and capering beyond all the controul of his honest friend, whilst Mr. Salmon, no doubt, laughed in his sleeve, and only lamented that he had not known Dymock better from the first, for in that case he would have used his cunning to have obtained a better bargain of the castle and lands.  It was not one nor two visits to Hexham which completed these arrangements; however Mr. Dymock, after the first visit, no longer refused to permit Shanty to open out every thing to his aunt, and to prepare her to descend into a cottage, on an income of forty or fifty pounds a year.

Mrs. Margaret bore the information better than Shanty had expected; she had long anticipated some such blow, and her piety enabled her to bear it with cheerfulness.  “I now,” she said, “know the worst, and I see not wherefore, though I am a Dymock, I should not be happy in a cottage, I am only sorry for Tamar; poor Tamar! what will become of her?”

“Oh mother! dear mother!” said Tamar weeping, “why are you sorry for me, cannot I go with you? surely you would not part from me;” and she fell weeping on Mrs. Margaret’s bosom.

“Never before! oh, never before,” cried Mrs. Margaret, “did I feel my poverty as I do now.”

“Mother dear! oh mother dear! had I thousands of pounds, I would devote them all to you, and to my dear protector.”

“God helping you, or God working in you Tamar,” said Shanty, rubbing his rough hand across his eyes, “but never boast of what you will do, dear child; boasting does not suit the condition of humanity.”

“Oh! that I could now find my father,” she replied, “and if I could find him a rich man, what a comfort it would be; what would I give now,” she added, “to find a rich father!”

Mrs. Margaret kissed her child, and wept with her, calling her a dear, affectionate, grateful creature; but Shanty made no remark respecting Tamar’s gratitude; he had it in his mind to speak to her when alone, and he very soon found the opportunity he wished.

It was on the next Sunday that he met Tamar walking on the moor, and it was then that he thus addressed her, “I was sorry damsel,” he said, “to hear you speak as you did to Mrs. Margaret the other day, making a profession of what you would do for her if you were rich, and yet never offering her that which you have to give her.”

“What have I to give her?” asked Tamar.

“Much,” replied the old man; “much, very much.  You have strength, and activity, and affection to give her.  With forty pounds a-year, a house, and a little field, which is all your adopted parents will have, can they, think you, keep a servant?  Will not the very closest care be necessary, and should not one who is young, and faithful, and attached, rejoice to serve her benefactors at such time as this, and to render their fall as easy as possible; and where, I ask you, Tamar, should they find such service as you can render them?”