ch tiles, illustrating passages in Bible
history, on which he had many a time gazed with admiration. Among the
rubbish lay the wreck of the good dame's elbow-chair, from which she
had given him so many a wholesome precept; and hard by it was the
family Bible, with brass clasps; now, alas! reduced almost to a
cinder.

For a moment Dolph was overcome by this dismal sight, for he was
seized with the fear that his mother had perished in the flames. He
was relieved, however, from this horrible apprehension, by one of the
neighbours who happened to come by, and who informed him that his
mother was yet alive.

The good woman had, indeed, lost every thing by this unlooked-for
calamity; for the populace had been so intent upon saving the fine
furniture of her rich neighbours, that the little tenement, and the
little all of poor Dame Heyliger, had been suffered to consume without
interruption; nay, had it not been for the gallant assistance of her
old crony, Peter de Groodt, the worthy dame and her cat might have
shared the fate of their habitation.

As it was, she had been overcome with fright and affliction, and lay
ill in body, and sick at heart. The public, however, had showed her
its wonted kindness. The furniture of her rich neighbours being, as
far as possible, rescued from the flames; themselves duly and
ceremoniously visited and condoled with on the injury of their
property, and their ladies commiserated on the agitation of their
nerves; the public, at length, began to recollect something about poor
Dame Heyliger. She forthwith became again a subject of universal
sympathy; every body pitied more than ever; and if pity could but have
been coined into cash--good Lord! how rich she would have been!

It was now determined, in good earnest, that something ought to be
done for her without delay. The Dominie, therefore, put up prayers for
her on Sunday, in which all the congregation joined most heartily.
Even Cobus Groesbeck, the alderman, and Mynheer Milledollar, the great
Dutch merchant, stood up in their pews, and did not spare their voices
on the occasion; and it was thought the prayers of such great men
could not but have their due weight. Doctor Knipperhausen, too,
visited her professionally, and gave her abundance of advice gratis,
and was universally lauded for his charity. As to her old friend,
Peter de Groodt, he was a poor man, whose pity, and prayers, and
advice could be of but little avail, so he gave her all