of our blessed Redeemer, and through the benevolent agency of this
excellent man," she resumed, glancing her eye upwards at first with
holy reverence, and then at the divine with meek gratitude, "I quit you
without alarm, and were it not for one thing, I might say without care."

"And what is there to distress thee, in particular, Betsey?" asked my
father, blowing his nose, and speaking with unusual tenderness; "if it
be in my power to set thy heart at ease on this, or on any other point,
name it, and I will give orders to have it immediately performed. Thou
hast been a good pious woman, and canst have little to reproach thyself
with."

My mother looked earnestly and wistfully at her husband. Never before
had he betrayed so strong an interest in her happiness, and had it not,
alas! been too late, this glimmering of kindness might have lighted the
matrimonial torch into a brighter flame than had ever yet glowed upon
the past.

"Mr. Goldencalf, we have an only son--"

"We have, Betsey, and it may gladden thee to hear that the physician
thinks the boy more likely to live than either of his poor brothers and
sisters."

I cannot explain the holy and mysterious principle of maternal nature
that caused my mother to clasp her hands, to raise her eyes to heaven,
and, while a gleam flitted athwart her glassy eyes and wan cheeks, to
murmur her thanks to God for the boon. She was herself hastening away
to the eternal bliss of the pure of mind and the redeemed, and her
imagination, quiet and simple as it was, had drawn pictures in which she
and her departed babes were standing before the throne of the Most High,
chanting his glory, and shining amid the stars--and yet was she now
rejoicing that the last and the most cherished of all her offsprings
was likely to be left exposed to the evils, the vices, nay, to the
enormities, of the state of being that she herself so willingly
resigned.

"It is of our boy that I wish now to speak, Mr. Goldencalf," replied my
mother, when her secret devotion was ended. "The child will have need of
instruction and care; in short, of both mother and father."

"Betsey, thou forgettest that he will still have the latter."

"You are much wrapped up in your business, Mr. Goldencalf, and are not,
in other respects, qualified to educate a boy born to the curse and to
the temptations of immense riches."

My excellent ancestor looked as if he thought his dying consort had in
sooth finally taken leav