r Ethel saw,
and exclaimed, with amusement, then, with a long-drawn "Ah!" and
an interjection, "My poor dear Una!" she became absorbed, the large
tears--yes, Ethel's reluctant tears gathering slowly and dropping.

The letter was from a clergyman far away in the north of England, who
said he could not, though a stranger, resist the desire to send to
Dr. May an account of a poor girl, who seemed to have received great
benefits from him, or from some of his family, especially as she had
shown great eagerness on his proposing to write.

He said it was nearly a year since there had come into his parish a
troop of railwaymen and their families. For the most part, they were
completely wild and rude, unused to any pastoral care; but, even on
the first Sunday, he had noticed a keen-looking, freckled, ragged,
unmistakably Irish girl, creeping into church with a Prayer-book in her
hand, and had afterwards found her hanging about the door of the school.
"I never saw a more engaging, though droll, wild expression, than that
with which she looked up to me." (Ethel's cry of delight was at that
sentence--she knew that look too well, and had yearned after it so
often!) "I found her far better instructed than her appearance had led
me to expect, and more truly impressed with the spirit of what she had
learned than it has often been my lot to find children. She was perfect
in the New Testament history"--("Ah! that she was not, when she went
away!")--"and was in the habit of constantly attending church, and using
morning and evening prayers." ("Oh! how I longed, when she went away, to
beg her to keep them up! Dear Una.") "On my questions, as to how she had
been taught, she always replied, 'Mr. Richard May,' or 'Miss Athel.' You
must excuse me if I have not correctly caught the name from her Irish
pronunciation." ("I am afraid he thinks my name is Athaliah! But oh!
this dear girl! How I have wished to hear of her!") "Everything was
answered with 'Mr. Richard,' or 'Miss Athel'; and, if I inquired
further, her face would light up with a beam of gratitude, and she would
run on, as long as I could listen, with instances of their kindness. It
was the same with her mother, a wild, rude specimen of an Irishwoman,
whom I never could bring to church herself, but who ran on loudly with
their praises, usually ending with 'Heavens be their bed,' and saying
that Una had been quite a different girl since the young ladies and
gentleman found her out, and