page 070.[end figure description]

feeling of a ship rolling under their feet. Amidst
the gloom and dejection naturally inspired by
such a scene, through which they desired to glide
unnoticed and unknown, they could not but smile
to witness the keen black eyes of Rescue, wild
with curiosity, glaring upon the multitude of
strange and surprising objects about her. Unconscious
of the object and motive of the laughter
of the spectators, she laughed with them as good
naturedly as if she herself had not furnished
them with their amusement.

To every mind capable of entering into their
condition, no effort will be necessary to paint its
features of gloom and discouragement. Carriages
rattled past them. The glare of wealth surrounded
them. A crowd of busy and bustling people
filled the streets, like the uninterrupted current of
a river. On all sides was life and animation.
Every countenance wore the careless and unconcerned
consciousness of being surrounded with
friends, and having an object and an asylum.
Poor and unfriended strangers from the extremities
of the globe, without money, friends, or
home, and with no prospect of finding a place
in which to lay their heads; they were borne
along the same tide of life with the rest, mutually
gazing, and exciting their gaze. It did not
lessen the bitterness of the contrast with Augusta,
to remember the period when she had been
borne along those very streets, in her gilded

[figure description] Page 071.[end figure description]

chariot, the fairest, and the gayest of the gay.
The gloomy sky conspired with the natural
smoke and darkness of the city, to add deeper
shade to the sadness of their prospects. As he
felt his spirits sink, and despondency making its
way to his heart, he summoned up all his manhood,
and measured the beautiful and frail being,
whose destiny was so identified with his, and
who required all his energy to enable him to
support her and his babe. Happily she was a
mother; and as they spoke of their prospects, she
embraced and kissed the little smiler in the
arms of Rescue, and declared that she was
sorry for nothing, and found nothing difficult,
or unpleasant. On the contrary, she exhorted
her husband to take courage, and banish dejection
from his heart, that it might disappear from
his countenance.

After much inquiry, and frequent pauses in
the different public houses, before the light of
the day was gone, they obtained in the fourth
story, a little dark apartment, with two beds;
and having ordered a cheap and frugal supper,
they proceeded to devise and arrange operations
for the morrow. During the voyage, he and his
wife had made joint stock of their invention,
and had, after infinite study, and blotting and
destroying a dozen copies, agreed upon a letter
that was to be despatched to her father, immediately
upon their arrival in the city. It gave a

[figure description] Page 072.[end figure description]

succinct, but clear and impressive account of the
manner in which Mr. Clenning had found his
daughter. It presented an affecting, because a
just and true account of the condition from which
he had rescued her. It proceeded, with guarded
delicacy, to unfold the various motives and circumstances
that led to their union. It gave the
details of their attempt to escape by sea in the
boat; and on the failure of that attempt, their
hopelessness of ever making their escape afterwards.
The latter part purported to be entirely
the statement of his daughter. It dwelt upon the
honour and decorum of her husband, before their
union; and of his entire devotedness to her comfort
and happiness, during all their residence together.
It generously exonerated him from having
originated the project of marriage. With equal
delicacy and tenderness, she described the progress
of affection and gratitude, in view of his
deportment towards her. She represented the
union rather as of her seeking than his. She
stated, that they had been subsequently united by
the laws of the country, and with all the solemnities
of religion, and that in whatever light her
father might choose to view him, in the sight of
heaven and earth, and by all laws, human and
divine, he was the true and lawful husband of her
legal duties and obligations, as well as those of
her affection and her heart. But she conjured
her father, by his old age, by the filial affection

[figure description] Page 073.[end figure description]

and duty of his only child, by their dear babe,
and by every motive that could soften the heart,
to receive, and bless, and acknowledge his daughter,
as one returned from the dead. Even her
husband, albeit unused to the melting mood,
gave tears to the simple and touching paintings
of maternal tenderness. In short, it was an
energetic appeal to his feelings, at once so true
and natural, so simple and affecting, that it
struck them as impossible that he could withstand
it.

On making the proper inquiry, they found
that her father had arrived in England, and was
now at his usual residence in the city. They
sent this letter, the joint production of their
inventions, to the residence of her father; and he
spent the remainder of the day in such an agony
of suspense, as effectually extinguished the power
to make any other effort, and repressed any disposition
to go abroad, or converse with any one.
Rescue caught the common gloom. Angusta
paced her little dark apartment, alternately
kissing her babe, and looking upwards. A
thousand times they traversed the dark precincts
of their apartment, in alternate paroxysms of
hope and despair. In this manner they passed
that and the succeeding day, neither going
abroad, or having any other communication
with any one, than receiving their frugal meals,
as they were sent to them.

[figure description] Page 074.[end figure description]

On the evening of the second day, they received
a letter, directed to a person calling herself
Augusta Clenning. It was conceived in the
following terms.

“I should have considered the letter you have
done me the honour to write me, as a pleasant
attempt at forgery and imposition, had not the
resemblance to the hand-writing of my daughter
induced me to bestow some degree of credit to
the strange story which it narrates. If you are
indeed my daughter, that you were saved from
the wreck, as things have happened, I may consider
good fortune or otherwise, as circumstances
may hereafter determine. Whether I am hereafter
to know you as my daughter, will depend
upon a contingency, over which you only have
the control. I am not disposed, as you perhaps
will anticipate, to attempt menance, intimidation,
or command. I shall take a perfectly cool and
dispassionate view of this affair. Were I to
manifest any warmth, it might excite future hopes
of playing upon my feelings, and might lead to
unwarranted hopes, and consequent disappointment.
Neither am I about to appeal to the
dormant pride which belonged to her who was
my child; nor shall I utter reproaches upon the
immorality and dishonour of this misalliance,
which you say you have consummated; nor
remind you, on your own showing, that it was
unnecessary. If the predicament were such as

[figure description] Page 075.[end figure description]

you state, I know enough of female nature to
palliate your folly. That you extenuate the
ungenerous advantage taken of your misfortunes,
by him you call your husband, only proves that
you are, or would be thought to be, still under
the influence of that feeling, which silly girls call
love. This illusion ought long since to have
passed away. There are few young persons in
this city, at present, so simple as to suppose that
the childish liking, formerly called love, means
any thing more than a word to palliate the conduct
of persons with weak heads and libidinous
inclinations. If you once deemed yourself in this
predicament, you surely ought to have recovered
your sober reason ere this. The person of whom
you speak, you say, has loaned a thousand dollars
at Sidney Cove, on my credit. Now to the point.
The past is irrevocable. But we may operate
upon the future. This marriage may all be
passed by, as a thing that has not been. To
spare your eloquence, I am ready to grant you
that this person has been brave, disinterested,
and so forth. These are qualities of common,
and every day show. Our tars are brave, and
said to be generous. Our soldiers are brave.
Every good little book makes its heroes and
heroines brave and disinterested, and all that.
Thousands of these paragons can be purchased
in our city for half a guinea apiece. But I cannot
learn that more people are born rich and

[figure description] Page 076.[end figure description]

distinguished than formerly. Now let me whisper
to you, be a wise girl. I will place all that has
happened to necessity and circumstances. Some
of our garretteers may, perhaps, take you up,
and make a tragi-comedy, or a romance out of
you, and you will only become the more distinguished
for what has happened. I will receive
you, asking no questions, nor ever recurring to
the past. The other unfortunate circumstance I
will send into the country. I will either cause
this marriage to be as though it had not been,
or I will procure it to be annulled. I will also
repay the thousand dollars, and do something
for that person, provided you return alone, and
promise me that you will see him no more.
Otherwise I request you neither to write, introduce
yourself, nor importune me, either in person,
or by another. No stratagem will circumvent
me; no eloquence move me. You can well
remember, whether I was easily moved even
when you were the pride of my heart, and my
all. I am neither younger nor weaker than formerly;
and you cannot but recollect that you
never saw me, as a babe, easily affected either to
joy or tears. I have no respect for any one
whose judgment does not preponderate over his
feelings. I am cool, and I wish you to infer
from it, that I am determined. Take time for
consideration; four days if you please. If, after
mature deliberation, you should see fit to accept

[figure description] Page 077.[end figure description]

the terms, come to my house alone, and be
received by your father. If you still prefer to live
with that person, I shall be happy to serve you
as I would another stranger, that is, with kind
wishes and good advice, but shall otherwise be
to you, as to others, simply,

They both stood petrified with amazement and
indignation, while they were reading this cool,
cutting and unnatural letter. The husband had
the satisfaction to see the daughter, in this severe
trial, yield to the wife and the mother. A
momentary paleness, and a few starting tears
marked the impulse of filial feeling. But it was
followed by the burning blush of shame, and
offended pride and humanity. Whatever views
they took, they were rather braced than dispirited
and discouraged. Such cruel indignity could
be met by but one feeling. Rescue looked upon
them while this decisive letter was reading, with
such affectionate curiosity to know the contents,
that they read it to her. The terms, as might
be expected, said nothing to her. But when
they explained the purport, she snapped her
fingers, as vehemently from wrath, as she was
accustomed to do at other times from joy. “Oh!
massee,” she said, “these bad white people.
You no call that man father. Walls black.
Smoky houses. Bawl, cry all day and all night,

[figure description] Page 078.[end figure description]

in the streets. Carts rattle. Dust fly. Chimney
sweeps all smut. No heart here. All bad. You
starve here for want eat. Sky black. Sun, he
no shine. White people bad! bad! Bad over
the sea. Worse here. Oh! massee, go, go to
Rescue's island. Never mind. You like to stay
here. Me strong. All say, you good, Rescue,
for work. Me work hard. We make eat. Dear
little missee, you no die for starve!” At the
same time she pressed the babe to her bosom,
and watered its face with tears.

This artless and disinterested affection of Rescue,
brought relief also to Augusta, in the form
of tears, which she shed freely and which her
husband wiped away. They agreed, that after
such an example, by a person comparatively
unconnected with their sufferings, it would be
pusillanimous to sit down, and give themselves
up to unnerving despondency. The emergency
of the case drew from Augusta unwonted marks
of tenderness to her husband, whom she now
perceived to be all of protection and hope that
remained to her. While her husband lamented
the poverty and ruin that he had entailed upon
her, she assured him, that if at that moment all
the advantages of her former condition, and the
most cordial reception from her father, were
spread before her on the one hand, and her
husband and babe on the other, she should not
hesitate a moment She declared, that she was

[figure description] Page 079.[end figure description]

forever cured of a desire for the vain show of
the world; that her heart was humbled, and her
desires limited to competence and obscurity with
her husband and child; and that all she now
wished was, that they might immediately seek
for honest employment, in which they might eat
the bread of industry.

But when they reviewed the subject, after they
had retired to their beds, he thought it possible
that her father might yet relent. It was incredible
to him, that there could be a human heart
formed as his appeared to be. It was in vain
that she warned him of his inflexibility of purpose,
and that any farther efforts to move him
would only be to experience new disappointment
and humiliation. He, on the contrary, insisted
that his conscience would reproach him until he
was sure that he had made all possible efforts;
and that no part of the failure could be attributed
to their want of exertion, or neglect to use all
the means of attempt, to soften his heart to the
feelings and the claims of nature. They considered
whether it would be expedient for her to
accompany her husband on his purposed visit to
her father. She shrunk from the idea, as one
too harrowing and of too much pain, and admitted,
that the very thought of such a meeting was
insupportable. She had indulged, she said, the
long and bitter penance of hope deferred. It was
now for ever crushed; and all she wished for the

[figure description] Page 080.[end figure description]

future was, a spirit of affectionate forgiveness
towards her father, and a firm and persevering
purpose to look for no future prospects, but
those which should arise from personal labour
and exertion for themselves.

Such views of the forbearance and generous
feeling of his wife, supplied him in the morning
with an indignation, that he trusted would stand
him instead of self-possession and eloquence,
and forearming himself as he might from other
sources, he set out immediately after breakfast
in the morning for the court end of the city,
where Mr. Wellman resided. His splendid mansion
was found without difficulty, being conspicuous
among those aristocratic establishments.
He rang for admittance. A gaily dressed servant,
in the reflected insolence of his master,
surveyed him in a moment from head to foot;
and he was painfully aware, made up his conclusion,
that he was a person of very little consequence.
He somewhat hesitatingly said, that
his master was not at home. Mr. Clenning replied,
that this would not pass with him; and if
his master was at home, he had business of importance
with him and must see him. He had
the satisfaction to remark, that his erect and
stern manner induced the servant to survey him
again. He had been used to seeing the poor, at
once obsequious and timid. He appeared to
think, that there must be more in this applicant

[figure description] Page 081.[end figure description]

than showed externally. This peremptory manner
associated in his thoughts with concealed
importance, and he showed him in with some
degree of deference, observing that perhaps he
was mistaken, and he would inquire if his master
was about the house. He followed this servant
along a corridor of patrician grandeur.
The frowning portraits of the great ancestors
seemed to upbraid the humble stranger for his
unhallowed alliance with their blood, as they
looked at him from their walls. Every thing
wore the cold, repulsive and petrifying air of
aristocratic insolence. A spiral staircase conducted
him to an apartment, into which he was
desired to enter. With a kind of ironical surprise
at finding his master there, the servant
announced his name. In this splendid apartment
sat Mr. Wellman on a sopha. Notwithstanding
the change wrought by six years, Mr.
Clenning instantly recognized his countenance,
and had the satisfaction to perceive, that his was
as well remembered, though Mr. Wellman affected
not to know him. He was received with
a cold and measured civility, and was asked his
commands. He commenced his story, and appealed
to events on their passage in the Australasia.
“Oh yes,” said Mr. Wellman, “you are
right. You are the person who went out with
us steward of that unlucky ship. How have you
been, sir? Will you please to relate your

[figure description] Page 082.[end figure description]

business with me?” Mr. Clenning swallowed the
first words that arose to his tongue. Mr. Wellman
visibly enjoyed his embarrassment and
hesitation, little divining the motive from which
it arose. He paused until he had gained entire
self-command, and then resumed his story, by
remarking, that after the information which had
reached him, if it were necessary for him still to
explain his wishes in this interview, he might as
well retire in silence. “Exactly so,” answered
Mr. Wellman, with a calm smile. “I regret
that you should have given yourself the unnecessary
trouble to call, after what I wrote yesterday
to my late daughter. If she be indeed with you,
she knows precisely on what terms she may expect
my recognition and favour. It is possible
she communicated the contents of that letter to
you.” Mr. Clenning replied, that she had; and
proceeded to a detail of the prominent incidents
of their residence together on the island. “Sir,”
replied Mr. Wellman, “this detail is wholly unnecessary.
The relation cannot be pleasant to
either. It is an unhappy business. If you can
find means to publish it, the romance in the
story might turn it to profit. But I am a mere
plain son of the earth, a matter of fact man, who
care little for that sort of things. Let all that
pass. I deem you to be a man of shrewdness
and cleverness in your way. I appeal to yourself,
sir; to your knowledge of the world.

[figure description] Page 083.[end figure description]

Fortune has given you a strange intimacy with my
family, which cannot be helped. It is now time
that it be terminated. You know all that I
would say to you. There need be no sensibility
or eloquence expended upon either side. When
you please to call upon me in any other relation
than that which you now affect to sustain, I shall
wait upon with pleasure. At present I regret
to say I am engaged. Joseph, please to
show this gentleman down stairs. Sir, I have
the honour to wish you a good morning.”

There are indignities of a certain class, that
preclude all compromise, and all possibility that
an honourable man can ever submit voluntarily
to endure them a second time. Such he felt to
be the present one. He turned calmly away,
fully determined never to meet with this man
again, and he walked down the magnificent passages
with such a real contempt for the hearfless
possessor, and such feelings of inward complacency
of self-comparison, that indignation and
contempt served him instead of philosophy.

But on his way home, this feeling no longer
sustained him, when he thought how he should
break the result of this interview to his wife. It
was painful even to remember the relation between
her and this man; and he found a struggle
necessary in order to break off the association,
that a woman so inexpressibly dear to him, was
the daughter of such a father. When he

[figure description] Page 084.[end figure description]

returned to his little dark apartment, forming such
a contrast to the house he had just visited, he
found any relation of the success of his interview
unnecessary. “My dear Arthur,” said his
wife, “had you not been too wilful to listen to
your wife, all this might have been spared. You
must allow yourself to doubt for a moment,
whether I have a heart. It becomes me to remember
my father, and pray for him. It becomes
you to banish all thoughts, that connect
me with him. Let us be humble and industrious,
affectionate and contented, and forget all
that I once was.” She kissed alternately her
babe and her husband, and paused for a moment,
under the influence of emotion that would not be
suppressed. She then calmly resumed, “Had
my father received me to favour, I should have
plunged once more into the extravagance and
dissipation incident to our course of life. My
pride would have taken root anew in my heart.
A thousand circumstances, my dear Arthur,
would have wounded you with odious comparisons.
I am sure of your love. Had it continued
in the new order of things, your heart would
have been broken. My reason, my better judgment
tells me, that happiness is with peace and
humility, and industry, in the shade. Look at
our sweet babe. See how perfectly healthy it is.
I, too, am well. Rescue loves us, and is strong,
and with us for evil or good. Let us love each

[figure description] Page 085.[end figure description]

other, and regulate our thoughts. I shall be as
proud, my dear Arthur, of showing you that I
can be a philosopher, as I should have been to
be pointed out as the brightest star of attraction,
in the circle which would have assembled
round me at my father's house. You shall never
see me gloomy, or showing regret for what I
have lost. You shall never have occasion to
doubt for a moment that I remember all that
you have been to me; and that if the alternative
were offered again, I would hesitate to do
again what I have done. Thank God, misfortunes
have taught me the necessity of high purpose
and resolve. We will pass the waves once
more. To prove to you how entirely every
thought is identified with you, I wish to go with
you to your own country, and in its shades forget
that I was ever a fine lady.”

It may be imagined with what eyes this happy
husband contemplated his young and lovely
wife, making a strong effort to repress her native
pride, and forming these noble and necessary
resolutions, in their little, dark, miserable
apartment; her eyes glistening with tenderness
and affection, through the tears which contending
emotions had started. He was just returned
from the splendid mansion, which was ready to
open to welcome her on the simple condition of
renouncing her husband. He remembered, too,
the myriads to whom that tie is a galling yoke,

[figure description] Page 086.[end figure description]

before the lapse of the first month, and who
would renounce it with joy, were it in their
power, at the simple temptation of regaining
freedom. He was too deeply read in human
nature, not to see all that was implied in this
deportment. He strained his wife to his bosom
with deeper sentiments than those known by the
name of love. “Augusta,” said he, “you arm
me with unfailing strength to do, or suffer. Have
no fear. We will go to America, and my whole
study shall be to become an example to husbands,
as you are to wives.”

He immediately went abroad in search of the
means of subsistence—a sufficiently disheartening
business in such a place. But the cheering
sensation, derived from this conversation at home
encouraged him, and imparted warmth and confidence
to sustain him under repulse, discouragement,
and failure. He returned, and as the lips
of his wife pressed his cheek, dejection fled. He
went abroad envigorated to sustain new repulses
and the extinction of one hope and project after
another. Day after day passed, in fruitless
efforts to obtain subsistence. Dollar after dollar
disappeared, and the baker and the landlord
appeared within an hour after their weekly claims
were due. Rescue sometimes allowed a tear to
escape her dark olive cheek, as they contracted
their three meals to two, and began to husband
the crumbs with a silent, but heart-rending

[figure description] Page 087.[end figure description]

economy. “Bad, bad white people,” said Rescue, as
she saw her master returning with discouragement
and failure on his brow. “Will they let
my sweet little missee starve?” The object of
these unutterable feelings, meanwhile, chirped
and amused herself with her first efforts to walk
about the room, in the glee of infantine existence,
happily unconscious of the agony of anxiety
felt on her account, and exulting in the joyous
perception of her growing strength.

The first avails of their industry were from the
hands of his wife, whose beautiful needle-work
finally found an employer. She wrought incessantly
during her husband's discouraging excursions
for employment abroad. She afterwards
declared, that the proudest and happiest moment
of her existence was that, when by actual experiment,
she convinced her husband that she had
earned in a day, some trifle more than its expenditures.
Rescue, too, found employment in the
kitchen of their landlady, and that was sufficient
to discharge their rent. Such omens began to
cheer them at the moment of the lowest ebb of
their fortunes, and when but five dollars remained
to them. It is true it was but bread, the cheapest
and coarsest fare, that could be obtained by their
united exertions; and if from sickness or want of
employment, they should remit their exertions
for a day, the stream carried them down again.
But such is the effect of circumstances, even this

[figure description] Page 088.[end figure description]

was hope and good fortune, in comparison with
the recent prospect of actual want staring them
in the face.

At length, to his inexpressible joy, he also
found employment, as a transcriber in the office
of a considerable publisher. He had laboured
three days on trial, and was accepted after that
probation. The united avails of their industry,
not only warranted the addition of various comforts
to their living, but considerably exceeded
their expenses. A bank was immediately commenced,
which was to constitute an accumulating
fund, until it should amount to a sufficiency to
pay their passage to America. The most pleasant
circumstance appertaining to his employment
was, that he could carry home the thing
in hand to be transcribed, and labour on it in the
enjoyment of the society of his wife. She, meanwhile,
plied her needle incessantly, only now
and then pausing to watch the delighted efforts
of her babe, to make its independent way by
the chairs and tables round the room, or occasionally
struggling to climb the father's knee,
and arrest the movements of his pen, to give him
the more pleasant employment of fondling, and
playing with it. How few there are who can
realize, that people so situated and occupied,
could be happy! Yet they were then a thousand
times happier than the tenants of palaces, in the

[figure description] Page 089.[end figure description]

indulgence of unbridled wishes and pampered
repinings, and the tortures of pride and envy.

With the first hour of leisure, in this new predicament
of comparative comfort and hope, he
wrote to the kind friend at New Holland, who
had loaned him a thousand dollars, informing
him faithfully, though with infinite regret, how
his hopes with Mr. Wellman had terminated, and
promising that he would never lose sight of the
debt, until Providence should open to him some
way of discharging it. Whenever he had a
leisure hour in the intervals of his employment,
he hasted to the river to make himself acquainted
with the American captains; determining, as
soon as he could find one in whom he could
have confidence, and who would trust him for
a passage to America, to embark for that free
and abundant country. He had learned not to
be discouraged with the first repulse, and if he
failed in his purposes to-day, to cheer himself
with better hopes for the morrow.

Divines have preached that happiness is a
thing of the mind. Poets have sung, and moralists
prosed to the same tune. They were placed
in a predicament to feel, that it depended on
themselves. More frequently than at first, he
was compelled to remain all day at the office
where he was employed, and this was a painful
privation to him, to whose heart home was a
paradise, and every other place a wilderness.

[figure description] Page 090.[end figure description]

But, on the other hand, his services were more
highly estimated. Others were ready to make
him better offers, and his wages were raised.
Here, then, for the most part, he drudged through
the day. But he had learned the all-important
axiom of philosophy, that pleasure must always
be earned by abstinence and privation. He cast
an occasional glance from his constant employment,
to the hand on the dial plate of an old
clock that ticked in his office, watching the pointing
that should indicate the time when he might
rise from his desk and hie home to his own little
world. To say that he waited this moment as the
lover does the hour of his appointment, would but
faintly shadow his feeling. There is a sacredness
in the thought of home, and the embraces of a
beloved wife and children, with which the throbbings
of desire and the transports of sense can
bear no parallel. His step was recognized as he
mounted the stairs. The infant Augusta began to
frolic. The mother received him with open arms.
Just before supper, the labours of Rescue were
completed, and she joined them by her eager affection,
and the bounding of her ardent heart in
the joy of home, and by the simple shrewdness
of her mind, and her amusing dialect increasing
their enjoyments. Sometimes she sung her own
namby pamby to her favourite babe; and at
others sat with intense interest, looking in the
countenances of her master and mistress, as they

[figure description] Page 091.[end figure description]

gave the details of the past day. Thus they purchased
the pure and high domestic satisfactions
of a long evening by the privations and absence
of the day of labour. Not unfrequently they instituted
fair and philosophical comparisons of
their present condition with the noble grotto, the
smiling sky, the flowering forest, and the solitary
and indolent exuberance of their island residence.
With Rescue, there was always but one feeling,
and this was, that she would be glad if they
could mount the winds, and fly back again to
that happy country. But her master and misstress
reasoned more justly. They understood
the influence of moral ties, the necessary associations
with social life, the power of habit, and the
necessity of giving value to repose by toil, and
of purchasing enjoyment by privation. They
came to the conviction, that even their present
modes of life, unpleasant as they were in some
respects, were not only more useful to others, but
happier to themselves, than to reside in a region
where they had few relative duties, and scarcely
any thing to do but to chase after an enjoyment
which in such cases is too apt still to keep in
advance of the pursuers. Seclusion, they were
convinced, was but for dreaming enthusiasts;
and the solitary shades of their late island, only
fit for pastoral songs. In the stern walks of competition
and industry, they felt that there was
not only the call of duty, but the best meed of

[figure description] Page 092.[end figure description]

enjoyment. They were contented, industrious,
healthy, and useful; and felt that they were
happy, and ought to be so. Their little daughter
grew in strength, beauty, and endearment;
and its innocent prattle never failed to make its
way to their hearts. The only drawback to
their felicity was their inability to pay their debt
to their New Holland friend, and to find an
American captain ready to trust them for the
price of a passage to America.

Mr. Clenning was surprised one evening on
his return from his daily toil, to find in their
humble apartment a young gentleman apparently
of the age of twenty-five, with a fine person, superbly
dressed, and in his whole appearance and
bearing, discovering to the most superficial
glance, that he was of high rank and one of the
favourites of fortune. He saw, too, that his wife
had been in tears. The stranger evidently had
studied to preserve the insolent indifference,
proper to carry him through his purpose; which
was, against the remonstrances of Augusta, to
see and converse with her husband. But it would
not do, and his countenance blenched with guilty
confusion. He introduced himself as Frederic B.
Mr. Clenning remembered in a moment, that he
had heard his wife mention the name a hundred
times, and speak of him as the most interesting
and favoured of her admirers. He was titled,
rich, accomplished, and of extensive country

[figure description] Page 093.[end figure description]

influence. Mr. Wellman, however, had formerly
espoused a different interest; and to a man rich,
proud, wilful, and devoted inflexibly to his opinions,
this difference had proved a barrier in the
way of accepting him as a favoured lover for his
daughter. One of the inducements of the father
to emigrate to New Holland, was to arrest the
progress of this growing liking between the parties.
The father had returned, and found interests
reversed. Lord Frederic B. was now as
strongly identified with the schemes of Mr. Wellman,
as he had been formerly opposed to them.
He gained assurance, as he explained these circumstances
to Mr. Clenning. He proceeded
with dissembled calmness, to announce the purport
of his visit, very adroitly prefacing his
speech with the kindest and most generous intentions
towards Mr. Clenning, and hoping that in
the issue he should make it appear that he had
his interests in view, as well as those of all the
parties concerned. The comparison which
flashed across Mr. Clenning's mind, in reference
to the difference of their personal appearance in
the eye of Augusta, was certainly calculated to excite
no small jealousy and heart burning. He surveyed
him, however, with a cool sternness, which
clearly disconcerted the young nobleman exceedingly,
and begged him to be prompt in disclosing
his statements. The young gentleman, with a
voice evidently ill assured, proceeded to state that

[figure description] Page 094.[end figure description]

he came deputed from Mr. Wellman, to make
proposals. The husband and the wife started at
the same moment at the term. He turned alternately
pale and red, as he proceeded with the
purport of his message. It was neither more not
less than to pay over to Mr. Clenning a considerable
sum of money, on condition that he
would take the babe and embark with it for
America. His passage he said should be paid;
and if even a greater sum than he had offered
was necessary, he requested him to name such an
amount as would be satisfactory. He remarked
that on those terms Augusta would be received
and owned by her father. He proceeded with a
great degree of acuteness and even eloquence to
demonstrate that it was impossible either of the
parties could be supposed to be happy, or to
have any grounds of hoping to be so hereafter,
as affairs then stood: this arrangement would be
preferable in every point of view to all concerned.
To Mr. Clenning it would bring comparative
opulence and consequent consideration in his
own country. It would enable him suitably to
educate his child. It would restore his wife, he
added, with some hesitation, to her own walk and
condition in life, and to the bosom, the house, and
wealth of the most affectionate of fathers. He
concluded, by remarking, that it was easy to talk
of affection, but that it had never been found
capable of sustaining the pinching influence of

[figure description] Page 095.[end figure description]

poverty; and that he hoped Mrs. Clenning would
not fail to see that the only real proof which her
husband could give her of disinterested regard,
was to promote her real interest, more especially
as at the same time he advanced his own. He
did not doubt that he loved her: Who could
have been so situated, and have felt otherwise?
He earnestly hoped that she would see in its
true light any hesitancy on the part of Mr.
Clenning, to comply with proposals so indispensable
to her happiness. He closed and awaited
their response.

Tears started to her eyes, but her countenance
glowed with indignation, and she looked to her
husband to reply. “You hear,” said he,
“Augusta, what kind thoughts this gentleman
entertains in reference to us. I am as perfectly
aware as he is, that I am in the way of what the
world will prononuce your interest. It is useless
for me to make professions any farther than to
say, that I deceive myself, Augusta, if I do not
prefer your interest to my own. It would be
too much to exact of me, to advise you to accept
these proffered terms. Consider the matter
calmly, Augusta, and as you will see it hereafter,
when poverty, sickness, and sorrow may
press upon us. Be deliberate, and lay every
consideration that might tend to pervert your
judgment out of the case; and take care that
you do not imbitter the future, by rejecting

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

opportunities which may hereafter be remembered
with unavailing regret.” With this, he
took the little Augusta in his arms, kissing her,
and saying, “Sweet, will you go with father, and
live in the American woods?” While the child
was lisping her consent, Augusta answered with
unwonted severity, “Arthur, I had not expected
this cruel irony from you. In another place it
might have been harmless pleasantry. Here it
is unworthy trifling with my feelings. I am not
sir,” she added, turning to her former admirer,
“what you once knew, a giddy and thoughtless
girl, but a principled and virtuous wife and
mother. You may imagine what you please, in
regard to the difference which fortune has made
between you and my husband. But to know
with what eyes I look upon him, you must have
been in all the positions in which I have been
placed. Nobleness is of the mind, and no other
person would have acted as he has done. I am
outraged by this conversation. If you will be
gone, and never repeat your visit, I enjoin forbearance
on my husband until you are away.”
Observing the blood mounting to the face of her
husband, she said, “Arthur, I command you for
the first time, and I exact it as a bridal favour.
Allow this gentleman to pass unmolested for this
time. If he should ever repeat his visit, I lay
no restriction upon you in future.”

“You see, sir,” said Mr. Clenning to the noble

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

visiter, “how matters are here. I will have the
honour to show you quietly down stairs for this
time. If you should see fit to repeat your visits to
us, you will not regard it as blustering, or an idle
threat, if I inform you that I will have the honour
of throwing you down our steep and narrow
staircase, without giving you the trouble of descending
the intermediate steps.” The nobleman
saw, from looks and tones, that matters were verging
from words to actions. With no little trepidation,
he made his exit. Mr. Clenning held
the candle for him to the street door. He there
muttered something about his dignity, and Mr.
Clenning's unworthiness of his chastisement.
The latter replied, “My lord, if that is your
title, should you ever see fit to visit my family
again in this way, I shall practise more humility
than your lordship; and shall find you worthy
of a most thorough correction; and with that
information, I kiss your lordship's hands.”

The uniform deportment of this little family;
the industry and cheerfulness of Mrs. Clenning;
the punctuality of the payments of her husband,
and his beginning to be considered a thriving
personage by the small dealers with whom he
had intercourse; even the character of Rescue,
which began to be understood through the singularity
of her person and dialect; all these
circumstances concurred to gain the good will
of their immediate honest neighbours. Their

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

landlord spoke of them in terms of high praise.
Estimates of character, when they pass from one
extreme are apt to vibrate to the opposite one.
The neighbours began to entertain for them the
respect which is every where felt for people of
fallen fortunes, who bear the reverse as they
ought. They were continually manifesting small
proofs of affectionate kindness and considerate
regard to their condition. Mrs. Clenning began
to feel the natural complacency and gratitude,
which results from perceiving kindness and good
feeling manifested on all sides. From various
sources, she ascertained that her story was generally
known. She was aware that she was the
subject of much conversation and discussion. In
being wholly shunned by all her former friends
and admirers, by the connections even of her
father's family, she was most emphatically taught
how completely they considered her debased and
ruined by her plebeian connection, and her perseverance
in sustaining it, after such offers on the
part of her father. She well understood, that
her wonderful escape, her strange fortunes, and
her connection, as the papers had it, with a low
American adventurer, effectually repressed any
other feeling, in view of her case, than wonder
or surprise.

To find herself completely shunned and wholly
overlooked in the city of her birth, and in the
midst of her connections, would have excited, in

[figure description] Page 099.[end figure description]

an unregulated and undisciplined mind, wounded
feelings of pride and revenge. She viewed the
whole with calm indignation. “These,” said she
to her husband, “these are the people whom I
used to consider as containing the whole of
society. These people that surround us were
viewed as necessary in the scale of existence, but
as neither formed to impart or receive pleasure
or respect. They were estimated as being born
to fill up the several employments, and perform
the occupations necessary for the comfort of the
real society of which I was a member. And yet
these are to those as a thousand to one. I have
learned, in the only way in which I could have
learned it, to forego my foolish and degrading
prejudices towards people in humble life, the less
educated and polished people of the middle walks.
How often have I smiled at the miserable wit of
novel writers and play makers, when attempting
to ridicule the million, the great mass of society.
The insolent in the upper walks of life are
accustomed to regard them from infancy as
ignorant, boorish, and utterly incapable of any
refined or generous feeling. These good people,
I now see, have their affinities, their friendships,
their circles, whose estimation and good opinion
are dear to them. They are probably more
influenced by public opinion than the higher
classes. They have their high thoughts and
generous feelings, and their strong friendships;

[figure description] Page 100.[end figure description]

and their conversations are often less frivolous
and insipid than those to which I used so often
to listen. Had I remained in my first sphere, I
should never have understood these people at
all. I may thank the course of events that has
placed me here, for this important practical
knowledge of the great mass of the species. I
now see that the earth was not formed for a few
hundred privileged men and women, as I once
thought. Had I continued as I was, I might
have passed through life with these unjust and
hateful estimates of nine-tenths of the race. I
hope, in time, to become, in this way of teaching,
a genuine philanthropist.”

These sentiments were not the less true and
impressive to her husband, coming, as they did,
from the lips of a young, graceful, and lovely
woman, who had renounced opulence, and all
its accompaniments, for his sake. Of course he
gave strong demonstrations of being satisfied
with the charming orator; and he told her, that
he was sure they could get money and audiences,
and do good, if she would only consent to go
among the people, and preach such kind of lectures
as a course, for a guinea a ticket, repeating
to her, from Shakspeare,

“Sweet are the uses of adversity.”

In this constant course of labour, and calm

[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

moderate excitement, laying up their mite every
day, increasing their charities by extending their
acquaintance, and becoming more identified with
the good will and kind thoughts of their neighbours,
passed away the spring and the summer
of their residence in London. Augusta was at
first cheerful from effort and philosophy: But
this complacent feeling, in view of duties discharged,
and good will increased, soon made
that natural and easy, which was at first constrained.
Mr. Clenning, who had formerly felt
rather self-righteous in comparing his views with
those of his wife, now was obliged to confess to
himself, that the drudgery of his occupation, and
his confinement away from his family, excited
more impatience than he saw in her. But when
he did at last drop his pen, he hied home with
the eagerness of one who felt that he was going
to impart joy, and receive it. Rescue's wild,
but kind eye, sparkled with delight. The elder
Augusta held out her arms to her husband. The
younger Augusta, the miniature angel, as they
called her, bustled into her father's lap, threw
her tiny arms about his neck, and kissed him.
The incidents of that day and the prospects of
the next were talked over. Their fragrant tea
smoked on their table, and they declared themselves,
that they had no reason to envy the prime
minister. They blessed God, that he had not
shown himself a partial father, but had rendered

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

every thing, that is really essential to well being,
accessible to all.

To them it was always a sacrifice to spend the
evening away from their own hearth. But it
was a sacrifice which they felt it a duty frequently
to make. Instead of the common motive for
going abroad, to get rid of the tedium of each
other's society, they were impelled to this sacrifice,
as a duty to the circle that manifested so
much interest and good will towards them. But
then neither would they countenance scandal or
envious reviling of their superiors, or odious
comparisons touching those with whom they
associated. They conversed about their children,
their training and education, their duties, their
daily stock of cares and enjoyments, and the
common charities and small occurrences that give
the colour of joy or sorrow to passing existence.
They generally returned from these humble
parties happier and better, and always with the
consciousness that they had governed their
conversation and deportment there by a sense of
duty. How many millions of such circles are
there on the earth, that the insolent great know
nothing about.

On a sabbath evening during the summer, a
wealthy neighbour who had taken an interest in
them, threw open a garden, in which there were
trees, to give them a walk and the sight of nature.
The little Augusta here evidenced the

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

propensities of instinct, and that she had been
desert-born. Her eye kindled. She exulted in
the shade, and was as a water fowl restored
after abstinence to the water. The father felt
gloomy, for it reminded him of the boundless
contiguity of shade in the island, and still more
in his own native country. The very sight of a
tree, the very rustling of leaves, although they
were coated with dust to the colour of London
smoke, brought back to Rescue such a flood of
recollections, painful and bitter contrasts of all
that with her native island, that her wild black
eye wandered a while upon these mockeries of
the virgin freshness of that rich and unpolluted
landscape, and then filled with tears. The little
Augusta affectionately asked, what made her
cry? “Little missee, cause I love my own green
woods.” Mr. Clenning changed the conversation,
and spoke of the range, the noble forests,
the independence, abundance and comfort of his
native country, and assured Rescue that when
they should once be there, she would have no
more reason to regret their island. Here, in
short, in a little patch of dusty verdure, surrounded
on every side by high, dull, brown
brick walls, was the place in which imagination
was at home, in sketching the peaceful, independent,
and rural life of the American farmer.
They had so often meditated the project of transporting
themselves there, and their thoughts had

[figure description] Page 104.[end figure description]

so often sketched delightful views of the country,
that they had all become impatient to get there.

The worst of it was, that it would require a
full year, before they could accumulate enough
to pay their passage to America, even in the
steerage. Their impatience to get there, induced
Mr. Clenning to continue his efforts to find a
passage partly on credit. But, he had been
disappointed so often, and had experienced so
much humiliation in the case, that he only continued
the pursuit with a kind of desperate purpose
to submit to any rebuff, in order to be in
the way of the remotest chance for such a desirable
event. When he least expected it, the good
fortune befell him. He met with an American
captain of quick and tender feelings, who heard
his little story with a very different air from the
icy indifference with which it had been received
in all cases before. He became interested in the
narrative; and when Mr. Clenning expressed his
fears that he should tire him by too much detail,
he begged him to be particular, and his heart
evidently entered into the story. At some passages
he turned away to hide his emotion. “I
will take you,” said he. “I am part owner of
the ship. You shall not experience the humiliation
of a steerage passage. Your fellow passengers
are chiefly people of condition. I will
see that you are on a footing with them in every
respect. As to the passage, take your own time

[figure description] Page 105.[end figure description]

after your return to pay me. An honest man
always pays as soon as he can, and I do not
want it before.”

This language was so utterly unlike what he
commonly heard in such cases, that Mr. Clenning
watched his countenance, to see if he was
not dealing out some of that contemptible and
unmeaning language of falsehood and deception,
with which the worthless sometimes try to raise
the hopes of the inexperienced in such cases,
merely to disappoint them. But there was such
a calm and upright look of sincerity and honour
in what the captain had said, as inspired him
with confidence. To doubt every body is a mark
of a weaker, as well as more worthless mind,
than to believe every body. The captain showed
him on board. It was a fine new ship, and the
splendour of the cabin inspired a sigh at the
thought of the rapid strides of luxury in such a
new country as America. The department of
the under officers and sailors, and the visible
tone of the intercourse between them and the
captain, all tended to complete the conviction,
that the proffers of the captain were the effusions
of an honourable and generous heart. The
agreement was accordingly made for the passage.

Mr. Clenning hurried home with the joyful
tidings to his family, that they must immediately
commence their preparations for a voyage to
New York. Their little, dark apartment was

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

converted in a moment to a scene of jubilee.
His wife embraced him, declaring, that she
longed to put her foot on the soil of freedom
and independence; and that she felt she was born
to be a republican. Rescue capered and snapped
her fingers as usual when in great glee.
The little Augusta, seeing all the rest so happy
and loving, clambered up the back of the chair,
to get her kiss with the rest. Each congratulated
the other, that they should soon have again
the shade of forests, and the range of fields and
woods, united with all the advantages and comforts
of society.

One painful circumstance attended their departure.
In this little, dark nook, they had
drawn round them a small circle of acquaintances,
whose feelings towards them were fast
ripening to the sure and tried truth of friendship.
These people could not blame them for
availing themselves of the offered opportunity,
though they manifested marks of sincere and
painful regret at the thought of losing their
society. In this confined society, most of whose
members had been born and had grown up in it,
affection and kindness were concentered by the
narrowness of the extent in which it operated.
These quit, sober, humble people, who had been
born, and would probably die in a circle whose
diameter was scarcely a league, whose life was
marked with few incidents; who knew not proud

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

thoughts and frivolous distractions, clearly regarded
the prospect of losing their society, as a
disaster in their humble history. They would
never have known the force and earnestness of
the affection they had inspired, if the announcement
of this approaching separation had not
strongly called forth unquestionable proofs of it.
They drew another important lesson from their
residence there. It is human nature to suppose,
that they who have no marked place, or distinguished
standing in society, are forgotten and
overlooked, and without bearing and influence
upon that society. In consequence of this mistaken
impression, many a man has lost self-respect,
in conducting so as to lose that of others.
Patient, consistent and undeviating rectitude of
character, shines more widely even from a humble
centre, than is generally suspected. Let
them who wish to test the truth of this remark,
act immorally and worthlessly. Let them be
intemperate, quarrelsome, perfidious and dishonest.
Let them see how soon the savour of
these traits will spread. The world may seem
to be indifferent; but it takes a sharp notice at
least of the faults, if not the virtues even of the
humble and obscure. The grand maxim that
ought to encourage and sustain every one in
undeviating correctness is, that it is not only
right in itself, but will not fail ultimately to bring
friends and estimation.

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

Such they found had been the result of their
course there. Every demonstration of considerate
good feeling was shown them by these
humble friends. Many presents of affection were
prepared, and many little comforts offered for
their approaching voyage. The little Augusta
was arrayed in the full fashion of London finery,
and many of the customary promises of correspondence
exacted. Mr. Clenning, meanwhile,
had been accustomed to go regularly to the
post-office, expecting, yet dreading to hear from
his disappointed friend in New Holland, and
possibly entertaining the latent hope that Augusta's
father might yet relent and do something
for them. They knew that he was well
informed of all the steps they took. They heard
nothing indeed from either of those quarters.
But he was delighted by receiving a letter from
another quarter. On opening it, he was astonished
to find enclosed in it five hundred pounds,
in bank notes of one hundred pounds each. The
first thought was, that it came indirectly from
his father-in-law. The contents, which were
these, soon undeceived them:

“Sir,—As an obscure stranger, you may consider
yourself deserted as well as unknown. This
will prove you mistaken. The writer of this
has had an eye upon you, and knows many
passages of your conduct, which you might have

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

supposed confined to your own memories. The
result of the investigation has been, to determine
me to enclose the money which you find
in this. The circumstances of the writer are
not independent. But, although only comfortable,
they allow him to do a generous action.
He believes that your charming wife, who has
acted so nobly and consistently, will one day
reap the reward of such conduct, and come into
possession of her rights. Should this be the
case, if the writer survives, he will make himself
known to you, and then you may consider this
as a loan. If the event should be otherwise, the
writer has no children, no relatives that are
near, is a humourist, without ill nature, and will
not regret to reflect upon this sum, as a gift to
modest, dignified and suffering worth.

Ah! if the opulent, if those favoured by fortune
knew or could know the uses which they might
make of their surplus wealth; if they knew how
many people through honest and commendable
pride appear to be comfortable, and yet pine in
secret under the pressure of the most afflicting
wants; if they knew how much happiness money
rightly bestowed even in loans, may impart: such
acts as this would be more common, and would
not wear such an air of improbability from the
unfrequency of their occurrence. If they

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

considered their ability to do good in this way,
they would not continue to squander in lavish
and useless expenditures, which gratify only the
insatiate cravings of fancy or pride, what might
thus make a virtuous fellow being in distress
happy. Let them imagine such a family as this—
and no doubt many such exist—and picture to
themselves the agony of parents seeing their children
suffer for want of clothing and bread, or
even from the existence of the immediate apprehension
of this suffering, and then consider, that
there are men who squander in a day what would
render such a family comfortable for a year.
Surely if men had hearts, and saw what kind of a
world this is to the poor and the unfortunate, they
could find higher pleasures, than those of the
gaming table, the horse race, the haunts of licentiousness,
or even the useless luxury of extravagant
parties, made only for cold-hearted display.
Little do the wealthy know, and less do they feel
the bitter character of real, stern, irresistible
want, involving in its pressure a beloved wife,
cherished babes, and every thing dear on the
earth.

We will not believe that there are many who
cannot imagine how Mr. Clenning's heart danced
for joy, during his progress home from the post
office. Imagine him then opening the letter, and
spreading the bills before his wife and Rescue,
who by this time understood but too well by the

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

want of them, the magic efficacy of these powerful
slips of paper. She snapped her fingers, and
capered with an extra flourish. “Bad money,”
she said; “He good and bad. Want him, make
sorry too much. Get him, make glad too much.”
Mr. Clenning asked her if she did not now believe
that there were some good white people.
“Good!” said Rescue, “aye, he good. Me pray
God hard for him to-night!”

There can be no doubt that Mr. Clenning felt
a particular pride in repairing to the excellent
and noble-minded captain, and paying the passage
for his family in advance. At the same
time he related his good fortune. The captain
seemed even reluctant to take the money, informing
him that this unknown benefactor had deprived
him of the pleasure of the generous action
which he contemplated; but he added, that if
Mr. Clenning should resolve, as he had expressed
himself, to purchase a farm after his arrival in
the United States, he would add to what might
remain to him after the passage, the loan of a
sufficient sum to enable him to make his proposed
purchase.

Their farewell to London was one in which
pleasure and pain were mixed. They certainly
left their mean and dark apartment with pleasure.
Augusta felt no regret in leaving a city where
not a single relative or friend deigned to recognise
her, and where she had played the highest

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

and the most obscure part alternately. There
were no pleasant associations to detain her. But
it was painful to leave those kind, though humble
friends, who really cherished them. It is
true, a tear dimmed the eye of Augusta, as she
looked in the direction of the princely mansion
of her father. She took an impressive leave of
her kind neighbours who accompanied her to the
ship. The parting for a voyage over the trackless
and dangerous deep, is always an affecting
spectacle. Mr. Clenning and his wife quietly
seated themselves on the deck, with Rescue
holding the hand of her little charge, close beside
them, and calmly watched the feverish and tumultuous
spectacle of leave-taking. As the ship
moved off, “Hail to my country,” said the husband.
“If I once set my foot on thy shores, I
will leave thee no more.” “Farewell England,”
said his wife; “and may God forgive those who
have forsaken me.”

Conspicuous among their fellow passengers,
were three or four English merchants, of a character
precisely similar to the greater portion of those
who visit our shores from that country. The
dandy witling of the town, critic, merchant, and
cockney, were all so blended in them, that it was
impossible to say where one ended, and the other
began. It excited alternate amusement and indignation
to hear these people describe the United
States. The country for which they were bound,

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

and where they went with the avowed object to
make their fortunes, was the constant theme of
their vilification, ridicule, and abuse. Their dialect
was as amusing as the matter of their conversation.
All the canons of criticism were, of course,
completely at their command; and if any one ventured
the slightest dissent, though it were in a
matter of taste and opinion, about which, it is
the common saw, there ought to be no dispute,
he was knocked down with the “Edinburgh or
the London Quarterlies.” Their estimates of
American taste were derived from the fourth of
July orations of twenty years past, and Mr. Barlow's
Columbiad; they being pleased to consider
these productions as fair samples of what had
been done, or could be done in the literary way.
Their standing theme of wit was the awkwardness
and ignorance of “Jonathan,” whom they
considered a thick-headed, timid sort of fellow,
whose fare, physical and intellectual, was exceeding
meagre; and touching whom, it was a
mystery that with such a muddy and uninstructed
brain, he should be able to manage his own
affairs, and make his way in the world as well as
he did.

The rank and beauty, along with the story of
Mrs. Clenning, as told with all the comments and
conjectures of fancy, inspired them, at first, with
a certain degree of respect for her. But they
gradually broke over their reserve, and began

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

to treat her with cockney compliments, in the
absence of her husband. They soon learned
that she was disinherited, and yoked for life to a
plebcian yankee. From familiarity, their manners
gradually advanced to rudeness, and they
attempted to play the amiable, with an insolence
and confidence resulting from their ignorance
and vanity, which induced Mr. Clenning one
evening to announce to one of them, when no
person was present, save themselves and the
captain, that if ever he should have the audacity
to conduct in the same way towards Mrs. Clenning
a second time, he would have the honour
of administering the sea bath to him, by throwing
him overboard. His cheek blanched to the
paleness of death as he measured, with his eye,
the muscular form of the American, and saw, by
the flashing of his eye, that he was in sober
earnest. This suggestion had a most salutary
effect, and the Englishman observed a respectful
distance of manner towards them during the
remainder of the voyage.

There were also a couple of young gentlemen
on board, sons of wealthy merchants in the
United States. They were returning home from
the tour of Europe. They conversed together
as friends, though they were the strongest contrast
to each other in nature. One was a modest,
amiable, well informed young man, perfectly
affable in his manners, who had apparently made

[figure description] Page 115.[end figure description]

an excellent use of his eyes and his intellect on
his tour. He had stored his mind with an abundance
of that necessary information which travelling
only can supply. His conversation was
equally instructive and interesting, and his standard
of refinement and good manners was simplicity,
truth, and nature. With him Mr.
Clenning passed many pleasant hours on the
voyage, and thus contracted a friendship which
he afterwards found of essential service to him.

The other was a sample of that poor and
spoiled race of young men, of which our country
annually imports so many; who return from
abroad to annoy the inhabitants of the cities with
the intolerable garrulity of travelled coxcombs,
and to learn the people in the country how
trifling, vain, and contemptible a young man
may become, from the very circumstance of
having extended his sphere of observation.
There was no end to the wonders he had seen,
nor the artists, connoisseurs, and fashionable and
great men, with whom he had been familiarly
conversant. At one time, he instructed the
people at the breakfast table what kind of place
the “palais royale” was. At another, they
heard long dissertations about the Pantheon
and St. Peter's. There was no great man in
any line in Europe, with whom he had not
familiarly met. It was edifying to hear and see
with what a sapient air he could rote all the

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

chief actors and singers at the different courts of
Europe, in a most mysterious dialect of bad
French, bad Italian, and cockney English, that
almost needed an interpreter. This star, it is
true, sometimes became pale, when he came in
contact with the Londoners, who were birds of
the same feather, but sung a different tune.
They affected to regard the pretensions of the
travelled Yankee with ineffable disdain, and all
parties on board were delighted to hear them
lisp defiances, in point of pretension, towards
each other. This happy action and reaction
had the effect to neutralize the annoying forwardness
of both parties. They were mutually afraid
of each other, and out of their opposition grew
their peace. The orb of the one never rose
upon them, until that of the other was below the
horizon. This young travelled American sat
near Mrs. Clenning at table every day; but he
always affected not to know her; and though he
had been heard to pronounce her beauty “severe,”
he spoke of her as a poor undone thing,
who might have made her fortune out of her
face alone; and he was often seen to eye her,
half bent, with his quizzing glass, as though he
were taking a survey of her from a distant box
of the theatre.

They had also on board a young gentleman,
who had been in some way attached to a foreign
mission. He was a man of gravity, and never

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

walked the deck but with the true gait consequential.
To him the secrets of courts were
familiar. To him oracular diplomatists were
known. He had been closeted with men, who,
Atlas-like, helped to prop the world. He always
wore the close brow of the mighty political secret;
and to hear him, these great men of state were
not wrought upon by fashion, folly, and physic,
like other people. It was only for some one to
broach any question, touching the general politics
of Europe, and forth stalked the great men of
England and the continent, like drill soldiers on
parade. Every great man with whom he had
spoken, and every court that he had visited, had
added something of height to his stature.

In the society of the captain, and his young
travelled friend, Mr. Clenning lost sight for a
time of his anxieties. But, as it ought to be,
all his home and deep felt enjoyments were in
the privacy of his little state room, into which
the father and mother, the little Augusta and
Rescue, could just crowd. Here they talked of
their future plans of industry and comfort on
the little farm which they proposed to make.
They discussed the comparative advantages of
one place over another. Over the mountains
and on the waters of the Ohio, or the Mississipi,
their imaginations painted a rich country, fertile
and cheap land, an unbounded stretch of forest,
tranquillity, retirement, and repose, which they

[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]

thought would be nearest like their condition on
the island. Mr. Clenning saw affection and
hope written in letters of gold on the polished
brow of his wife, and was satisfied that in love
for him, she was compensated for all the privations
which it had brought upon her. Augusta
grew in beauty, strength, and endearment.
Rescue cared for nothing, so that she saw her
master and mistress happy, and could talk about
the western woods. These delightful feelings of
confidence and affection wore away the time
pleasantly. It was little to them, whether the
rest of their fellow passengers regarded them
with respect or pity, which they sometimes affected
to feel for them, or whether they regarded
them at all.

In twenty-two days, they landed without accident,
at New York. Mr. Clenning had talked
so much of the glorious freedom and independence
of his country, and had drawn such delightful
contrasts in its favour, compared with
England, and they had so often meditated upon
its green fields, compared with the gloomy brick
walls and dark alleys of London, that when they
came in view of the delightful shores of Long
Island, and the beautiful environs of New York,
Mrs. Clenning viewed the scenery with unsated
admiration. As she surveyed from the deck the
great extent of this very considerable pattern of
London, she could not withhold the expression

[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]

of her surprise and astonishment. She admitted,
that she had never seen any thing so beautiful
as the approaches to that city from the sea; and
she pronounced the aspect, so seen, when all the
environs were in the full splendour of summer
verdure, unrivalled.

While she was calmly surveying the scenery,
a very different order of sensations was passing
in the bosom of her husband. All his desires
were concentered in the single wish, to appear
well in the eyes of his wife. He often had flattered
himself, that he had subdued all the weak
or tormenting passions and inclinations of his
nature. But, like the crop of weeds in a fertile
garden in summer, as soon as one set was got
under, a new one sprung up that required a new
series of efforts to subdue them. He had imagined
that he was neither weak, vain nor proud,
like other men. But when the ship drew towards
the shore, he felt a host of torturing thoughts
spring up like fiends within him. The beauty
and rank of his wife, assumed a new aspect in
his eye. He seemed to see, for the first time,
from what sphere she had descended to connect
her destinies with his, and his heart inly pined
for some kind of notice or distinction, on the
shore of his own native country, that might
enable him to figure with some degree of consequence
in her eye. The little world of the respect,
as well as affection of his wife, was all the

[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]

world to him, as much as universal conquest
would have been to Napoleon. But alas! they
landed in a great and crowded city, to which
they had all been looking forward with eager
anticipation, and which he had fondly and
proudly associated with the increasing splendour
and glory of his dear native land, and he felt a
painful humiliation in the thought, that amidst
the crowds of people, that thronged about them
and in the city, whence he had embarked to go
abroad, he found himself, and was seen of her,
entirely a stranger, unknown and without name,
estimation or place, as completely as amidst the
crowds of London, or Sidney Cove. To find
himself so entirely without a single person to
whom to speak, or with whom to claim recognition,
was sufficiently painful in itself. It was
doubly so, when contemplated by another whose
respect and affection were every thing to him.
Ah! thought he, before any one shall reproach
me for the folly of this kind of ambition, let
him be placed in my situation; let him have been
the cause of humiliation to one so dear; let him
return with a heart of unutterable affection to
the land of his birth; let him see the crowds
rushing about a landing ship; let him find himself
wholly unknown, overlooked, disregarded,
obliged to clear the way for strangers on this
side, only to jostle them on the other; and let
all this be seen by such a wife as Augusta

[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]

Clenning; and if he do not painfully feel, that man
is naturally an ambitious animal, he has more
meekness and philosophy, than I have. It was,
indeed, a sore evil under the sun. Acquaintances,
relatives, strangers, came like a torrent round
the ship. There was the New York great man,
making his joyful and proud recognition of his
London friend. There was the bluff and portly
merchant, for whom the crowd instinctively made
way, that he might look at his bales. There was
the honourable Mr. A. and Mr. alderman B.
and squire C; and there was shaking of hands,
and such hearty inquiries about the voyage, and
such laying out of dinner parties; and every one
but themselves, seeming to have some consequence,
that the whole taken together, could not
but force upon them a painful conviction of their
nothingness. The people whispered, indeed, as
they saw Augusta calmly sitting in the pride of
her beauty. The inaudible inquiry was followed
by a nod, which being interpreted, her husband
understood to mean O! poor woman! It is true,
some considerate visitor to the ship, brought
chesnuts and cakes to the little Augusta, attracted
by her sweet rosy face, and her blond locks
curling round her alabaster neck. A present of
this sort, and apples and oranges by another,
and being caressed and kissed by a third, made
the child as happy as she could be, and gave the

[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]

mother favourable impressions of the kindness
of heart of the American people.

Besides, circumstances soon convinced Mr.
Clenning, that all these painful feelings of obscurity
and neglect existed alone in his mind;
and that a very different train of thought from
that, which he had so gloomily imagined, had
been passing in hers. Perfectly secure in the
sense of his protection, and satisfied in the singleness
of her affection for him, her thoughts
had been expatiating in the new scene before
her, with all the eagerness of curiosity. Here,
there were no contemptuous relatives and connections
of former days, to neglect her. No
harrowing associations, to remind her of the
difference, between what she then was, and what
she had been. She thought with pride, that her
husband would see none more beautiful than
herself, among his fair country-women. She
was meditating with admiration on the beauty
of her little girl; or thinking of the pleasure of
journeying amidst new scenery; and not one of
those torturing thoughts, that had brought gloom
on the brow of her husband, had touched her
heart.

Her husband proposed a carriage to carry her
and his little one, and Rescue, to the hotel. But,
she kindly refused, saying, “that it was cheaper
to walk; and that she wished to explore the

[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]

streets, and amuse herself in surveying the busy
and novel scene. Rescue bounded along with
little Augusta in her arms, exulting in the thought,
that in a few days more she should be in the
woods. How certain it is, that most of our
miseries are of our own creation! All this inward
torture of ambition and pining through want of
consequence, had been the single heritage of Mr.
Clenning, who imagined the while, that disinterested
feeling for another had originated the
whole.

The kind captain, true to all he had promised,
proffered endorsement to the amount of a thousand
dollars, of which Mr. Clenning assured him
he would thankfully avail himself, whenever he
could find in the country such a place as he
should like to purchase. The other passengers
made their cold congés, and were dispersing in
their coaches to the hotels, or their different residences.
Mr. Clenning and his wife, having
fixed upon the hotel where they proposed to
stay, were traversing the streets with that peculiar
kind of inspection, which always designates
strangers to citizens. The grace and foreign
air of Augusta were calculated to arrest attention.
Still more so were the hair, the outlandish
face, and the peculiar form of Rescue. The
knowing observers, who saw this singular group
passing along the streets, of course noted them
as persons afflicted with the sad disease of poverty,

[figure description] Page 124.[end figure description]

and that circumstance generally represses all
interest to inquire farther.

In their way to the hotel, they most fortunately
stumbled upon the minister of Mr. Clenning's
native village. What a meeting was this! All
the feelings of home rushed upon his heart in a
moment. It was with inexpressible delight he
heard that his father's family were all in health.
The minister was a dignified and respectable
man. He was in the city, with two of his
church officers, in the discharge of his ecclesiastical
duties. Mr. Clenning had always been a
favourite with him, and he now enjoyed this
happy meeting from a variety of considerations.
Augusta saw, in a moment, that the minister was
a gentleman of amiable and polished manners,
while her grace and sweetness struck him in such
a way, as immediately to produce that winning
deference and respect, which are so pleasant
to those who have been born and reared in
good society. She saw, in a moment, that a
gentleman of such tact and manners could not
belong to a country so rude and barbarous as
she had thought the interior of the United States
to be. A mutual feeling of regard and good will
was the immediate result of this introduction.
The minister and his friends were exceedingly
anxious to hear the relation of his strange adventures,
and the circumstances of his union with
his wife. This would happily fill up the hours

[figure description] Page 125.[end figure description]

of their residence together in the city, and of
their journey, which, they agreed, should also be
together, to Mr. Clenning's place of nativity.
They were thus immediately associated with
respectable people, who were the medium of
introducing them to other respectable people,
and Augusta soon observed, with visible satisfaction,
the greater equality of rank and condition,
and that the terms of admission to good society
were more simply founded on goodness of moral
character than in her own country. In company
with these acquaintances they made the circuit
of the town, and Augusta never ceased to express
her astonishment at the display of wealth, bustle,
and business, and appearances so very different
from all that she had expected to find in such a
young country.

CHAPTER III.

[figure description] Page 126.[end figure description]

“Where liberty dwells there is my country.”

When they left New York for Lake Champlain,
it was the middle of May and deep spring;
and that spring was as green, as pleasant, as
perfumed, as blossom-decked, and as splendidly
dressed a personage as poets have represented
her. The vendure and the landscape were
neither of the tropical richness and grandeur of
the South Sea islands, nor yet the deep and
unvarying verdure that clothes the sod amidst
the chill airs and dark sky of England. This
verdure was healthful, fresh, cheerful, and united
the happiest tints of both the other extremes. Mr.
Clenning remarked, with new sensibility, that
his wife, notwithstanding all the depressing
anxieties that must crowd on her mind in relation
to the future, had native enthusiasm, genius, and
admiration for natural beauty and grandeur.
Her eye kindled as their splendid steamboat
swept majestically along the bay, and up the
handsomest river in the world. In passing the
highlands, she never tired in looking upon this
sublime river scenery, the numerous sails, all

[figure description] Page 127.[end figure description]

scudding on their courses, the frequent steamboats
gliding by them, the appearance of bustle
and life all around, the proud triumphs of art in
the noble boat, that mounted the stream with her
untiring and self-derived power; the towering
and precipitous hills, summit beyond summit;
the green vales reposing between the noble seats,
marking the contrast with their embowering
verdure, by their white fronts, and spires and
farm houses, the abodes of rural competence and
comfort; the masses of well-dressed passengers,
the young, opulent and beautiful, walking on the
decks of the noble passing steamboats, apparently
as fine and as merry as the spring birds.

Mr. Clenning looked at the enthusiastic and
delighted contemplation of his wife as they were
propelled rapidly up this noble stream, and
especially as they passed West Point. Her eye
brightened with new admiration. Her language
in describing her enjoyment, and in painting the
impressions which she derived from the scenery,
was embodied in the very conceptions of poetry.
But, alas! thought he, this world was made for
Cæsar, and not for the unhappy fortune-stinted
beings who have cultivated the endowment of
keen sensibilities, and those vivid perceptions,
which equally expand with pleasure and shrink
with pain, and who have neither money, nor that
kind of fame which brings the value of money.
Amidst a landscape so splendid, and, to her,

[figure description] Page 128.[end figure description]

striking, from its freshness of novelty; amidst
this scene of surpassing vernal richness, in this
new and delightful way of passing in an Adriatic
palace, breasting the stream, gay with its
streamers and pennons of pride; amidst a crowd
of passengers, all either possessing or counterfeiting
the semblance of opulence, and seeming
to have no pursuit on the earth, but that of Leviathans
in the sea, to “take their sport therein;”
amidst a multitude of their fellow beings, who,
to their sensitive apprehensions, looked as if they
were scrutinizing the beautiful Augusta and her
charming child, and her wild and gigantic Rescue,
and the thought-marked and sun-stricken
countenance of her husband, only to espy the
nakedness of the land; all this charm of travelling,
so delightful to those who felt that they had
plenty of money, and could afford to give up
their minds to enjoyment, was, to them, little
better than a heart wearing business of calculation—
five dollars to this point, six dollars to
that, and fifty dollars in the whole to that beautiful
headland, fading away in the distance.
Nor could he avoid the distressing calculation,
at such a place I shall have but so much, and at
another, a sum still more diminutive. All this,
too, was so indispensable to furnish an ark, an
asylum, food and raiment, even the most common
and unexpensive, for those dearer to him than
life. How often did the taper fingers, the slender

[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]

and delicate hand, the fragile frame, and the fair
person, which seemed to have been formed not
to be visited too roughly by the winds, remind
him in his wife, as she sat apart and pensive,
apparently engaged in contrast of her own condition
with the gay and unthinking proud ones
about her, bring to his mind the bitter thought
of the sphere from which he had caused her to
fall! Travelling, thought he, is a pleasure, which
none can afford to enjoy, but the rich. To those
who are poor, this necessary arithmetic of calculation,
this tenacious memory of those who
provide the comforts and accommodations of
transport is indeed a “sore evil under the sun.”
Along with these painful circumstances, it was a
pleasant one, that the amiable minister, and his
church officers, were in company. They were
deemed respectable, as characters whose place in
society was well known. The respect which
they exemplified in their deportment, won that
of the passengers in general, and soothed and
kept this family in countenance.

The minister was a person of great dignity of
appearance. He had a fine silver voice, poetic
diction, and that kind of mélange of religion and
sentiment which is generally so attractive to ladies.
The liking between him and Mrs. Clenning
was mutual. He was a man of sufficient tact
and feeling to value her taste, and to feel the
influence of her refined manners. The church

[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]

officers on the other hand, felt the influence of
something like restraint and awe in her presence,
and they ascribed these feelings to the effect of
supposed pride in her; and they mutually discussed
and settled her as a woman doomed to
the united misery of poverty and pride in this
life, and to final and hopeless misery in the life
to come. They pitied their fellow townsman, as
a man who had been led away by his fancy, to
marry a lady with no portion, but a beautiful
face and a plentiful stock of poverty and pride,
of which they good-naturedly remarked, there
was already plenty at home. Much as they
talked of spiritual mindedness, and having the
world, as they phrased it, under their feet, and
their affections simply on things above, could
they have been informed what offers Mr. Clenning
had slighted to retain this incumbrance,
their contempt no doubt would have been greater
still. It is not at all improbable that they would
have found him guilty of the still higher offence
of withholding a daughter from her father. In
short, they were saints at particular times and
places; and during the six days for work and
calculation, they were shrewd, worldly wise men,
who valued a man by his ready money, and by
his credit in bank. The minister readily apprehended
this estimate of things and dared not
manifest all his kindness of feeling towards this
family in presence of these men. To make

[figure description] Page 131.[end figure description]

amends, he unbosomed himself to them in private,
and gave them a pledge that he would use
all his influence in favour of them, in his native
town.

At Albany they shifted from the steamboat to
the stage, for the magnificent Champlain canal
was not then in operation. The rural and
charming ride through the country to Mr. Clenning's
native village, caused the eyes of Rescue to
sparkle with something of their wonted brightness
when in her native island. Here were hills,
valleys, springs, rivers, woods, and enough of
the original features of nature in her unspoiled
freshness, to kindle in her bosom the dormant
instincts and associations of her native country
They were cheered and happy; and among their
enjoyments, none were more prominent than the
delighted prattle of the young Augusta, charmed
with seeing the lambs play, and asking a thousand
questions about the new objects that every
moment met her eye.

At length, from afar, the eye of Mr. Clenning
caught the spire of Whitehall, and the beautiful
sleeping waters of his native lake. There reposed
the silver flood in its grand vase and verdant
mountains. How his heart bounded at the view!
“There,” said he, “dear Augusta, is the humble
home where I was born. You will not think the
less of me because you will find that I first saw the
light in a cottage. How far we have wandered!

[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]

How much we have suffered! What a strange
fate has united us! We are poor; but with innocence
and love, we can be happy in enjoyments
which are beyond the reach of fortune. She responded
by a smile of affection and confidence,
that said more than a volume of professions;
and he relapsed to his musings, as the stage carried
them into the village. What a crowd of
recollections rushed upon him! How soothing
the remembrance of youthful anticipations and
enjoyments, retraced by memory! Infancy with
its peculiar enchantments; childhood with its
simple meditations and dawning passions; manhood
with its sturdier purposes, more earnest
passions, and its keener perception of the sad
reality of things, its blasted hopes and disappointed
ambition—all these at once crowded on
his mind like the images, at once distinct and
blended, of a long dream. The wastes of ocean,
over which he had been wafted; the perils of the
deep that he had encountered and escaped; the
various difficulties through which he had passed;
the lovely woman, with an aspect and manner at
once so frail, foreign, and different from the
colour of his lot; the beautiful child beside him;
the strange inhabitant of the South Seas brought
here among the Green mountains—these were
strange contrasts to bring back to the peaceful,
humble, and laborious sphere of his birth.

As they drew near the house where the stage

[figure description] Page 133.[end figure description]

was to leave them, Augusta comprehending, from
the thoughtfulness on his brow, some of the bitter
fancies that he was chewing, handed him Augusta
to kiss, and pressing his hand, she said,
“My dear Arthur, your people are my people.
Your home is my home, and where thou diest,
there also will I die. Be assured, even in thought,
I never separate you from all my pride and respect.
That pride to which you have more than
once alluded, is subdued, and subdued for ever.
I am practically taught that there is no one thing
worth living for, but domestic affection and happiness.
Smooth your brow, I beseech you. I
should neither love nor respect you more, if you
were carrying me to a palace. This is a good
country. Everything here tends to inspire selfrespect.
I have proved to you, little promise as
my appearance might seem to give, that I know
how to labour, be contented and happy. We
lived in London in contented industry. We
will so live here. Fear nothing. Only let me
see you cheerful and tranquil, and every thing
will go well.” Rescue added, “Yes, massee, me
work so hard, only let me see massee look as he
used to look on the island.”

This is the family secret of philosophy—to
banish despondency and enkindle those purposes
of cheerful and confiding industry, which are
worth the proceeds of the mines. But after all,
when Mr. Clenning stopped at the paternal door,

[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]

he was obliged to pay the tribute to poor human
nature. He was compelled to admit, that unequal
alliances are “a sore evil under the sun.”
He was constrained to allow the wisdom and
justice of that order of society, which brings
equals together, and tends to raise difficulties in
the way of incompatible and unequal unions.
He knew that, not an hour after their arrival
would elapse; the joyful greetings would be
scarcely past; the hair-breadth escapes only
touched upon, before there would be mental
calculations within, touching the difficulty of
lodging, feeding and accommodating, such an
additional number of people in their family. Let
those, who know how to sound the sources of
bitterness in the human heart, imagine what he
felt from these mingled sensations, as they knocked
at the door, and were admitted.

The family poured upon them, and the good
father and mother embraced their lost, and returned
son, in the fullness of unrestrained parental
affection. Nothing could exceed the kindness
and joy of the whole family. The brothers and
sisters, seemed to have imbibed an uncommon
portion of feeling and hilarity. In a few hours,
the house was crowded with visitors, who had
come to hear the strange tale, and see the strange
sight. Even the maiden aunt broke the ice
about the fountains of her feeling, and whispered
madam Clenning the elder, that Arthur's wife

[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]

was real nobility every inch, and would be an
infinite honour to the family; and that to put
every thing in a proper train to meet the new
expenses, she would break in a few dollars upon
her precious annuity. Rescue saw by a glance
of the eye how the land lay, and, after the first
two hours of narrative—in which she carried on
a clever little episode of her own to her own
listening audience—she was in the kitchen,
giving abundant demonstrations, that she was
handy at all the preparations for supper. They
supped in plenty, and talked to a crowded audience,
until midnight. In short, the reception
was infinitely more cordial, and went off far
better, than the fears of the returned son had
anticipated.

But the raptures of the return could last but
for a few days. The story was soon an old one.
The congratulations of the villagers were over.
The united family had taken a kind of thanks-giving
tea-party, with all the families of the village.
The effervescence of the adventure began
to subside. Former relations began to exercise
their wonted influence. All parties had had
time to breathe, and settle their estimate of Mr.
Clenning's lady. It would be, if not an amusing,
at least an instructive, though it might be a
long and a tedious chapter, to give here all the
comments, by the most considerable people in
the village, upon the character and deservings

[figure description] Page 136.[end figure description]

of Mrs. Clenning. In the narrative of their
fortunes, her husband, from self-respect, had
necessarily left a degree of ambiguity about the
relation between her and her father, though it
was sufficiently understood, that she had no expectations
of property, from that quarter. A
hundred solutions of this mystery had been
attempted. A thousand poetical inventions, each
more extravagant and unjust than the other,
were put in circulation, and there was abundant
food for gossip in every family. It is an unhappy
fact to record of human nature, that,
although they had little more than conjecture to
go upon, most of these fictions were exceedingly
unfavourable to the party interested. Every
pretty girl in the village, felt that her beauty, if
not a crime, was a provoking fault. Every
would be fine lady found her native grace and
elegance of manners, an arrogant assumption.
Her white hands and her delicate person, were
scanned in no favourable point of light; and
there was a general and quiet exultation at the
close of the comment, which amounted to a feeling
of pleasure, that madam, with her lady airs
and fine form, would have to come to hard work.
There were not wanting mothers with pretty
daughters, who could see no beauty in her daughter;
and then, what a fright was their poor
slave! They generally agreed, that every rule
of benevolence called upon them to instruct her

[figure description] Page 137.[end figure description]

that she was free; and to invite her to leave a
service, into which, they did not doubt, she was
beguiled or compelled. It is a painful and
humiliating view of human nature, that when
we have no grounds on which to judge, we are
much more prone to form harsh and unfavourable
estimates of character, than the reverse.

Mr. Clenning soon after their arrival, had a
conversation with his mother upon the subject.
She admitted, that if beauty were the first point
in a wife, her son had made an admirable choice.
“But,” she continued, “what is the use of
beauty here? It is well enough to be comely,
and not particularly ugly. But, where is the
use of being handsomer than your sisters? But,
indeed, Arthur, you were always a fine looking
boy yourself, and foolishly nice in your notions
of beauty in others. See, what comes of it.
Will the fine looks and grand carriage of your
wife clothe your children, build you a house, or
buy bread for you: What are you going to do
with her beauty and high birth here? She cannot,
that I can discover, do any sort of house
work, and you know, Arthur, we have no money
to maintain fine ladies with. High birth is a
good thing, and I imagine, we are as well born
as she is—but your sisters will never labour to
maintain a fine lady in idleness. Poor Arthur,
I fear you have made a very foolish bargain.
What a different match I could have made for

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

you at home. I hoped you would have made
not only your fortune, but all the rest of us rich.
Instead of that, you have returned as poor as
you went, and have brought back a fine lady
into the bargain.”

This was indeed a harsh lecture to her son;
but he knew, that it was dictated by sincerity
and good intention, if not cheering views of his
case. He answered, and it was all the answer
which the case admitted, that all this information,
however wise and useful it might have been
before the fatal knot was tied, was wholly useless
now, since it could not in the slightest degree
operate upon the past; but, he added,
that it was due to truth, as well as his wife, to
add, that if the greatest fortune in the world
were put into the hands of any other woman,
and he was sure, she would share it with him,
and his choice were again to be made, he would
again select his dear lang syne, were she as
pennyless, as when they united their affections
on the island. To this she replied, that the
Clennings had always been a wilful race; that
love would go where it would; that the Clennings
had been constantly sliding down hill, for
four generations, and that this useless flounce of
finery stitched on to their family garment, she
thought, would do little to help the cause; that,
“as he had brewed, so he must bake:” adding
a very respectable string of proverbs, after the

[figure description] Page 139.[end figure description]

fashion of Sancho, all tending to illustrate the
folly of her son's choice.

Something was to be done. Mrs. Clenning
was a woman too charming, intelligent, and, we
must add the word, too fashionable, not to excite
a great deal of envy, and ill feeling, and ill
natured remark, in the village. It would be well
if we were not obliged to add, that there was
envy towards her in her husband's own family.
Her husband's sisters complained of having to
attend upon a lady. The maiden aunt found
fault with her small hand, and the lilies and
roses in her cheeks. All this she well understood,
and the rising of her father's spirit within,
at times almost suppressed her breath. But, she
had learned practical calmness and self-possession,
in the school of adversity. She suppressed
resentful thoughts as they arose; kept as much to
herself as possible; and made no mean attempts
to conciliate her sisters-in-law, doing them little
kindnesses in relation to their finery, which
subdued their envious feelings against themselves.
Through the whole of the trial, she
maintained a calm placidity of spirit; but she
prayed earnestly, that Providence would make
known some way, in which, by honest industry,
they could be independent without causing her
continued humiliation, or the necessity of much
intercourse with people who slandered and envied
her.

[figure description] Page 140.[end figure description]

Mr. Clenning was aware, that as soon as
things should have found their ancient bearings
in the family, and the first flow of kind feeling,
created by his return should have worn away,
and the thoughts of the family should have resumed
their ancient channel, they would begin
to manifest a disposition to get rid of him, as a
burden upon them. He knew too, that the less
a man needs kindness and sustenance, the more
ready people are to bestow it upon him, and the
reverse. As soon, then, as he began to hear
insinuations about the smallness of the house,
and the expensiveness of living, and indirect
questions, how he intended to dispose of himself
and his lady wife for the future, he gave them
to understand, that he had nearly sixteen hundred
dollars in possession, and a thousand more
at command, when he chose to order it. Never
had information such an electric and transforming
effect. The pennyless dead-weight member
of the family, with a fair wife for a negative sign
in algebra, became transformed in a moment
into a man of consequence. An industrious and
frugal man, with that amount of money, they
declared a rich man. Why had he deceived
them, by making up a face of poverty? For
that sum he could purchase two sections of land
in the western country, build a good house, and
stock his farm. He passed at once, in the view
of the family, from humiliation to exaltation.

[figure description] Page 141.[end figure description]

The sisters-in-law made respectful courtesies to
their lady sister-in-law. The news moved in
the village. The airs and dresses of Mrs. Clenning
seemed now fashionable, and matters well
worth being copied.

Some friends began to stir themselves in his
behalf. The post-office was vacant by the death
of the late incumbent, and the income was four
hundred dollars. The house in which the postoffice
was kept, a beautiful white cottage on the
shore of the lake was to be rented. Interest was
made that he should be appointed. On enquiry
he learned that there were no more than thirtysix
applications for it. He was advised to repair
to Mr. M. member from the district in congress,
a man who had obtained his place by crouching
and purring to the people in the first instance,
who was alternately a toad eater to the great,
and a tyrant to the small—a union much more
common, than is generally imagined. Mr. Clenning
wished his interest with the post-mastergeneral.
This little great man received him as
a Mandarin of the blue button, and drew himself
up in his chair. “Sir, what are your pretensions?”
Mr. Clenning's voice clung to his jaws.
“I repeat, sir,” said the great man, “what are
your pretensions? Before the respondent could
answer, there came in one of those clever fellows,
who, like the engineer of a steamboat, keep the
electioneering machine in operation. The lion

[figure description] Page 142.[end figure description]

to Mr. Clenning, instantly became a spaniel to
this mover of the sovereign people. Undoubtedly
the disclosures were of a nature unfit for unhallowed
ears. So, requesting Mr. Clenning to
remain, they retired and were closeted.

When he returned, the member was a great
man again, and resumed the question, What were
Mr. Clenning's pretensions? The latter suggested
that he was a good penman, accountant and so
forth; the only qualifications which he supposed
important, after integrity, in a post-master. He
showed a beautiful specimen of his penmanship.
“Oh, that is all well!” replied the great man,
“every one is a scholar in these times. That is
nothing. There are thirty-six applicants, sir.
Every one writes a good hand, and moreover,
every one of them has a father, or a brother, and
a circle of friends. This man's father was a revolutionary
officer. That man is nephew to
Gov. L. A third has a sister that married judge
R. who has great influence in S.” In this way
he run through the value and pretensions of
each one of the thirty-six applicants. “A thing,
sir,” said he, “is worth what it will bring in the
market. Now let us compare your pretensions.
The Clennings have some influence, not much,
however. Can you make a speech, such as we
hear now in Congress? Do you know how to
tickle the people? Can you electioneer? Can
you lie? Can you write?” Mr. Clenning replied,

[figure description] Page 143.[end figure description]

that he respected himself and the people too
much, to think of any thing of the kind. “Then,
sir, you are not the man for a post-master.
There is influence in it. We give and take, sir.
We do for you. You must do for us.” The
question finally turned upon his capability at
writing, and he showed Mr. Clenning a most
abusive electioneering article in the newspaper,
traducing an important public functionary, and
lauding a candidate intended to supplant him.
“What think you of that, sir? Can you match
it?” Mr. Clenning answered, that he saw nothing
difficult in writing it, for that of all writing, such
kind of abuse was the easiest; and that a wooden
writen might be easily invented, to utter as good;
but that a man, who was either an honest man or
a gentleman, could never condescend to use such
language for any person, or with any inducement.
This clenched the nail. “Oh, sir,” said
the great man, “I beg your pardon. I perceive
you have honesty, and a conscience, and are
scrupulous. Sir, all this is teeth outwards, and
for the people. You will soon find, that this is
not the kind of qualification for a post-master's
place, for which there are thirty-six applications.
You had better consult the minister, sir. He,
too, talks about a conscience. You must excuse
me. We are busy in preparing for the electioneering
campaign. I shall be glad to serve you
in any other way.”

[figure description] Page 144.[end figure description]

Mr. Clenning, equally in disappointment and
disgust, turned away. “This is a hard world,”
said he, “but I must try it again.” He passed
the beautiful place, which he described, on his
way back again. Its bignonias and honey-suckles
were unfolded in all their splendour, and the
gentle ripples of the lake lulled at the foot of
the garden. He had been flattered that the great
man would help him to this sweet place, and that
he would create an agreeable surprise for his
wife, by imparting the good news in the first instance
himself. It went to his heart, to see her
fair face beginning to be sicklied over with the
cast of anxiety and care. What a delightful
thought would it have been, to have told her,
that this charming place between the mountains
and the lake was hers! The place looked more
provokingly pleasant, in passing it now in the
hour of his disappointment, than it had ever done
before.

He took the ironical advice of the great man,
and repaired to the minister, and laid his difficulties
before him. He was not a little piqued
by the reference of the congressman to him, and
he probably served Mr. Clenning from motives
compounded partly of temper, and partly of
benevolence. The effect was, that he served
him heartily. The minister was fourth cousin
to Mr. C. of New York, and was allowed the
privilege of intimacy with that distinguished man.

[figure description] Page 145.[end figure description]

That man was to the member whom he had consulted,
as Opperbanjo, in Japan, is to Banjo.
The one was a very great man, and the other
only a great man. The minister wrote for him,
staking all his influence. In a few days, Mr.
Clenning received an answer from him, that he
would exert his influence with the postmaster
general. As soon as the mail could return from
Washington the appointment arrived.

When the announcement was made to Augusta,
the father, the mother, the child, and Rescue,
were, probably, for the time being, the happiest
people in the world. Embraces, and tears of
affection and joy were not wanting. This would
banish the grim spectre of poverty for a while,
and until they could procure a farm, which was
their ultimate purpose. They both alike despised
the miserable dependence upon favour and office
as a final reliance for their domestic arrangements.
The name of postmaster, too, gratified
some of the English feelings of his wife. Such
is human nature, that every one sees their nearest
and most intimate friend, when that friend has
recently received a place of trust and value, as
the ancient poets imagined the aspect of shades—
something larger than life. In truth, there was
something singularly bland and soothing in her
caresses and congratulations, as she allowed that
a great man was a great man in America, and
England, and all the world over.

[figure description] Page 146.[end figure description]

This good fortune, along with other circumstances,
placed them at once on the dizzying
pinnacles of good society in the village. The
grand presentation of a stranger in a country
village at the north, is the appearance of the
personage at church on the Sabbath. Mr. Clenning's
family took a pew, made themselves as
fine as they could, and made their entré at church
the first Sabbath after this appointment. Let
them talk about the throbbings of heart on being
introduced at court, or making the maiden
speech in congress hall, or delivering a fourth of
July oration, or any other gridiron experiment
that can be proposed. They are all a sham, a
terrific man of straw, compared with the making
entré into a full village church on a Sabbath
day, after the services have commenced. There
is such a blaze of simple beauty! There is so
much majesty in the gray patriarchal heads and
the pondrous canes of the ancient tenants of the
body seats! The religious solemnity and stillness
are so imposing! There is such a sanctity in the
dignity annexed by opinion to the grand but
unostentatious part of the minister! When a
strange family, like that of Mr. Clenning's enters,
there is such a consentaneous movement of heads,
such a rustling of gowns, such a rattling of the
little falling trap tables, so conveniently devised
either as an asylum for the head for profound
meditation or a profound nap! Instead of all the

[figure description] Page 147.[end figure description]

incense of an oriental sacrifice, or the aromatic
fragrance of drugs from Araby the blest, the
church is filled with the more delicious odours of
the northern pond-lily. There is no place, no
union of circumstances of interest, no delightful
and hallowed associations that may not be found
in a northern church on a fine spring Sabbath.

Mr. Clenning was ready for this solemn affair
in good season, and begged Augusta to be also
in season. But this is a domestic impossibility
never to be remedied. He fidgetted, and showed
his impatience, as the bell began to ring.
Augusta blushed, became a little nervous, and
probably thought her husband, for that time, in
bad temper, but did not nevertheless remit adding
one touch of finish to her own dress, and
that of her beautiful and fairy-like daughter.
Rescue, too, was awful in no small blaze of
savage finery. All these preparations were not
completed until fifteen minutes after the bell had
ceased to be heard. The clear and mellow voice
of the minister reading the hymn, echoed from
the walls, as they entered. Their pew was near
the pulpit. The church was an oblong square.
Amidst a mass of people as close as they could
be compacted into their pews, this strange procession
walked along the aisle. One would have
thought there was but one soul and one neck to
a thousand people. Such a rustling! such an
excitement of the moved fragrance of the

[figure description] Page 148.[end figure description]

pondlily. Every eye was on them. The poor
minister might get the attention of whom he
could. Some smiled. Some blushed. Some
envied, and all supposed that they had come at
that time merely to excite observation. Mr.
Clenning, who knew the estimate of the audience,
could have sunk to the earth to avoid observation.
Not so Augusta. She was perfectly calm
and at home in all this attention. It excited, in
fact, the pleased consciousness that it was all her
due, and it reproduced the momentary complacency
of gone by days.

It would be no useless nor uninteresting history
to recite the various incidents, estimates,
greetings, and management, through which they
had to pass, in taking their place, and finding
their level in the society of the village. A fair
history of the society of a country village would
be a thousand times more interesting than a
novel; and besides the interest of the picture, it
would be one of the most useful views of society
that can be presented. But taste has not yet matured
sufficiently to relish such a picture, and,
perhaps, the historian does not yet exist who has
the requisite discrimination and felicity to draw it.
The actings of concentred ambition, self-importance,
scandal, envy, and ill-feeling, which in a
city, operate over a wide mass, and are spread
through such a variety of interest and feeling,
are all concentred in the village; with the added

[figure description] Page 149.[end figure description]

disadvantages against it, that in the city, rank,
place, standing, estimation, society, and all the
incidental circumstances of intercourse, have
been arranged by prescription, and every one
naturally settles into the niche which he is destined
to fill. Far otherwise in the village. Prescription
has settled nothing. There is at once
an union and distinction, an equality and inequality,
which are always varying. All the
elements of pride, vanity, and envy, are at all
times in a state of chaos and confusion. Storms
are always fermenting.

Mr. Clenning had returned to the society of
his native village, under circumstances which
naturally raised him from the place occupied by
his father's family. It was in vain by humility,
and gentleness, and courtesy to them, that he
endeavoured to keep this truth out of sight. He
soon found, that in discussing him and his family,
his foes were those of his own household. A
large proportion of the villagers soon found him,
as they said, insupportably proud, and that he
felt himself rising too rapidly in his business.
A defeated expectant of the place of postmaster
started a party against him. A paper was soon
handed round for subscribers to a memorial to
the postmaster general, to dismiss him for maladministration.
But the continued to wax great,
notwithstanding all these efforts. As a proof of
this, he received an appointment of justice of the

[figure description] Page 150.[end figure description]

peace; and Augusta had the satisfaction to see
every letter addressed to her husband by the
title of Esquire. Upon receiving this appointment,
he was notified by those friends who procured
it for him, that it was expected he would
give a dinner in consequence. Accordingly, to
fulfil all righteousness, and moreover to gratify
his wife, he consented to give a dinner. It was
intended to unite the fancy, wit, and judgment
of both, to show how much they could do with a
small sum. It was a hard science for Augusta,
who had studied arrangements only in the midst
of opulence. But when this problem was settled,
there was another of still harder demonstration
before them; and that was, so to distribute the
cards of invitation, where every body could not
be invited, so as to give no offence to those who
were omitted. They were warned upon this
subject; but, like most others who have tried the
thing for the first time, apprehended no danger.
On the contrary, Mrs. Clenning was sure that
she could so manage it, as to put down the ill
feeling, which, she knew, existed in reference to
them in the village. But, alas for her knowledge
for managing a village, they found that
they offended many, and pleased none! Some
envied the practised ease and dignity of Mrs.
Clenning's deportment. Some cried out upon
the extravagance of such poor beginners in
making such a show. Others ridiculed and

[figure description] Page 151.[end figure description]

analysed the points of show, and discussed the
meagreness and cheapness of the reality from
which the appearance was compounded. Those
who were invited, considered that they had done
no more than their duty, and felt no obligation
restraining them from joining in the ridicule
with the rest. Every one that had not been
included in the invitation considered the omission
as a pointed mark of indignity, and resented it
accordingly. Augusta was chagrined, and a
little inclined to scold at the country. Her husband
complacently advised her to take it all
calmly, as one of the miseries of human life, and
assured her that he had no idea that in an
English village the same thing would have been
conducted to a happier issue.

But these evils, met by a calm and forbearing
temper, soon cured themselves. Envy and babble
and ill-feeling soon burnt out their own fires.
The pleasant and intelligent people, by a principle
of electric attraction, soon began to attach
themselves to them, and they found themselves
settling into the bosom of a friendly and assorted
circle. They had passed through all the seven
purgatories of scandal. Augusta had successively
risen from being a woman of ill-fame, a transported
convict, to being a runaway and disinherited
heiress. A whole brood of rumours
touching him had been hatched and extinguished.
The natural order and result of moderation and

[figure description] Page 152.[end figure description]

correct deportment manifested itself. One report
and surmise died away after another. One
mouth after another was stopped, until calumny
of them sunk gradually to those known calumniators,
that exist in every society, whose censure,
in the common phrase, is praise. Mr. Clenning
had often allayed the indignant feelings of his
wife, by predicting that it would be so, and that
like the atmosphere after the passing thunder-cloud,
the air would be more pure and calm
afterwards; and that if they persisted in their
moderation, they would ultimately achieve the
most glorious and difficult of all triumphs, the
triumph over envy.

As a straw is sufficient to show the direction
of the wind, one fact out of a thousand will show
the spirit and temper of many people in that
village, and, unhappily, in a thousand other
villages. Rescue, of course, came often in contact
with the good gossips of the place. Nothing
pleased them more than to tell her she was a
slave, and to pretend humanity and kindness in
advising her to leave her mistress, and promising
her countenance and protection. Said Rescue,
as she related a conversation of this sort, “Do
you think that Phyllis, the black woman, didn't
tell me I was a slave, and that massa and missee
were both bad; and that the woman where she
worked didn't ask me if you didn't whip me?”
“What of that?” asked her master. “What

[figure description] Page 153.[end figure description]

of that!” answered Rescue in astonishment,
“why I beat Phyllis before her mistress, and I
say, you take that. Massa and missee no bad.
Me love them. Me never run away.” The
kind object of these zealous efforts to emancipate
poor Rescue was, as they expressed it, the hope
that Mrs. Clenning might be obliged to put her
own delicate fingers to the cooking.

Nothing material occurred in their chapter of
incidents, until the autumn, when they had a
fine boy to match their Australasian daughter.
Their circumstances were easy. They were
growing in the respect of the people, and were
perhaps as happy as man can be on the earth.
But a new cause of alarm and apprehension
began to rise, like a dark cloud, upon their
prospects. The roses in the cheek of Augusta
were replaced by lilies, and there was the calm
and sad smile of one, who felt that her health was
sinking. Every day of their residence together
had more endeared her to her husband, as he
had seen the native pride of her spirit gradually
mellowing into affectionate humility, and a self-disciplined
and contented temper. Home was
clearly her paradise. Every thing abroad, that
decorum, the usages of the society in which
they lived, and the wishes of her husband called
for, she meekly endured. But home was the
place of her enjoyment. Never had he seen
her so amiable, so delightfully kind, so

[figure description] Page 154.[end figure description]

considerately attentive to all the small charities that
compose the comfort of home, as since the birth
of her son. But as she bent over the babe with
those looks of inexpressible tenderness that a
mother alone can feel, it was evident that her
health was sinking. There was a sombre cast
in the tone of the delightful conversations, which
often ensued, while with untiring tenderness he
watched over her in the days of this confinement.
All words would be useless to explain
what he felt during the long and bitter winter
that followed. The storms howled. The snow
whistled, and the Spirit of ice and frost seemed
to have fixed his throne on the Green Mountains.
The interest, the harrowing agitation,
with which he watched her countenance, and
the changing aspects of her health from day to
day, convinced him, but too plainly, that his
life, or all that rendered it worth possessing,
was involved in hers. When she saw this distress,
saw that he wished to speak to her on the
subject of her increasing debility, but dared not,
she gently pressed his hand, assured him that
all would be well on the return of the mild
weather of spring, and turned the conversation
to some other point. In these cases of solicitude,
that agonize the heart and prey upon the
mind, there is no real relief but in the inexhaustible
fountains of religion. He besieged the
throne of the Divine mercy, with incessant and

[figure description] Page 155.[end figure description]

unwearied prayer, that her illness might not be
irrecoverably fixed, before the return of spring.

How thankful they were to the Almighty, when
the winter at length relented, and the season of
buds and flowers once more returned. The
physician remarked, as was obvious to them all,
that the keen and bleak air of the lake, was
unfavourable to her complaint, and advised them
before another winter to fix themselves in a
southern climate. During this terrible winter,
they had a thousand times talked of the western
country, of the mildness of the climate, and the
repose and range of a new establishment on the
prairies. Many circumstances, apart from his
concern about the health of his wife, induced
him to wish to remove from that village. The
thirty-six applicants for his place, never forgave
his success over them, and were still intriguing
to remove him. They had a few neighbours,
who were really amiable and affectionate, but a
much greater number, who never ceased to find
some harsh and ill-natured remark to make
about them. If the ministers in these villages
would oftener preach about the guilt and misery
of the odious passions that so often prey upon
the members of small societies in country villages,
they might do something towards removing
the evil.

Mr. Clenning was weary of wandering; but
he was more weary of the pitiful slander, the

[figure description] Page 156.[end figure description]

petty contentions, and everlasting squabbles, of
the villagers. The idea of a farm in the western
country, had long been treasured in his imagination.
His thoughts expatiated in the deep
beechen forests, or wandered over the flowery
expanse of the prairies. A feeling which he
should have repressed, not exactly misanthropy,
but something too near like it, impelled him to
wish for more solitude and a retirement from the
crowded haunts of men. He had probably associated
in his mind the idea of more innocence
and freshness in the heart of man in those countries,
with the virgin freshness of the soil; an
association, which after-experience convinced
him had originated in a mistaken opinion. But
so it was. Fancy had spread over the picture
of a residence there, all the beauty and brightness
of her own creations. Added to this, it
was the country to which the physicians advised
him to take his wife, for her health. This circumstance
fixed his purpose, and he mentioned
his feelings and views upon the subject to her.
The kindness of his motive affected her, but she
was unwilling to part with him for the time
which a journey to look at the country would
require. She was entirely willing to move there
whenever he saw fit to go; and she insisted, in
the language of the affectionate Ruth, “when
and where thou goest, I will go,” and we will
make the journey together. It was not until

[figure description] Page 157.[end figure description]

after long and almost painful reasonings, and
statings of the necessity of the case, that he
could induce her to consent to his going before,
to make a purchase, should he be pleased, and
prepare a place for her reception. It was one
of the hardest struggles he had ever encountered,
to leave his wife, still feeble and delicate, with
Augusta clinging to her, and crying from sympathy,
and the little Arthur in her arms. But
their condition called for this parting. He went,
had a prosperous journey, and the country every
where seemed delightful, for he every where saw
Augusta. He looked at no place, without thinking
of the appearance it would make, when embellished
by the presence of his wife. He finally
selected a position on the rich, large and beautiful
prairie, pitched upon by Mr. Birkbeck, for
the purpose of making a settlement of English
people. He purchased a tract of land, to which
he intended to remove as soon as the summer
heats were over. It was amusing when he returned,
to hear the regret which the people of
the village, even those who had been most liberal
in their slanders, expressed at the idea of their
going away. They became personages of consequence
at once. The thirty-six applicants
all turned about, and blew a fine gale in their
sails. Poor fellows, thought Mr. Clenning, you
will soon be growling at each other, like hungry
dogs quarreling for a single bone.

[figure description] Page 158.[end figure description]

Notwithstanding all the manifestations of sorrow among
the villagers at the approaching departure, the
Clennings consoled themselves with the thought,
that the day after they were gone, every thing
would go on just as before; and the busy folks
would comfort themselves for the loss, by hunting
up some new game to worry.

In the beautiful days of Indian summer, the
journey was commenced. Every thing, bag and
baggage, was packed in a monstrous Kentucky
wagon, drawn by six horses. Away they went,
“over the hills and far away,” to the state of
Illinois. Mr. Clenning's heart was gladdened to
see the health of his wife improving every day,
and her mind invigorated by convalescence,
exercise, and the delightful weather of this season,
regained its elasticity and cheerfulness. Rescue
occupied herself with the care of the children,
thus relieving their mother from all the uneasiness
of maternal affection, and enabling her to
enjoy all its pleasures. The native of the island
in the South Sea was delighted by the awakening
of ancient and fond remembrances, produced
by travelling through the noble forests, now
wearing the mellow livery of autumn. A pleasanter
period can hardly be imagined, than that
which passed over the heads of this family as
they made their way to their new home. Upon
their arrival, Mr. Clenning was gratified to find
that his wife and Rescue were as much struck

[figure description] Page 159.[end figure description]

with the beauty of the spot he had chosen, as he
had been. Here then this family was placed in
the midst of a new order of things, in the skirt
of a noble forest of cotton wood, sycamores, and
elms, on the margin of a plain, still covered with
a waste of flowers, as rich, as primitive, and as
charming as that of Mamre. The soft and whispering
southwest breeze seemed to medicate the
frame of Mrs. Clenning, and to confirm her convalescence.
Affection, tranquillity, and contentment
beamed in her eye. Could any thing have
added to Mr. Clenning's affection for his wife, it
would have been to see her, as he did, study her
new duties, as the head of a farmer's establishment.
In performing these duties, she was compelled
to combat the wishes both of her husband
and Rescue. But she showed them so clearly
that her heart was in the point of learning to be
a good housewife, and that it would add to her
cheerfulness, by occupying her time when her
husband should be absent, and, more than all,
her confident persuasion, that this course would
be serviceable to her health, that they consented,
and saw her at early morn inhaling the breath
of her cows, and her hundred fowls flocking
around her, as her tamed birds used to do in the
island. Near Mr. Clenning were two thousand
acres for sale. He had a distant hope that he
should yet come to his wife's rights, when he
intended to purchase this, and settle all his

[figure description] Page 160.[end figure description]

relations around him, and become to them a sustaining
Mordecai, speaking peace, and doing
good to all his race. A younger brother was
already with him, and more of the family talked
of joining them. Mr. Clenning paid for his land,
and stocked it well in comparison with his
neighbours. With such a beginning, he bade
fair soon to become one of the best farmers in
the vicinity. A large field was shortly enclosed,
and the land being perfectly smooth, without a
tree or shrub, it was at once ready for the
plough.

Just in the edge of the prairie, and under the
shade of peccans, sycamores, elms, and horse-chesnuts,
Mr. Clenning built his log house.
But if the reader has never been in a respectable
building of this kind, he has, I dare say, very
little idea what a tight, snug, and comfortable
house this is. For example, there are three
rooms plaistered with lime and covered with
paper hangings, and for all purposes of comfort
and utility, and for every object but ostentation,
as good as the splendid apartments of Mr. Wellman
in Grosvenor square. The cattle are turned
into the range to fatten and multiply when their
services are not required on the farm. A thousand
fowls furnished them in a short time with a
barrel of eggs. They may be said, literally, to
flow with milk and honey. They raise grain in
a profusion almost to make them think cheaply

[figure description] Page 161.[end figure description]

of the staff of life. Orchards are planted out,
that promise to yield every variety of apple, pear,
peach, and plum, as well as to add their peculiar
beauty to the landscape. In the wild fruits of
the woods around, nature offers them her free
luxuries, and their table, at will, is supplied with
venison, wild ducks, turkeys, and the other
varieties of game. Add to this picture, an air
of tranquillity and repose pervading the whole
scene; health, affection, content, and intelligence
on the part of the indwellers, and the constant
enjoyment of a mild and delightful climate, and
I think, reader, you have in view as much happiness
as ever falls to the lot of human nature
under the sun. Their neighbours afford the
Clenning's a more agreeable society than that
which they had left in the village. Coming from
different regions, they have seen something of
the nature of man, and have been compelled to
rub off some of their narrow prejudices and
illiberal feelings. Among them are two foreigners,
highly intelligent and respectable, whose greatness,
like Mrs. Clenning's, is in an eclipse.

To those who have a taste for the simple, innocent,
and healthful pleasures belonging to the
cultivator of the soil, it will give pleasure to hear
the astonishing growth of the young orchards.
In three years after transplanting, the apple-trees
will bend with fruit. To one who has never seen
the corn of these plains, it would be difficult to

[figure description] Page 162.[end figure description]

describe the grandeur of a corn field of seventy-five
acres, and the wheat field of forty, in which,
when full grown, a man may hide himself, as in
tall bushes. Nor could any one, except by seeing
it, form an idea of the beauty of the orchard
of two thousand choice, grafted, and innoculated
fruit trees, as it shows on the perfectly level prairie.
The wheat yields forty, and the corn eighty
bushels, to the acre. The cattle and pigs increase
in such a proportion, that in a few years they
will be able to institute a pretty respectable comparison
with the man of Uz. Then, there is the
handsome dearborn and horses, which enable
them to take healthful and pleasant morning and
evening rides. Rescue is as tall, and much
fatter than formerly, and allows that Illinois
beats even the island for good living.

In short, from the kitchen garden to the thousand
fowls, from the sheep to the pigs, from the
barn to the cellar, every thing goes on as they
could wish, and they are in a fair way to have all
that heart can wish,—independence, abundance,
healthy and beautiful children, kind neighbours,
good roads, and a great and glorious country.
They see from their mother earth

—“Life's blessings grow,”

The reader may perhaps think that Mr. Clenning
has praised his wife too much. His

[figure description] Page 163.[end figure description]

extenuation, is that from what he hears he is led to believe,
that every one is not as fortunate as himself,
with regard to this point; and as he is so
happy, and in such good temper with every living
thing, as to be desirous of general happiness, he
is willing that the world should have the benefit
of his wife's example. That wives should be
good is the more necessary, as, after all, according
to the good old saw, “A man must ask his
wife's leave to thrive.” If you ever cage happiness,
it must be where the wife is. Mr. Clenning
often consults atlasses, and globes, and
navigators, and is not a little disturbed with
Symmes' hole at the poles. His wife tells him,
that he must have the wandering lump in his
skull; but that she has surveyed their beautiful
fields, springing orchards, the grand “truckpatch”
of a garden, the chickens, turkies, and
ducks, so often, and has enjoyed such home-felt,
and undisturbed happiness here, as to prevent
her mind from dwelling for a moment upon
the possibility of finding a better conntry or of
making a remove, before the final one.

If the reader should suppose this family is
lonesome, let him go and spend a night with
them, and hear in the morning the chicken's
crow, the turkies gobble, and the pigs squeal,
not to mention the louder noises of the larger
animals, in addition to the music of the groves,
and he will allow that they are any thing rather

[figure description] Page 164.[end figure description]

than lonesome. There are two sons, besides
their little Augusta, who rises “when the horn
calls them out in the morn,” and walks with her
father into the fields. If you would know concerning
the brightness of Mrs. Clenning's eyes,
dispute the point of Augusta's beauty. She has
the more reason in this, as the little girl is known
to all the neighbours as the “Rose of the prairie.”
The parents amuse themselves with hearing the
children catch the dialect of the country, so far
as it is innocent. The youngest calls his sister
“South Sea Islander;” and she in return denominates
him “Buck-eye.” All the provincialisms
in their mouths sound in the ears of the
father and mother like the true pastroal Doric.
The husband and wife have turned over together
forty books upon education. If they could dispute
upon any subject, it would be this. Mrs.
Clenning thinks that her husband is a little notional
upon this point, and was afraid, that between
two stools, the poor things would fall to
the ground; until the two came to a final agreement,
that one should take the charge of them
one day, and the other the next. Between both,
and the rivalry they keep up to prove by experiment,
which is the better instructor, the children
are put on at a great pace.

They keep one holiday, that is called the island
feast; in which they live, as nearly as they can,
after the fashion of the island; wearing the same

[figure description] Page 165.[end figure description]

clothes that they then wore, and relating to the
astonishment and delight of the children, the account
of their residence there, describing at the
same time, the woods, the mountains, the seas,
and the animals. As they repeat the story of
the terrible affair, in which Rescue was gained,
the little ones draw close to them, and look up
with their little countenances full of affright and
trouble, until their mother's mode of defence,
and the exultation of victory brings brightness to
their eyes, and smiles to their cheeks. The description
of the voyage in the boat never fails to
produce a burst of tears from both mother and
children. Rescue sings wild songs after the mode
of her country, the burden of which are the loves
and wars of the islanders. Augusta's imagination
is so much affected by these details, that she has
selected a beautiful clump of trees, in which she
is to have a grotto, and it is to be raced as her
island. There is a part of this story, which, as
it comes in the shape of a confession from Mr.
Clenning, the reader must be lenient in judging.
Mr. Clenning, ever since his marriage, had concealed
at the bottom of his heart an ardent desire
to become a great man, and reflect back upon his
wife something of that unborrowed splendour,
which she eclipsed on his account.

Prompted by this feeling, as soon as he became
easy in his circumstances, he commenced the
career of popularity. He made himself as thick

[figure description] Page 166.[end figure description]

as he could at all the common places of meeting
in the country, and the county towns; and he
studied the little arts of ingratiating himself in
the good opinion of the people, as closely as possible.
He squeezed the good farmers' hands,
and praised their chubby sons and daughters as
far as he dared, without betraying his motive,
and inquired how their cattle thrived, and how
they managed their crops, and listened to the
details of their affairs, apparently with great interest,
at the same time that all his thoughts were
a hundred miles from the matter. Economy was
the burden of all his conversations with them,
which were spiced with accounts of the extravagance
and court airs at Washington. He took
care occasionally to insinuate, that though every
thing was going on wrong now, it would be the
easiest thing in the world to have affairs straight,
if they would have the discretion to send a certain
person there. The reader will acknowledge
that this has been to some purpose, when he is
informed, that Mr. Clenning has been successively
member of assembly, judge of the county
court, bridge and canal commissioner, and speech
drafter, besides having delivered two fourth of
July orations, and made six stump speeches.

But for a certain Quaker, he would have gone
to Congress. This person's wealth is to Mr.
Clenning's in the proportion of six to one. He
is six feet five inches tall, and wears rich

[figure description] Page 167.[end figure description]

broad-cloth, cut in the Quaker fashion, to hide under
this meek and modest garb avarice enough to
make a Gripus, and ambition enough for a
Napoleon. The old fellow has twice travelled
to Washington, to get the president to let the
national road pass his dwelling. He rode in
style in his carriage, paid his bills on the road
like a lord, and proposed his project to the
president, who referred him to the secretary of
war, who sent him to the board of engineers,
who handed him over to the committee on roads,
who referred him back again to his constituents
for more documents. But as they all squeezed
him by the hand, bowed civilly to him, and gave
him good words, he came back the second time
no ways discouraged, and fully convinced that
he was a rising man at court. This man stood the
poll against Mr. Clenning, and he knew all that
Mr. Clenning knew about playing the amiable,
and a few things more. He understood the state
of the pulse of the country, and how to calculate
his almanac to its meridian. He beat Mr.
Clenning without succeeding himself; and, as
happened to the two beasts quarrelling for the
royalty, a third person, taking advantage of the
disagreement, came in between them, and carried
the election.

Every one knows, that the winding up of a
novel, bestows riches upon the hero, however
poor he may have been during its progress.

[figure description] Page 168.[end figure description]

Although it must be evident to the reader of this
book, that it is a real biography, and not like
that species of useless and extravagant fiction,
called novels, still it is to be feared that the following
announcement may shake the faith of the
reader, on this important point, because of its
resemblance to the mode of managing matters
in those, we had almost said, pernicious books.
But the truth must be told. In the remote and
peaceful log house of Mr. Clenning, on the
plains of Illinois, and under the shade of the
nature-planted elms, a letter was received from
Grosvenor-square, London, and these were the
electrifying contents:

Sir,—It has become my duty, as administrator
on the estates of the late Augustus Wellman, to
notify you, that his daughter, your lady, has
become sole heir to all his estates, real and personal.
He departed this life suddenly, from
gout in the stomach, this day week. We find
an authenticated will, drawn up with all that
precision and caution for which he was so justly
celebrated. On his death-bed, he declared formally,
and before sufficient witnesses, his sense
of the injustice and cruelty with which he had
treated his daughter and you. It appeared that
a person in his employ kept up a constant and
careful surveillance of your conduct and circumstances.
It appears, too, that this inspection

[figure description] Page 169.[end figure description]

resulted in the most advantageous estimates of
you both. As an attempted, though late retribution,
he has constituted her his sole heir. It
is desirable that you should come, as soon as may
be, to the country, and attend to the forms of
taking possession on the spot, or, otherwise, to
constitute some person attorney, to act with full
powers in your stead.

I am, &c. &c.

The signer of this letter was a person of high
standing; and the letter came with such a superfine
and foreign countenance, bearing the London
post-mark upon it, that it excited much
notice and speculation in the post office. It had
passed, no doubt, through fifty hands, had been
most ingeniously broken open, and its contents
inspected, and then carefully resealed. The
reader will find little difficulty in conceiving all
that happened in Mr. Clenning's dwelling on the
arrival of this overwhelming intelligence. But
it can never enjoy, as its inhabitants did, the
looks and deference of their neighbours, who
knew all this important business as well as they
did, and to whom it was, as yet, a matter of
necessity, that they should seem to know nothing
about it. Their countenance and deportment
said most plainly, “Sir, we know all this thing,
but you must be a shrewd fellow to find out our
knowledge.”

[figure description] Page 170.[end figure description]

The point now to settle was, going to
England to take possession. Mrs. Clenning
could not go; and she seemed so unwilling that
her husband should leave her for the time which
the journey would require, that it almost seemed
as if the pain of parting would counterbalance
the joy of coming to such great possessions. Mrs.
Clenning advocated the sending an agent; but it
was finally concluded that they owed it to their
children that Mr. Clenning should attend to the
business himself. As to the grief of losing such
a father, it would have been gross affectation to
have made much ado about it. The reflection
could not but suggest itself to them, that they
inherited his estates at last only because he could
not carry the title papers with him. But, to be
short, Mr. Clenning parted once more from his
wife, and it was like being torn asunder, and
away he went over the Atlantic safely, was put
into full and legal possession of his property,
and had ample leisure to observe what a different
personage he now was from the Arthur Clenning
who had formerly landed at Liverpool. He was
introduced at court, kissed the king's hand, and
was often assured, that no man could be so stupid,
while inheriting such beautiful estates in England,
as to think of returning to live in wild woods in
the interior of America. His reply to these remarks
was, that a greyhound loved range, and

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an owl deep woods and hollow trees, and a true
born yankee loved nature and independence.

His heart instantly associated the green plains
with Augusta and his children, and he exclaimed,
“Illinois for ever!” He hurried back, as fast
as wind, steam, and love could carry him, to
the arms of his wife, who was as kind and
blooming as ever; and who, before the first burst
of the joy of meeting was over, put into his arms
a third boy, a fine Illinois buckeye too.

Mrs. Clenning would not hear a word about
going to England, although her husband described
the beauty of the houses, and the extent
of the parks and establishments in the most alluring
style, assuring her, that if she chose to go
there, he had not a word of objection. Hear her
answer: “My dear Arthur,” said she, “I think
that I have obtained a complete and final triumph
over my pride. But I have so studied
the heart, that I am perfectly aware of the deep
necessity of that petition, `Lead us not into
temptation.' I am now tranquil, quiet, contented.
I enjoy entire peace of mind, and that is worth
more than a million. Who knows if I were to
return to the splendour and the idle show of life,
but these extinct passions might kindle again
from under their ashes? I have become broken
to the ways of your people. These woods are
worth all the parks on the globe. I like the
people, the country, the climate, the laws, the

[figure description] Page 172.[end figure description]

equality, the independence, and plenty; and I
never wish to be a fine lady again, or to be admired
by any body but my own Arthur. We
will have good masters. My dear little Augusta
shall learn music, dancing, French, and all
accomplishments of that character of others; but
to be amiable, wise, and good, she and the rest,
Arthur, shall learn of you and me. There is no
education like a domestic one; no teachers that
can vie with a father and mother. To instruct
our children shall be our employment, our pleasure,
and our pride; and they shall repay us in
our age.” “But where shall we find a husband
for Augusta?” said Mr. Clenning. “Some sensible,
modest, well-educated yankee,” was the
reply. “He is the man for my daughter and my
money. But at any rate, we will rear her to be a
prize to a good husband, and God will provide.”

And now, if Mr. Clenning chooses to stand
again for congress, let his competitors, the old
Quaker among the rest, look to it. He can
knock open a barrel of whiskey, as easily as any
of them, although he has some scruples and
doubts whether he shall take that method of
getting along. The truth is, he went to Washington
to inspect the premises, by way of foretaste:
On his return he told his wife, that it was
an everlasting and long-winded establishment;
that, as he was never strong at the lungs, it
actually made him short breathed, to hear a

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famous speaker spout. He heard the moving
speeches, that moved all the audience, but toadeaters
and persons directly interested, from the
house. He saw, too, with what a philosophic
air of patience and resignation the members
drew themselves up, to endure, with proper unction
and profit, the penance of hearing a heavy
speaker gleaning the shreds and gilt paper out
of forty preceding speeches, and talking three
hours on a tack about nothing. He admitted,
that it was a striking exhibition of a seventy
horse power of talking and legislation, and that
there was something imposing in the puffing of
the steam and the whirling of the wheels, and
that was all there was in the sight.

He feared that he would not be able to exercise
the graces of patience and resignation necessary
for a listener; and, however desirable
those virtues might be for his fellow beings, he
did not consider himself called in Providence to
improve them in that way. His wife and neighbours
admit, that he can be a great man whenever
he chooses.

POSTSCRIPT.

[figure description] Page 174.[end figure description]

The Clennings have six fine farms in sight
of Arthur Clenning, who lives in the midst of
them, and is called “the king of the Clennings.”
Augusta is twelve years old, and as beautiful as
her mother, which is saying a great deal. Her
father has in his eye a fine modest lad of sixteen,
who talks and acts already like a sage, and
blushes at his own notoriety; and singular as it
may seem, Augusta has found out, that he is a
fine fellow. All the excuse that can be made
for her is, that on the plains of Illinois nature
works at the root, and the head and the heart
develope early.

There is another circumstance that must not
be forgotten. There is a young stout Pottawattomie
war chief with an Indian name of twenty
syllables, that my tongue cannot exactly catch,
(but the translation of the name is “Hurricane,”)
who wears a looking-glass over his nose, has
large ear jewels, and nice hedge-hog quill moccasins,
and a hundred tinklers about his ancles,
and each cheek rouged high with vermilion.
This son of the forest has been lately seen much

[figure description] Page 175.[end figure description]

about their house, and has had, they discover,
tete a tetes with Rescue. The dandy red skin
subdued her heart at first sight.

Poor Rescue knew not the pestilent nature of
the mischief with which she was visited. Mrs.
Clenning was prodigiously amused at hearing
her describe the singular sensation inspired in
her tender bosom at the sight of our gorgeous
red skin.

“Hurricane” has explained himself to Mr.
Clenning in form, and it is to be a conditional
match, that is to say, if he will leave the red
skins, and come and fix in a cabin on the
grounds of Mr. Clenning. The heart of Rescue
is not doomed to despair, and this wedding
will unite the islands of the South Sea, with the
plains of the Illinois.