one particular, namely, in never intruding upon his solitude; and my grandmother, who was at that time nursing my mother, never left the room without wisely putting the large family bible in the cradle-a sure talisman, in her opinion, against witchcraft and necromancy.

around the

One stormy winter r night, when a bleak northeast wind mAbout the cottages, and howled steeple, my grandfather was returning from preceded by a servant with a lantern. Just as he arrived opposite the desolate abode of the little man in black, he was arrested by the piteous howling of a dog, which, heard in the pauses of a storm, was exquisitely mournful; and he fancied now and then that he caught the low and broken groans of some one in distress. He stopped for some minutes, hesitating between the benevolence of his heart and a sensation of genuine delicacy, which, in spite of his eccentricity, he fully possessed, and which forbade him to pry into the concerns of his neighbours. Perhaps, too, this hesitation might have been strengthened by a little taint of superstition; for surely, if the unknown had been addicted to witchcraft, this was a most propitious night for his vagaries. At length the old gentleman's philanthropy predominated; he approached the hovel, and pushing open the door,-for poverty has no occasion for locks and keys,-beheld, by the Eight of the lantern, a scene that smote his generous heart to the core.

On a miserable bed, with pallid and emaciated visage and hollow eyes; in a room destitute of

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every convenience; without fire to warm or friend to console him, lay this helpless mortal who had been so long the terror and wonder of the village. His dog was couched on the scanty coverlet, and shivering with cold. My grandfather stepped softly and hesitatingly to the bedside, and accosted the forlorn sufferer in his usual accents of kindness. The little man in black seemed recalled by the tones of compassion from the lethargy into which he had fallen; for, though his heart was almost frozen, there was yet one chord that answered to the call of the good old man who bent over him;-the tones of sympathy, so novel to his ear, called back his wandering senses, and acted like a restorative to his solitary feelings.

He raised his eyes, but they were vacant and haggard; he put forth his hand, but it was cold; he essayed to speak, but the sound died away in his throat; he pointed to his mouth with an expression of dreadful meaning, and, sad to relate, my grandfather understood that the harmless stranger, deserted by society, was perishing with hunger! With the quick impulse of humanity, he despatched the servant to the hall for refreshment. A little warm nourishment renovated him for a short time, but not long: it was evident his pilgrimage was drawing to a close, and he was about entering that peaceful asylum where "the wicked cease from troubling."

His tale of misery was short, and quickly told; -infirmities had stolen upon him, heightened by the rigours of the season; he had taken to his bed without strength to rise and ask for assistance;

"And if I had," said he, in a tone of bitter despondency, "to whom should I have applied? I have no friend that I know of in the world!the villagers avoid me as something loathsome and dangerous; and here, in the midst of Christians, should I have perished without a fellow being to soothe the last moments of existence, and close my dying eyes, had not the howlings of my faithful dog excited your attention."

He seemed deeply sensible of the kindness of my grandfather; and at one time as he looked up into his old benefactor's face, a solitary tear was observed to steal adown the parched furrows of his cheek.-Poor outcast!-it was the last tear he shed; but I warrant it was not the first by millions! My grandfather watched by him all night. Towards morning he gradually declined; and as the rising sun gleamed through the windows, he begged to be raised in his bed, that he might look at it for the last time. He contemplated it for a moment with a kind of religious enthusiasm, and his lips moved as if engaged in prayer. The strange conjecture concerning him rushed on my grandfather's mind. "He is an idolater!" thought he, "and is worshipping the sun!" He listened a moment, and blushed at his own uncharitable suspicion; he was only engaged in the pious devotions of a Christian. His simple orison being finished, the little man in black withdrew his eyes from the east, and taking my grandfather's hand in one of his, and making a motion with the other towards the sun-"I love to contemplate it," said he; "'tis an emblem of