old at any rate to you, although barely turned of forty, I
could give both you and your afflicted mother and sister a comfortable
home. I have a pleasant cottage at F----, and fifty acres of good arable
land, a horse and gig, six fine milch cows, and plenty of pigs and
poultry, an income of two hundred per annum in the bank, which is
increasing every year, simply because I have enough to supply my
household without touching either capital or interest. This property I
will settle upon you, at my death, if you will become my wife."

Sophy's hand trembled in his. A bright crimson suffused her cheek, her
heart leaped wildly within her breast; but she could not find a word of
answer.

"I have been a bachelor all my life," continued Noah, "and a dull,
cheerless life it has been to me. I had a mother to take care of in her
old age, and I loved her too well to place a wife over her, who had been
so long the mistress of my home. She is only lately dead, and I feel
lonely and sad without her. I have often thought that I could love a
wife very much. I am sure I could love you. What say you to it, my girl?
Is it to be a match?"

Sophy thought of the horse and gig, and the six cows, of the pigs and
poultry, of the comfortable home; and above all this, she hugged closely
to her heart the 200_l._ per annum that was to be hers, besides all the
rest of the worldly goods and chattels, at his death. She looked down
upon her faded, shabby calico dress, and round upon the scantily
furnished room, and thought of the cold, dark winter nights that were
coming, and how ill-prepared they were to meet them. She remembered the
days of toil, the nights of waking, watching beside the feverish bed of
a querulous old woman, and she knew how fretful and impatient she was,
and how her soul abhorred the task; and she turned her bright eyes to
the face of her melancholy lover, and placed her small hand in his, and
said in a low, soft voice, that was music to his heart,--

"I will try to love you, and will be your wife, if you will only be kind
to mother and Mary, and take us from this hateful place."

Transported with joy, he promised all that she asked.

All night they sat by the fire, talking over the future prospects; and
the next morning Sophia introduced Noah Cotton to her mother and sister,
as her future husband, and bade them rejoice in their altered fortunes.
Human nature is full of strange contradictions, and it so happened that
the mother