d wife to the grave; and then
tarried for a month in that house of sorrow. My only consolation was
derived from my knowledge that Emma loved her Saviour, and put her
trust in him while passing through the valley of the shadow of death.

"How many hopes have sprung in radiance hence;
Their trace yet lights the dust where thou art sleeping.
A solemn joy comes o'er me, and a sense
Of triumph blent with nature's gush of weeping."

I left my little son in the care of his Irish nurse, and quitted my
friend's house, with a heavy heart, for my new settlement at Otonabee.

CHAPTER IX.

RETURN TO OTONABEE. -- BENEVOLENCE OF MY NEIGHBOUR. -- SERIOUS ACCIDENT
TO A SETTLER. -- HIS SINGULAR MISFORTUNES. -- PARTICULARS OF HIS LIFE.

I RETURNED in sadness to my lonely and desolate home, feeling like a
shipwrecked mariner, cast upon a desert shore. In fact, I had to begin
life again, without the stimulus of domestic love to quicken my
exertions. I had left my land unsown, and therefore the prospect of a
crop of wheat for the next year's harvest was, I felt assured, entirely
gone. Upon reaching my clearing, I was surprised to find my fallow not
only sown but showing the green blade, for some friendly hands had been
at work for me in my absence, that pecuniary losses might not be added
to my heavy domestic bereavement.

On inquiry, I found I was indebted to the considerate kindness of my
excellent neighbour Mr. Reid and his sons, for this act of Christian
benevolence. I hurried to his house to thank him for the important
service he had rendered one, to whom he was almost a stranger. He
considered, however, that he had done nothing more than a neighbourly
duty, and insisted that I should take up my abode with him, instead of
returning to my unfinished and melancholy home.

My residence under his hospitable roof increased my esteem for his
character, which my long experience of six-and-twenty years has never
diminished. Mrs. Reid treated me with maternal kindness; and in their
amiable family-circle my bruised heart recovered its peace, and my
spirits their healthy tone. The kindly disposition of my host in all
his domestic relations, his cheerful activity, pure morality, and
unaffected piety, presented an admirable example to a young man left
without guidance in a distant colony. But I did not at that time think
about becoming his son-in-law, though I had been several months
domesticated in his family, till the alacrity disp