ep alive the prejudice her eccentricities were
calculated to excite.

A casual circumstance, which led to my becoming obliged to Anna, at
length enabled me to overcome the suspicion and dislike with which
our neighbour was regarded. Our acquaintance speedily ripened into
friendship; for with the reaction natural to the generous, I felt as
though I could never sufficiently compensate for my former injustice
towards her. Often in an evening I would put on my bonnet, and,
taking my work with me, go to spend a leisure hour with Dutch Anna;
and on these occasions she generally entertained me with descriptions
of her own country, and of the customs and manners of its
inhabitants; or with striking anecdotes and incidents which had come
under her own personal observation; never failing to draw some useful
moral or illustrate some important truth from what she related. She
could read well, and write a little--rare accomplishments in those
days for one in her situation in life. Her powers of observation were
extremely acute, and her memory retentive; but what struck me as her
most remarkable characteristics, were her sincere and unaffected
piety, her undeviating truthfulness, and her extraordinary decision
and fearlessness. When I have said, on bidding her good-night, 'Anna,
are you not afraid to be left alone here during the night, with no
one within call?' she has replied, 'Afraid, Miss Mary! no; how can I
feel afraid, knowing myself under the protection of One as great and
powerful as He is wise and good? I am never alone, for God is ever
present with me.' After Anna had resided some years in this country,
during which time she had, by her constant good-conduct, gained the
esteem of all who knew her, and, by her good-nature and willingness
to oblige, won the kindly feeling of even the most prejudiced, she
became anxious to pay a visit to her native land; and as the
accommodations for travelling at that period, besides being few, were
costly, she obtained letters of recommendation from her employers and
other gentlemen in the place to friends residing in different towns
on her route, and set out, intending to perform the greater part of
her land-journey on foot. At the end of several months she returned,
and quietly resumed her former mode of life. Not till fully a year
after this period did she relate to me an adventure which had
occurred to her on her journey homewards, and which I shall now
transcribe.

It was at the clos