but my duty
obliged me to do so."

The gentlemen walked on.

"Who is she?" inquired the younger.

"A very singular woman. Her information transported for life a husband
whom she loved, notwithstanding his coldness and his crimes. She had at
that time three children, and the eldest had already become contaminated
by his father's example. She saw nothing but destruction for them in
prospective, her warnings and intreaties being alike unregarded. So she
made her election--sacrificed the husband and saved the children!"

"But what does she here?"

"Her eldest son is now established in a small business, and respected by
all who know him. Her second boy, and a father, whom her misfortunes
reduced to a deplorable state of wretchedness, are dead. Her daughter,
a village belle and beauty, is married to my father's handsome new
parish-clerk; and Mrs. Huntley having seen her children provided for,
and by her virtues and industry made respectable in the Old World, is
now on her voyage to the New, to see, if I may be permitted to use her
own simple language, 'whether she can contribute to render the last days
of her husband as happy as the first they passed together.' It is only
justice to the criminal to say, that I believe him truly and perfectly
reformed."

"And on this chance she leaves her children and her country?"

"She does. She argues, that as the will of Providence prevented her from
discharging her duties _together_, she must endeavour to perform
them _separately_. He was sentenced to die; but, by my father's
exertions, his sentence was commuted to one of transportation for life;
and I know she has quitted England without the hope of again beholding
its white cliffs."

[Miss Landon has contributed a few poetical pieces of great merit; and
the Editor, the "simple story" of an Emigrant in verse, full of truth
and nature. The Author of the Corn Law Rhymes has two pieces.

The Illustrations are nearly unexceptionable. Seven of them are
from pictures by Lawrence; Newton's Gentle Student has supplied the
Frontispiece; and Wilkie's Theft of the Cap, one of the most pleasing
of the well arranged selection.]

* * * * *

THE FRIENDSHIP'S OFFERING.

[Edited by a poet of no mean merit, has a golden flood of minor pieces
in verse, many of them of great beauty and touching sweetness, and
nearly all above the usual _calibre_ of such contributions to
_Annual_ literature. The prose tales ar