The sun was dropping slowly into the west, leaving behind him a deep red glow that illuminated the hills, and burnished the windows of the sick-chamber.  The wind moaned, and, sweeping the sere leaves at intervals, threatened a tempest.  There was a solemn stillness in the parsonage, around whose gate—­weeping in silence, without heart to speak, or wish to make their sorrow known—­were collected a host of humble creatures—­the poorest but sincerest friends of Ellen—­the villagers who had been her care.  They waited and lingered for the heavy news, which they were told must come to them this day; and prayed secretly—­every one of them, old and young—­for mercy on the sufferer’s soul!  And she, whose gentle spirit is about to flit, lies peacefully, and but half-conscious of the sounds that pass to heaven on her behalf.  Her father, Mayhew, and I, kneel round her bed, and the minister in supplicating tones, where nature does not interpose, dedicates the virgin to His favour whose love she has applied so well.  He ceases, for a whisper has escaped her lips.  We listen all. “Oh, this is peace!” she utters faintly, but most audibly, and the scene is over.

“It is a dream,” said the minister, when we parted for the night—­I with the vain hope to forget in sleep the circumstances of the day—­the father to stray unwittingly into her former room, and amongst the hundred objects connected with the happy memory of the departed.

The picture of which my Ellen had spoken, I obtained on the following day.  It was a drawing of the church and the burial-ground adjoining it.  One grave was open.  It represented that in which her own mortal remains were deposited, amidst the unavailing lamentations of a mourning village.

In three months the incumbent quitted Devonshire.  The scenery had no pleasure for him, associated as it was with all the sorrows of his life.  His pupils returned to their homes.  He had offered to retain them, and to retain his incumbency for the sake of my advancement; but, whilst I saw that every hour spent in the village brought with it new bitterness and grief, I was not willing to call upon him for so great a sacrifice.  Such a step, indeed, was rendered unnecessary through the kind help of Dr Mayhew, to whom I owe my present situation, which I have held for forty years with pleasure and contentment.  Mr Fairman retired to a distant part of the kingdom, where the condition of the people rendered the presence of an active minister of God a privilege and a blessing.  In the service of his Master, in the securing of the happiness of other men, he strove for years to deaden the pain of his own crushed heart.  And he succeeded—­living to bless the wisdom which had carried him through temptation; and dying, at last, to meet with the reward conferred upon the man who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seeks for glory, and honour, and immortality—­ETERNAL LIFE.