etty view altogether, the room was so
little that from her place she might easily command it. Miss Martineau,
in a book of hers, has given us a most valuable and interesting account
of the way in which, during a tedious and most trying illness, her
active spirit confined to one place, she used to amuse herself, and
while away the time by looking out of her window through her telescope
and watching all that was going on. This old lady did much the same,
minus the good telescope, which she had not. Her son, however, had
presented her with an old-fashioned opera-glass, which he had picked up
at some second-hand retailer or other, and as it was a good one, and,
moreover, very light to the hand, it did as well for her and better.

In some things the old lady had a little resemblance to Miss Martineau.
She had the same cheerful activity of mind, the same readiness of
adapting herself to circumstances--things in a great measure
constitutional. She was, moreover, a very shrewd, sensible woman, and
deeply pious--pious in the most excellent way: really, vitally,
seriously. She came of a good old puritan stock, where piety had been
cherished from generation to generation. Some physiologists say, that
even the _acquired_ moral qualities and habits descend to the succeeding
generation. It is possible an aptness for good or evil may be, and often
is, inherited from those who have gone before. It would seem to have
been so in this case. The pious father and mother, children of as pious
parents, had left this pious daughter--and her excellencies had
descended in accumulated measure to her son. This old lay had been
sorely tried--death and poverty had done their worst--except in as far
as the cruel ravager had spared her this one boy, one of many children,
all followed the delicate, consumptive man who had been their father.
She had borne it all. Strong in faith, she had surrendered her treasures
to the Lord of Life, in trust that they should be found again when he
maketh up his jewels. Cheerful as was her temper, life's course had been
too rough with her, for her to value it very much, when those lovely,
promising buds, but half disclosed, were one after the other gathered.
But she had escaped that racking agony of the loving, but too faithless
mother--when all the sweets of nature in its abundance flow around her,
and _they_ are not there to enjoy.

"When suns shine bright o'er heaven's blue vault serene,
Birds sing in tree