whilst an unusual seriousness, mingled with indications of awe and deep reflection, sat on the features of the aged minstrel.

"It has been your fate, I perceive, my kind host," said the bard, "as it hath been mine, to have experienced the pressure of vicissitude and misfortune; and though poverty and loss of sight, the latter, certainly an evil of great magnitude, are not in the catalogue of your calamities, I can yet sensibly feel, that your trial has been also severe. The consolation, however, of being highly useful to others, that noblest soother of the suffering mind, happily took place soon after the deprivation of your beloved wife; and though in her your loss has been, as I well know, in many respects irreparable; yet, as far as it could be compensated in this life, it has been, through the delightful consciousness of being the stay and hope, the friend and protector, of the fatherless and forsaken. To witness the sorrows of an unmerited affliction, fall when and where they may, must ever be an occurrence highly distressing to a human mind; but to see the very spring and morning of existence clouded with

grief, a victim, as it were, helpless and unresisting, to the folly or the vice of others, is a spectacle, beyond all others, truly mournful and distressing; and, therefore, he whose lot it hath been to become the averter of a calamity so deplorable, must, in my opinion, be pronounced blessed. May it be yours, long after the grass has waved over the grave of Llwellyn, to enjoy the fruits of a conduct so laudable and philanthropic !"

"It has been but the performance of a duty, my friend," replied Mr. Walsingham, " from which, I trust, few would have shrank; but like every other duty, when entered into from proper motives, it has been attended with its peculiar gratifications. I am, like yourself Llwellyn, though less advanced into the vale of years, but as a tree stripped of its branches and withering by the way. In one respect, indeed,

I

may be reckoned more unfortunate; for I know not, that I have a relative left on earth: and were it not for this young man, (pointing to Edward,) whom I have brought up, as I hope, to honour his God, and be useful to his fellow creatures, there were none to love me !"

"Nay, say not so, my noble countryman," exclaimed the grey-haired bard, "for whilst a droop of blood yet warms this aged heart, it beats for friendship and for thee. But is there then, indeed, no kindred tie yet left for you in Switzerland? none in the land of your nativity ?"

"My uncle, he whom I long looked up to with the reverence due to almost apostolic piety and zeal, and whose memory I cherish with a devotedness which nothing but virtues like his own could merit or create, has paid the debt of nature. He rests, together with the beloved partner of his pilgrimage, in the little churchyard of Meyringen. There, surrounded by those who once drank life and instruction from his lips, he awaits in calm repose the resurrection of the just. Yes, dearest Llwellyn, often in the deep silence of the night, when every eye, save mine, is closed in sleep, do I live in imagination with those I left and lost in Switzerland. Then is it, that I again hearken to the hallowed accents of the pastor of Meyringen; it is then, I again converse with dead Maria, that I again tread with her the green vallies, and listen to the falling

streams of Lauterbruennen! Oh! if those whom thus I loved on earth, be yet conscious of the attachment which still I bear them! If they do but know how dear they were and are to me, how must it delight them, to perceive that the remembrance of their virtues and affections, forms one of the sweetest consolations of my existence."

"And do not the vallies of Mona, and the mountains of Caernarvon,- does not the land of the harp, and the country which gave you birth, whose dear bosom has received the companions of your earliest youth, and still covers with its protecting turf the sacred relics of your fathers,— have not these, my beloved friend, an equal claim on your recollection, an equal influence over your heart and feelings?"

"Oh, never Llwellyn; never shall they be forgotten by me! It is thither, after all my deprivations, anxieties, and cares, I long to turn my steps and die at home at last! It is a wish congenial to the soul of man; for though as I have just mentioned, no relative, as far as I can learn, awaits me on my natal soil, yet do I feel a daily increasing desire to retrace the scenery

of my childhood, and to linger on the spot, where sleep the ashes of my parents. To do this, and once more, if possible, to drop a tear on the grave of her who loved me with an angel's love, form the ultimate objects of my life. But my allotted task is not yet finished here, and the hour, come when it will, which shall separate me from thee, my child, (addressing Edward,) may bring with it, a struggle too mighty for this frame to bear. It is my prayer indeed, and for reasons too not merely selfish, that when I leave this sweet sequestered valley, thou mayest be the companion of my steps; and if providence permit, need I say, what added gratification it would give me, if thou too, Llwellyn, couldst wait to be the partner of our way, couldst return with us to the fields of thy youth, and, after all thy sorrows and privations, sit down beside the social hearth with Hoel, and the favoured pupil of thy earliest song: but we are in the hands of one who knoweth what is best; on him let us repose our trust; and then my friends, whether we sleep beneath the green turfs of Ryedale, or within the once regal walls of Aberfraw, all shall yet be well!"