and next fall come home here, and you shall be as my own son. Fanny, too, has need of learning many things, before she will be fitted to manage a family.'

'Yes, indeed,' responded aunt Judy. 'Fanny never has cared whether she knew how to bake, or brew, or any such necessary matters, if she could only skip and sing. But I hope now she will be more steady, and mind how I season my pies; the wedding cake I shan't let her try to make, for it would be a bad sign, besides a very great waste, if the wedding cake should be spoiled.'

'These wild, idle boys sometimes succeed well,' said a neighbour to the grandfather of Walter Wilson. There is your grandson, he has married the richest and prettiest girl in the county. Who would have guessed it ?'

'It has happened just as I intended,' replied the sagacious old man, significantly shaking his head, 'when I persuaded the child to live with Mr. Clark. Walter was one of your romantic, hasty, wayward boys; but he had a good heart notwithstanding. One of those

tempers, so difficult to manage, and so well worth the attempt of managing. I placed him in the right way, and he is now so trained and bound, that habit and inclination will keep him right. His own ardor and ambition will soon carry him forward, and it is the blessing of our happy institutions, that merit and talents, in whatever station, if rightly exerted, will command respect, and ensure success. I prophesy,' continued the old man, raising himself up

with a lofty air, 'I prophesy, that if Walter Wilson lives twenty years, he will be a distinguished man!'

There is now a large, elegant brick mansion beneath the shade of those old elms, that once threw their arms over a long, low, irregular building; the grounds, and everything around, bespeak the owner a gentleman of industry, wealth, and taste; and the address of that gentleman is, the Hon. Walter Wilson.

3

THE

SOLDIER OF THE REVOLUTION.

'Old men forget; yet all shall not be forgot,
But they'll remember with advantages,
The feats they did that day.'

ALMOST every man, who is advanced in years, has, in his past life, some particular period which is remembered with peculiar interest. The circumstances connected with that period are treasured in the memory, often repeated, and but few topics of conversation can be introduced without furnishing an opportunity of referring, at least, if not expatiating on the important affair. It is deserving of notice that what is, in fact, the engrossing pursuit of the multitude, namely, the acquisition of wealth, is not, even by the most devoted worldling, accounted matter of such glorious triumph as those deeds which shame the propensity he is indulging You rarely hear such an one boast of the cunning bargain which laid the foundation of his fortune, or the plodding thrift by which he accumulated his thousands.

Avarice is a deep rooted passion in the human breast, and its gratification ministers to

vanity, yet none are vain of being thought avaricious. There is a feeling of degradation in the mind, if known to place its sole affections on the paltry, perishable things of earth, which should admonish even the most stupid, of that more noble destiny which man was formed capable of enjoying. But feats of personal strength and activity, and 'hair breadth 'scapes' from danger, are recounted with a satisfaction commensurate to the labors performed, and the perils encountered; because there is a pride of personal desert in such achievements and escapes. But above all, the glory gained in the tented field, is the theme which those who have any claim to the title of soldier, are the most ambitious to display. They all appear to feel somewhat of that yearning for martial fame which agitated the princely hero of Agincourt when he exclaimed

By Jove, I am not covetous for gold;
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires;
But if it be a sin to covet honor,

I am the most offending soul alive.'

Yet whoever has heard, or read the narratives of the veterans of our revolutionary war, must have remarked that they dwell not so much on the detail of the battles and skirmishes in which they were engaged, as on the effect those actions had in deciding the contest in favor of liberty and independence. The causes which roused the Americans to take up arms, were most favorable to the developement

of the virtuous energies of men, and consequently that recklessness of moral character and abandonment of pious principles, which too often fatally distinguishes the mass of that profession, when composed of hired mercenaries, never attached to the soldiers of our armies. It was doubtless matter of astonishment to the governments of Europe, that no disturbance followed the disbanding of the American troops; those foreigners did not know that our soldiers, when assuming that name, never abandoned the one of citizens. In fact the latter was the most gratifying to those who fought the battles of freedom,—and when the necessity for farther resistance ceased, they gladly relinquished their weapons and returned to the firesides their valor had preserved from insult and spoliation. It was their boast to have fought for their country, and to their country they cheerfully resigned the laurels they had won. This generous devotedness of the American soldiery to the principles of liberty and equal rights, and their prompt obedience to civil government, have no parallel in history. They have never been adequately rewarded, but let them be gratefully remembered. They deserve to have their deeds the theme of story, and of song; and a sketch of one of those veterans will not surely be considered inappropriate in a work like this, especially by those who consider how much the ladies of America are indebted to the free institutions established by the war of the Revo