prosperous, but as it
proved Mrs. Barton's distrust of Sally was too well founded. She was
idle and extravagant, and such a wife soon ruins a poor man. In five
years Richard was reduced to such straits, that in a fit of desperation
he enlisted. From the sorrowful day he came to take leave of us, for his
regiment was soon after sent to the East-Indies, his mother never had
a well day or a happy hour. After he went away, his wife led a vicious
life; and four years after she came to our door to beg a crust of
bread--a poor, wasted, sick, half-famished creature. We took her in.
To be sure she had been a sad sinner, but she was Richard's wife, and
besides it is always better to pity than condemn, and it is not for
the like of us ma'am you know, who have no hope but because God's
compassions fail not, to turn our backs upon a fellow-creature in sin
and misery.

"For a whole year she laid in a distressing sickness. Mrs. Barton had
become so old and feeble, that she could do nothing but pray for us,
and I had as you may suppose a toilsome life of it; but I was as I
trusted, doing my duty, and that makes a light heart, and according to
my experience ma'am, no one can be very wretched that has enough to do,
and that tries to do their duty faithfully, be that duty ever so humble.
We never suffered. Sally had some help from the charitable; and when we
had no other resource, I drew on my fifty pounds.

"It would have been a great comfort to us to have seen Sally take hold
of religion, when every thing else failed; but the poor soul was racked
with pains and coughing, and could only think of her suffering body, and
she was perfectly deaf too, and could hear nothing that the clergyman
said to her, though Mrs. Barton thought it right he should talk to her.
Oh ma'am, I think there is not a more mournful sight on the earth than
to see a young creature thus cut off by her sins.

"Richard returned to us two days before she died, but she did not know
him, and could not hear his forgiveness, though he spoke it over and
over again."

Mrs. Barton paused for a few moments, quite overcome by the recollection
of that sad period, and then resumed her story.

"And now came brighter days. Richard had endured many hardships, and
past through many temptations, but he had not lost his integrity. He
had come home in attendance on an officer who had obtained a furlough.
Not many months passed over before Richard expressed a wish to marry
me, thoug