re he deemed it quite unnecessary to explain to her the
information he had obtained, more especially as she had made no enquiry
as to the cause of Ferguson's absence, nor even mentioned his name.
Though, as we have said, Miss Williamson preserved a perfect silence on
the name of the absentee, yet she was fully sensitive to the nature of
his feelings, and pretty shrewdly divined the cause of his flight. In
the midst of this, while the lady's mind was racked by love, pity, and
disappointment, the young physician pressed for a further contemplation
of his suit, and met with a repulse; which, though kind, and expressive
of gratitude, was such as to smother any hope that he might have
entertained of the possession of her devotion. To her father, this
decision was the annihilation of a long cherished expectancy; but
respecting his child's feelings, and being convinced she must have been
actuated by some strong motives in her refusal, he refrained from
pressing the cause of his friend, or enquiring the nature of his
daughter's objections. It was only then that the light flashed across
his mind, that his daughter might have loved young Ferguson; and he then
determined, through his correspondents in New South Wales, to which
colony the young man had emigrated, to keep his eye upon him; and, if
conducive to the happiness of his daughter, to further his prospects by
an unforeseen agency.

Some time had elapsed from the period of which we speak; and young
Ferguson, by his persevering industry, and the influence and assistance
of some friends, who had sought and cultivated his acquaintance through
the solicitation of his kind and generous patron, Mr. Williamson, had
obtained a position of comfort and moderate competency. In the meantime,
matters had gone on with the Williamsons very much as usual, until the
mental anxiety, occasioned by some severe reverses in busines, had
prostrated the merchant on a bed of sickness, where the affectionate
energies of the daughter, in her ministerial responsibilities, were
displayed in their brightest effulgence.

During one of her occasions of attendance, she was requested by her
father to select from papers in his cabinet some documents to which he
wished to refer; and while in the execution of this duty, her eye
chanced to fall upon one, the peculiar chirography of which was strange
to her, though in its body she more than once caught the repetition of
her own name. She took up the paper to sat