to the strings of human sympathy. The inhabitants of Bali came to Coolfo, to tell their tale of distress, and to solicit the assistance of their neighbours. Among other pitiable incidents, they related that several of their towns-women had been overtaken and destroyed by the flames, while in the act of running from them with their children upon their backs; and it was thought that many men, also, not since heard of, had perished in the same tender office. One aged individual, hurrying from the threatened destruction, snatched up a little boy, who, with shrieks of terror, ran across his path; but, just as he had reached the outskirts of the burning town, and was congratulating himself and his charge with their mutual escape, a blazing mass, driven by the wind, dashed both of them to the earth, and scorched them to death, in sight of their distracted friends. All that the people of Bali had to say, those of Coolfo listened to with tears; and help was given to them with benevolence and zeal. Very speedily, the huts of Bali were reerected, over the ruins of those which had been destroyed; and, within a month or two, the people, by their general merriment and vivacity, might seem to have forgotten, and to be able to make every one else forget, that any misfortune had happened in the place! The skies were not more returned to their calmness, than the people to their mirth. What was even better than this, it had been shown that the festivals of the New Moon were never celebrated without religious effect; that whatever human infirmities may seem to disgrace them—that whatever occasional excesses may furnish food for sour observations upon thier merits, substantial religious duties are upheld by the worship to which they belong; and that to the eye of an all-see

ing Divinity, if the worshipper, at one moment, disgraces his faith by an unseemly irregularity; at the next, he can adorn it with all the lustre of a heavenly compassion! But it is thus that, through universal nature, storm and sunshine, suffering and peace, vice and virtue, incessantly alternate; while, as a whole, that whole is always found worthy of an ever-wise and ever-merciful Creator; - always one predominating, though never an unbroken scene,—of peace, of beauty, and of virtue !"

CHAP. XII.

What are the stars? There is the sun, the sun,
And the most patient brilliance of the moon;
And stars by thousands?

BYSCHE SHELLEY.

THOUGH, during the week past, I had sometimes ventured into Mr. Gubbins's garden, and even sometimes peeped in at his door, not forgetting the kind words. of his daughter, who, still more than the rest, besought me, when I was about to receive my liberty, to be sure to come again, and not to be frightened, nor think that I was in any further danger at their house; still I confess that I felt a little shy of all the premises, and had not yet been able to overcome, either the disagreeable recollections of my captivities, nor some feeling of apprehension which clung close to me, and governed me. I went, as I have said, and I looked in, and I had full confidence in every one but Mr. Gubbins ; yet the whole

place was now no longer, in my eye, that hospitable and "ancient dwelling," where, as the song beautifully says,

the weary traveller loves to call;"

so, that I approached it almost tremblingly, and left it very soon.

In proportion, however, as the occurrences to which I had been subjected, estranged me from the mansion of the school, so the accident of my introduction to the farm-house, even by the hands of Mr. Gubbins, led me insensibly into the new resort which that dwelling-place opened to me, and had made assisting to my comfort; for, whether for good or for evil, we easily become familiar with what we know, and attached to that with which we become familiar. It may seem wayward and contradictory, perhaps, that even the frequent visits of Mr. Gubbins, and by turns, of all the Gubbinses, to my pleasant haunt, the abode of their especial friends, did not discourage the arrangement, or that I could willingly meet abroad, those whom I partially shrunk from at their home; but I felt, no doubt, a secret sense of security from the protection of Mowbray's house; and, though without examining my own thoughts, considered that the latter was neutral ground, and that, even if the strangers had been enemies, I now met them beneath the shelter of another's roof!

From this cause, then, though surrounded by fresh scenery, I had often still before me Mr. Gubbins, as the principal actor in the tragedy or comedy, or serious or sentimental drama; or the orations, instructive or amusing, of every passing day. There existed, at the moment of which I am speaking, a marvellous alarm, throughout the village, from the predicted

appearance of that rare kind of celestial visitant, a Comet; and the same, as I learned from all the village gossip, was prevalent, more or less, throughout the kingdom, town and country both together. A farmer, it was reported, a leaseholder in a neighbouring county, apprehensive that the whole globe was about to be destroyed, had wisely taken ship for America, as a place of security; and one or two of the children of Farmer Mowbray, full of their own projected voyage into the other hemisphere, and full, also, of the frights and fancies which they heard of from every neighbour, and discussed with all their fellows of the National and Sunday Schools; partly rejoiced in the similar means of safety which lay before themselves, and partly forsook all other topics and diversions, to question their father and mother, and still more Mr. Gubbins, about the time, the manner, and the certainty of the world's being drowned, or burned alive, or driven out of the reach of the sun, or split into a thousand pieces, by the force, or fire, or other disturbance by land or water, or by war, disease, or poverty, through the power of the approaching Comet. The reader, in commencing the pages of my history, has hardly expected to learn from me any thing descriptive of the Stars or Comets; but it was always my plan to set before him, not merely the humble adventures which affected myself, but every thing remarkable which, in the interval embraced, came to my eyes or ears, and promised to help in the way of pleasure, or of virtue, or of wisdom; and the learning of the skies is that to which the thread of my narrative now leads. It was introduced at the farm-house by the anxious looks and eager speech of the farmer's second son, who, upon this occasion, came home at the mid-day hour

of twelve, aghast with the intelligence which he had just heard, as he drove the team at plough.

"Father," said panting Tom, "I am very glad that we are going to a foreign country; for I am sure that there is no hope left in England, now that the Comet is coming!"

"Yes!" cried out, now, even the rosy Peggy;" and blind Rachel told me, last half-holiday, that the comic would be sure to set all the world on fire!"

"How foolish, Peggy," hastily interrupted the white-haired Jack, from the opposite side of the warm and spacious chimney; "how foolish, Peggy, to say that the comic will set the world on fire, when every body knows that it will drown it all dead with water!" -For, here, as at Burford Cottage, each child was apt to imagine itself much wiser than the other!

"I don't believe a word," resumed Tom, "about the Comet's drowning or burning the world; but it is certain that it will cause the poor folk to starve, and bloody battles to be fought, and a great plague, which will kill man and beast. So, I am very glad that we are going beyond the sea, for there is trouble enough, already, among us, and the poor can hardly live, and you know, father that you and all of us are in trouble; and the people are sick, and don't want the plague, to make them die faster than they do!"

But, if either Peggy's story, or Jack's," said Farmer Mowbray (smiling at the credulity of the infants, and quite as much so at that of their elder brother, Tom); "if either of those stories is the true one to believe; or, if the Comet is every where to knock down man and beast; in that case, it will be of no use, I am afraid, John, to quit England upon account of the Comet; for Van Diemen's Land, it is probable,