to her husband's family seat in Cornwall, where
they continued chiefly to reside. They had one son, an only child, who
died when he was about fifteen. It was an overwhelming affliction, and was
the one mortal shadow on their happiness. They died within a few weeks of
each other; their honors and estates passing to a distant branch of the
family.

THE ASS OF LA MARCA.

I. The Hog-Boy.

In the year 1530, a Franciscan was traveling on foot in the papal
territory of Ancona. He was proceeding to Ascoli; but, at that time, the
roads were bad, where there were any roads at all, and after wandering in
what appeared to be a wilderness, he lost his bearings altogether, and
came to a stand-still. A village was visible in the distance, but he was
unwilling to proceed so far to ask his way, lest it might prove to be in
the wrong direction. While listening intently, however, for some sound
that might indicate the propinquity of human beings--for the scrubby wood
of the waste, marshy land intercepted his view--he heard what appeared to
be a succession of low sobs close by. Mounting a little eminence a few
paces off, he saw a small company of hogs widely scattered, and searching
with the avidity of famine for a dinner; and rightly conjecturing that the
sounds of human grief must proceed from the swineherd, he moved on to the
nearest clump of bushes, where he saw on the other side a boy about nine
years of age, lying upon the soft ground, and endeavoring to smother his
sobs in a tuft of coarse moss, while he dug his fingers into the mud in an
agony of grief and rage. The good father allowed the storm of emotion to
sweep past, and then inquired what was the matter.

"Have you lost any of your hogs?" said he.

"I don't know--and I don't care," was the answer.

"Why were you crying then?"

"Because they have been using me worse than a hog: they have been beating
me--they never let me alone; always bad names, and worse blows; nothing to
eat but leavings, and nothing to lie upon but dirty straw!"

"And for what offense are you used thus?"

"They say I am unhandy at field-work; that I am useless in the house and
the barn; that I am unfit to be a servant to the horses in the stable; and
that I can't even keep the hogs together. They are hogs themselves--they
be! I was clever enough at home; but my father could not keep me any
longer, and so he sent me to be a farmer's drudge, and turned me out to
the--the--hogs!" and the b