tion, and earnestly hoped that Heaven would one
day grant them the joy of performing the rites of hospitality towards
such unfortunate persons. When the time for repose arrived, the two
families separated and retired for the night, eager to meet again the
following morning. Sometimes they were lulled to repose by the beating
of the rains, which fell in torrents upon the roofs of their cottages,
and sometimes by the hollow winds, which brought to their ear the
distant roar of the waves breaking upon the shore. They blessed God for
their own safety, the feeling of which was brought home more forcibly to
their minds by the sound of remote danger.

Madame de la Tour occasionally read aloud some affecting history of the
Old or New Testament. Her auditors reasoned but little upon these sacred
volumes, for their theology centred in a feeling of devotion towards
the Supreme Being, like that of nature: and their morality was an active
principle, like that of the Gospel. These families had no particular
days devoted to pleasure, and others to sadness. Every day was to them
a holyday, and all that surrounded them one holy temple, in which they
ever adored the Infinite Intelligence, the Almighty God, the Friend of
human kind. A feeling of confidence in his supreme power filled their
minds with consolation for the past, with fortitude under present
trials, and with hope in the future. Compelled by misfortune to return
almost to a state of nature, these excellent women had thus developed in
their own and their children's bosoms the feelings most natural to the
human mind, and its best support under affliction.

But, as clouds sometimes arise, and cast a gloom over the best regulated
tempers, so whenever any member of this little society appeared to be
labouring under dejection, the rest assembled around, and endeavoured
to banish her painful thoughts by amusing the mind rather than by grave
arguments against them. Each performed this kind office in their own
appropriate manner: Margaret, by her gaiety; Madame de la Tour, by the
gentle consolations of religion; Virginia, by her tender caresses; Paul,
by his frank and engaging cordiality. Even Mary and Domingo hastened
to offer their succour, and to weep with those that wept. Thus do weak
plants interweave themselves with each other, in order to withstand the
fury of the tempest.

During the fine season, they went every Sunday to the church of the
Shaddock Grove, the steeple of which