 sense of devotion mostly spring from it, and lift the soul above humanity! Although more deplorably circumstanced myself, by a courageous effort I resolved to soothe and console her; and gently preparing her tender heart for the fatal object it was destined to encounter, I led her down to my cabin. Ah what affecti∣on streamed equal from our hearts and eyes upon the cold memento!
Miss Cecil judged too truly, and the infamous Mortimer no longer deigned to veil his views; perpetually shocking me with free and haughty declarations of his passion. It was but too obvious he knew his power, and considered his intention of marrying me as the most honourable distinction; even at the moment he scoff∣ed at every one custom or nature had established. Miss Cecil was not less im∣portuned, by a wretch rough as the ele∣ment by which he subsisted, and both so regularly visited our cabin, that scarce could we call it our own, even at the

hours sacred to repose. In those eternal conflicts, such a situation must cause, des∣pair would too often prevail; and silently with dubious eyes we fathomed the abyss of waters on which we floated, consider∣ing it as the last terrible asylum.
In the midst of these horrors the ap∣pointed hour revolved, and nature made her agonizing effort. In that awful mo∣ment I lost every sensation of fear, and resigned myself into the hands of my creator; beseeching him to recall the troubled soul which so long had groaned before him, with that of the tender babe whose first feeble cries pierced my every sense. As soon as my weakness allowed, they gave into my arms a girl, a dear, a fatherless girl, who seemed at her first en∣trance into existence, to bewail her un∣known calamity. An impulse new, ex∣quisite, unexpected, took possession of my soul; an impulse so sweet, so strong, so sacred, it seemed as I had never loved till then. Feebly straining her to my bo∣som, I enthusiastically prayed the Al∣mighty to bestow on her every blessing

she had innocently wrested from me, while my fond heart baptised her in its tears. Powerful, powerful nature! how did I worship all thy ordinations! No fate can be wrought up to such a height of happiness, but some interwoven sorrow chastens us with the sad sense of imperfection; nor any so steeped in mi∣sery, but some celestial ray streams through this frail mansion of mortality, subliming all its sufferings.
While my eager eyes gazed unwearied on my new-born cherub, and traced in her infant lineaments her father's match∣less beauty, even till they ached with fondness, fancy pierced through
