"Yes, love, I prayed that we might be spared many years; and that each year we might be increasingly happy in each other, and useful to our fellow creatures." Then lowering his voice to a whisper, he added, "I prayed too for one who endeavored to injure us, that she might find space for repentance."
"Such a house broke! So noble a master fallen! all gone! and not One friend, to take his fortune by the arm, And go along with him." SHAKSPEARE.
I have been to the little hut occupied by William Reynolds and family, to see what had become of the children. Frank thinks it would be well to put them to school. It shall be my care to provide them suitable clothing. This, I can depend upon Miss Proctor to assist me in making up.
We found the poor woman seated in an old rocking-chair, and looking very miserable. Her husband beat her badly a few nights since, for interfering, when he was, as he said, administering proper chastisement to Willie. Since that time, she can hardly turn her head or see out of one eye. Her nearest neighbor, hearing a great noise, ran to the house, and secured William. The next day the same man brought a complaint against the inebriate for abuse of wife and children, and for refusing to provide for their support. He is now in the county jail, from which he is to be carried to the House of Correction for three months.
In the midst of their poverty, the children are really uncommonly prepossessing and intelligent. It is easy to see what they would have been if nurtured in a home of competence and comfort. At the time we entered, Anna was standing on an old stool behind her mother's chair, trying to smoother out the long auburn tresses, and twist them under the cap. I felt no repugnance to the act when I took the broken comb from her hand, and made a beautiful knot at the back of her mother's head. I then bathed her poor bruised temple; and promising to do something for her immediate relief, we left her.
I have become much interested in the history of this unfortunate family. Anna, the mother of my _protegés_, is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Ryland who lived in Waverley. Anna was the elder of four children, two of whom died in infancy, leaving only the subject of this sketch and Edward her younger brother to crown the hopes of their afflicted parents. Mr. Ryland was in the possession of a valuable farm, part of which was left him by his parents; but which he had greatly enlarged and improved by his own exertions. A new house had been erected on the site of the old one, and everything in and about it exhibited the appearance so common among the farmers of New England, of independence, comfort and respectability.