my
cold one! See, how good she looks! Look at her young countenance,
and see that she is acquainted with want--she is not like her
mother! I fancy her mild features resemble hers whose name she
bears, and whose angelic image never has left my soul.

"Foster-mother, foster-father! good sisters! I had much to say,
but can say only a little! Forgive me! Forgive me the grief which
I have occasioned you! Greatly have I erred, but greatly also have
I suffered. A wanderer have I been on the earth, and have had
nowhere a home since I left your blessed roof! My way has been
through the desert; a burning simoom has scorched, has consumed my
cheek----

"About to leave the world in which I have erred so greatly and
suffered so much, I call now for your blessing. Oh, let me tell
you that that Sara, which you once called daughter and sister, is
yet not wholly unworthy! She is sunk deep, but she has endeavoured
to raise herself; and your forms, like good angels, have floated
around the path of her improvement.

"It will do your noble hearts good to know that she dies now
repentant, but hopeful--she has fixed her humble hope upon the
Father of Mercy.

"The hand of mercy cherished on earth the days of my
childhood--later, it has lifted my dying head, and has poured into
my heart a new and a better life; it has conducted me to hope in
the mercy of heaven. Foster-father, thou who wast His image to me
on earth, thou whom I loved much--gentle foster-mother, whose
voice perhaps could yet call forth life in this cold breast--have
mercy on my child--call it your child! and thanks and blessings be
upon you!

"It never was my intention to come, as a burden, into your house.
No; I wished only to conduct my child to your door--to see it open
to her, and then to go forth--go forth quietly and die. But I
shall not reach so far! God guide the fatherless and the
motherless to you!

"And now farewell! I can write no more--it becomes dark before my
eyes. I write these last words upon my knees. Parents, sisters,
take my child to you! May it make you some time forget the errors
of its mother! Pardon all my faults! I complain of no one.

"God reward you, and be merciful to me!

"Sara."

Sar