 of her figure, did not disdain to visit affliction even amongst the poor and the lowly. "That reflection, answered the other, applies more strongly to the lady who makes it, than to her who is the occasion of its being made.
I have not, madam, the honour of your acquaintance; but methinks, pardon my boldness, that I feel as if we were not strangers; at least, I am sure that I should reckon it a piece of singular good fortune, if this interview could entitle me to call you stranger no longer." Their landlady cried and laughed by turns; and her two guests were so much pleased with this meeting that they appointed a renewal of it, at an hour somewhat earlier of the subsequent evening.
Lucy came a few minutes before the time of appointment; when she learned that the stranger was the daughter of a neighbouring gentleman, whom a difference of disposition from that of sir Thomas Sindall, arising at last to a particular coolness, had entirely estranged for many years from the baronet; and prevented all intercourse between the families.
When this lady arrived, she brought such tidings along with her that I question, if in all the sumptuous abodes of wealth and grandeur, there was to be found so much sincerity of joy, as within the ragged and moldering walls of the hovel, which she graced with her presence. She informed the grateful mistress of it, that by her intercession with some justices of the peace, who made part of the judicature before whom the poor woman's husband was brought, his punishment had been mitigated to a small fine, which she had undertaken to pay, and that he would very soon be on his way homewards.
The joy of the poor man's family at this intelligence was such, as they could not, nor shall I, attempt to express. His deliverance was indeed unexpected, because his crime was great; no less than that of having set a gin in his garden, for some cats that used to prey on a single brood of chickens, his only property; which gin had, one night, wickedly and maliciously, hanged a hare, which the baronet's game-keeper next morning discovered in it. His wife and little ones seemed only to be restrained by the respected presence of their guests, from running out to meet a husband and a father restored to them from captivity.
The ladies observing it, encouraged them in the design; and having received the good woman's benediction on her knees, they walked out together, and leaving the happy family on the
