ever quite eradicated, but probably
those two years were the sweetest and sunniest of his life. Those whom
he most loved were prosperous and happy, and the reflection of their
happiness shone upon his daily walk. At the end of that time he fell
asleep, and in the confidence of a lively faith and the comfort of
a holy hope, was gathered to his fathers. Immediately upon the
restoration of his reason he had divided his estate with his brother,
or rather with his nephew, for the Solitary refused to have anything
to do with wealth. It would be to him, he said, a burden. He was not a
pack-horse, to carry loads, though they were made of gold.

With whatever eyes, however, the possession of property might
be viewed by George Armstrong, his son, who, within a few months
afterwards, was united to Anne Bernard, with even the approbation of
her brother, considered the addition thereby made to his income as no
disagreeable circumstance. Mr. and Mrs. Pownal, the benefactors of his
youth, were present, and the former had the satisfaction of dancing
at the wedding. No marriage could be more fortunate. A similarity of
taste and feeling and the harmonies of virtue had originally attracted
and attached each to the other. Anne had loved Armstrong because she
recognized in him her own truthfulness and nobility of spirit, and
he her, for her grace and beauty, and that inexpressible charm of
sweetness of temper and gaiety of spirit, that, like the sun, diffuses
light and animation around. Their career has been like a summer-day. A
numerous family of children has sprung from the union, who promise to
perpetuate the virtues of their parents. And it is to be hoped, and
we believe it to be a fact which the passage of so many years may be
considered to have tolerably settled, that the fatal blood-taint
of insanity, which had seemed hereditary on the side of one of the
parents, has disappeared.

As for the Solitary, who survived his brother many years, he could
never be weaned from the mode of life he had adopted. As long as
James Armstrong lived, they were frequently together, few days passing
without one seeking the other, as if both were striving to make up
for their long separation, but yet George Armstrong preferred the rude
simplicity of his hut, and his hard couch, to the elegant chamber and
yielding bed, nor could he be persuaded to stop more than a night or
two at any one time, either at the house of his brother or of his
son. The effort