the name
of Providence, in grateful remembrance of the Divine guidance and
protection which had brought him at length to 'the haven where he would
be.'

[Footnote: Now called the Providence River.]

He and his associates united themselves into a sort of 'town-
fellowship,' and independent church; and one of the first rules which
they laid down, for their future guidance and government, was that no
one should ever suffer, in that settlement, for conscience' sake.

It was summer when the little village began to be built; and, before
the land could be cleared and prepared for cultivation, the season was
too far advanced to allow any hope of a corn-harvest. The new settlers
had, therefore, to endure the same poverty and privation that had been
the lot of the earlier planters in New England. They had no means of
obtaining any of the comforts of civilized life, except from Boston or
Plymouth: and as they possessed no vessel besides an Indian canoe, this
was a service of toil and much hazard. Still they did not repine, for
liberty was here their precious portion; and hope for the future
sustained them through the trials of the present time.

But where was Edith? Where was that true-hearted woman while her
husband was thus struggling with difficulties and privations? She was
where both inclination and duty had led her--by his side; and smiling
at trials that she was permitted to share with him, and to lighten by
her presence.

We must here revert to the time before Edith had been blessed by
receiving intelligence of her husband from Seacomb, and had so
cheerfully replied to the note which he wrote to her on a scrap of
paper torn from his pocket book. In order not to interrupt the history
of Roger's difficulties and their successful issue, we have not yet
narrated the trials that his exemplary wife had endured--and endured
with a resolution and fortitude equal to his own.

When the joyful news of Roger's safety reached Edith at Salem, she was
slowly recovering from a long and dangerous illness, which anxiety and
sorrow had brought on her a few weeks after the birth of her child.
Through all her sufferings of mind end body, Dame Elliot had been her
nurse and her comforter; and she and her husband had sacrificed their
own domestic comfort, and their own humble but cherished home, to
lessen the sorrows of their afflicted friend.

All the consolation that human sympathy and affection could afford to
Edith, was given by th