which, though very clean and neatly made, was of ordinary materials. However, as when we had parted from him Mrs. Clary made no remarks respecting him, it was not my business to say any thing; and yet I could not help feeling so much curiosity about him, that I failed not, when left alone that evening with Mrs. Grace, to mention him to her, and to tell how we had met him, and how glad her sister had been to see him, with other circumstances relative to the meeting. She expressed some surprise at this youth being where we had found him, and told me that he was the orphan son of a relation; that his father had been a very ungrateful and bad character; that he was called William Fitzgerald; and that she believed he was at school somewhere in the neighbourhood; adding, at the same time, that as it was not in her power to do much for him, she never inquired about him, lest she should raise his expectations.

I asked her who maintained him at school. She replied that she did not know, having the reason above mentioned for not inquiring after him.

When I had heard all this, I thought no more of William Fitzgerald or his affairs; indeed, I had forgotten that I had ever seen such a person.

Soon after that I left school, and was absent from that town for several years. At length I returned to it again to pay a visit to my old governess, Mrs. Tristram, and the first inquiries I made were after the two honoured sisters.

Mrs. Tristram informed me that Mrs. Grace was still living, but that Mrs. Clary was no more; that her beloved remains had been committed to the dust only the day before, and that it was expected her funeral sermon would be preached the next Sunday. "And thus, my dear pupil," said my worthy governess, 66 am I made to experience, in common with all elderly persons, what it is to witness the loss, one after another, of many old and valuable friends; and to feel that, unless my affections were drawn out to younger persons, I must soon become as it were alone in the world."

I was much affected at hearing of the death of Mrs. Clary, and inquired by whom the sermon was to be preached. "By a young clergyman," answered Mrs. Tristram, "a stranger in this place; I think they call him Mr. Fitzgerald."

66

Fitzgerald!" I repeated, "surely I have heard that

name;" and then I recollected the boy whom I had seen sitting on the stile.

I could not divest myself of the idea that Mr. Fitzgerald was this very boy, and went to church on Sunday, being not only impatient to see the preacher, but anxious to hear what would be said respecting my poor old friend, of whom I entertained an affectionate remembrance, although I had no idea of the excellence of her character, which had hitherto indeed laid low in the dust, but was now to blossom forth according to the old poetical version of the tenth chapter seventh verse of Proverbs,

"The bless'd remembrance of the just,
Smells sweet and blossoms in the dust."

The preacher had scarcely ascended the pulpit, when I recognised the features of the blooming boy I had once seen when walking with Mrs. Clary. He was still almost as young as he could be, in order to be thought fit to fill that sacred place which he then occupied. His manner was, however, solemn and impressive, and as he proceeded, a sort of tenderness stole over it which at times seemed to threaten to throw him off his equilibrium. His text was taken from Numbers, xxiii, 10: "Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his !" and after having enlarged upon it, and shown how only a sinner can die the death of the righteous, that is, by being made a partaker in the death of Christ, he proceeded to several particulars in the character of the deceased, which filled every auditor with astonishment; and among these none more than myself, because, inasmuch as I had loved Mrs. Clary, I had always thought her a common character, a good sort of every-day person, who was altogether incapable of any thing like a great action, much less of a succession of noble actions consistently pursued year after year, and that without any visible encouragement. The preacher, however, made it appear that this excellent woman had, by the most exact and minute economy as it referred to her own private comforts and convenience, made such savings from a very small income as to maintain, to clothe, and educate an orphan child, from early infancy until he was enabled to support himself in a liberal profession without farther aid; and that with so little ostentation, and indeed, from motives of delicacy,

with so much secrecy, that even her nearest and dearest friends had no idea of what she was doing. He then proceeded to speak of that living principle by which sinful and miserable creatures, such as we are by nature, are often enabled to carry on a continual system of benevolence, undergoing for that purpose many privations -not great indeed, perhaps, in the minutiæ, but vast in the aggregate—and bringing to pass, when summed up, such mighty effects as in the prospect could hardly have been conceived. He then pointed out how, by a minute economy, this excellent lady had not only preserved a poor child from want, but had provided him with a pious and liberal education, and had placed him in a way of usefulness, where, if he did not prove unworthy of his benefactress, he might in his turn, with the divine blessing, become a benefactor in a still wider sphere to others of the human race. And then again he turned back to that great Source from which all human virtues spring, to wit, that Divine Influence from which is derived not only the original desire of doing well, but the power of doing well consistently and continually; and he concluded by making the application to his audience, and entreating the younger part of it henceforward to honour that economy which is the source of generosity, and never to allow themselves to throw contempt on that sort of self-denial which can only supply the cravings of a truly liberal spirit. His concluding address was extremely affecting, and brought tears from every eye-tears which, in my case at least, were not easily dried up; and may I add, that I trust the exhortation which met my ears that evening never so far passed away from my mind as to enable me to yield, with selfsatisfaction, to such unnecessary expenses as should render me less able to supply the wants of those that required my aid.

"HOC AGE."

It was the custom of my father, when I was a girl, to require of me, every Saturday, a few pages written upon a given subject. Well do I remember the hours which I sometimes used to spend on these unfortunate Saturday mornings, in endeavouring to elicit sparks of genius from the cold iron of my brain; and how pleased I was wont to be when any thing like a bright idea presented itself to my imagination-such were welcome to me as angels' visits, which are said to be few and far between.

Much of my success, however, I found, depended upon the subject which was given me. When these subjects were fruitful and congenial to my feelings, the task was comparatively easy; but when they were new and strange to me, my labour was greatly increased; and so far from being able to put my ideas in any new form, I seemed to lose the power of expressing them even in the most ordinary way.

Judge, then, what must have been my despair, when, on a certain Saturday, having stolen up into my father's study with that sort of quiet pace which children use when they are going about any thing they do not much relish (for the motion of the foot is a never-varying index in a simple mind of the feelings of the heart), I stood behind his chair as he sat writing, and said, “Papa, please for the subject of my theme to-day."

"Hoc age," he replied, still writing on. "What, papa?" I said.

"Hoc age, child," he answered-" Hoc age-go and make the best of it, but don't disturb me."

"Hoc age," I repeated, as I went down stairs. "Hoc age-it is Latin; I know it is Latin. Hoc is this, and it is neuter, and the word thing is understood; and age is do I know enough of Latin for this-therefore Hoc age means-Do this thing."

So I mended a pen, and took a sheet of paper, and wrote "Hoc age" in a fair hand at the top of the paper; and then I added the translation; and then wrote my own name in one corner, and the date at another; and

then looked out of the window, and up to the ceiling, and wrote again, and actually made out a sentence to this effect: "It is our duty, under every circumstance of life, to attend to this admonition,"-and there I stopped; for the question suggested itself, to wit, what admonition? Further, therefore, I could not get; and when my father called me to dinner, I had not advanced an inch beyond the full round stop after the word admonition.

My father was one of the kindest and gentlest of parents; and when I presented my vacant sheet to him, he smiled and said, "Tis as much as I expected-but I am perfectly satisfied, nevertheless. If you have spent your morning in considering the nature of the injunction meant to be expressed in the words, 'Hoc age,' you have not lost your time."

My father then entered into an explanation of the subject, and pointed out to me that these two words were equivalent with the Scripture injunction-"Whatsoever thine hand findeth to do, do it with thy might." And then he showed me that the world abounded with persons who never seem to give their full and undivided attention to any thing which they had to do, and in consequence, when suddenly called upon to act or speak with promptitude, were never ready, and never had their words or their actions at command: 66 Hence," continued he, "on smaller occasions they are for ever wasting their time, and on more important ones losing advantages and opportunities never to be recovered." My father added much more to me on this subject; but as I shall hope, in what follows, to elucidate what he said by a very appropriate example, I shall cite no more of his valuable discourse, with the exception of one remark only, which was most important; it was to this effect-that the salvation of the soul is the thing to be done in the first instance; the "Hoc age" to which every human creature should principally attend-all other concerns being made subordinate to this one object, and all other efforts or exertions being in the end wholly inefficient in producing the happiness of any individual, when this one thing needful is neglected.

It was several years after I had received this important lesson, at a time of my life when the paternal roof no longer afforded me a protection (my parents being no more), that I took up my residence in the family of