words, like ingots
of gold, seem often to need to be weighed separately, that the mind may
take in their priceless value. Let us follow him a moment, as, pointing
to each word, and pronouncing each half aloud, he reads,

"Let--not--your--heart--be--troubled. In--my
--Father's--house--are--many--mansions.
I--go--to--prepare--a--place--for--you."

Cicero, when he buried his darling and only daughter, had a heart as
full of honest grief as poor Tom's,--perhaps no fuller, for both were
only men;--but Cicero could pause over no such sublime words of hope,
and look to no such future reunion; and if he _had_ seen them, ten to
one he would not have believed,--he must fill his head first with a
thousand questions of authenticity of manuscript, and correctness of
translation. But, to poor Tom, there it lay, just what he needed, so
evidently true and divine that the possibility of a question never
entered his simple head. It must be true; for, if not true, how could he
live?

As for Tom's Bible, though it had no annotations and helps in margin
from learned commentators, still it had been embellished with certain
way-marks and guide-boards of Tom's own invention, and which helped him
more than the most learned expositions could have done. It had been
his custom to get the Bible read to him by his master's children,
in particular by young Master George; and, as they read, he would
designate, by bold, strong marks and dashes, with pen and ink, the
passages which more particularly gratified his ear or affected his
heart. His Bible was thus marked through, from one end to the other,
with a variety of styles and designations; so he could in a moment seize
upon his favorite passages, without the labor of spelling out what
lay between them;--and while it lay there before him, every passage
breathing of some old home scene, and recalling some past enjoyment,
his Bible seemed to him all of this life that remained, as well as the
promise of a future one.

Among the passengers on the boat was a young gentleman of fortune and
family, resident in New Orleans, who bore the name of St. Clare. He had
with him a daughter between five and six years of age, together with a
lady who seemed to claim relationship to both, and to have the little
one especially under her charge.

Tom had often caught glimpses of this little girl,--for she was one of
those busy, tripping creatures, that can be no more contained in one
place than a sunbeam or a summe