iches, and life? Gentle,
beloved, injured Espras! that emaciated form, these trembling limbs,
these sunken eyes, and these weak and whispering sounds of pity and
affection have touched my heart with a power that never was vouchsafed
to the tongue of eloquence. Transcending the rod of Moses, they have
brought from the rock streams of blood; and every pulse is filled with
tenderness and pity. Wretched fool! I was ashamed of your nativity,
and of the colour you inherited from nature, and never estimated the
qualities of your heart; but when shall the red-and-white beauty of
England transcend my Espras in her fidelity and love, as she does in the
skin-deep tints of a beguiling, treacherous face? God! what a change has
come over this heart! Thanks, and prayers, and tears of blood, never can
express the gratitude it owes to the great Author of our being for this
miraculous return to virtue, effected by the simple means of a woman's
confidence and love."

As he finished this impassioned speech, which I have repeated as
correctly as my memory enabled me to commit to my note-book, he turned
his eyes upwards, and remained for at least five minutes in silent
prayer. As he was about finishing his wife entered. Her appearance
called forth from his excited mind a burst of affection, and seizing her
in his arms, he wept over her like a child. He was met as fervently by
the gentle and affectionate creature, who, grateful to God for this
renewed expression of her husband's love, turned up her eyes to heaven,
and wept aloud. I never witnessed a scene like this. I left them to
their enjoyment, and returned home.

I was subsequently a constant visitor at the house of Colonel P----;
and, about eighteen months after his recovery, I officiated as
accoucheur to his wife on the occasion of the birth of a son. Other
children followed afterwards, and bound closer the bonds of that
conjugal love which I had some hand in producing, and which I saw
increase daily through a long course of years.

THE ADOPTED SON.

A TALE OF THE TIMES OF THE COVENANTERS.

"Oh, for the sword of Gideon, to rid the land of tyrants, to bring down
the pride of apostates, and to smite the ungodly with confusion!"
muttered John Brydone to himself, as he went into the fields in the
September of 1645, and beheld that the greater part of a crop of oats,
which had been cut down a few days before, was carried off. John was the
proprietor of about sixty acres on the