“Well, as soon as it was over, and they stepped out of the church, the joy bells rang out, so merrily, and every person looked so pleased and so happy.  There was a grand lunch at Mr. Denham’s, and then the bridal party drove away to spend the honeymoon in travelling.”

“Well, she deserved a good husband, and I trust she has got one,” said Mrs. Williamson, as Ellen paused to take breath, “and I pray that Heaven may bless them both!”

“Amen,” was the hearty response of the listeners, a response which, we trust, kind reader, you will have no hesitation in echoing.

The wish of Ellen, which she gave expression to, as she narrated her visit, unlike most earthly wishes, was, in the space of a year or two, abundantly realized.

Through the instrumentality of Agnes and her devoted husband, a neat little church was erected; a school-house quickly followed; a minister and teacher were obtained; the people, stimulated by their example, rebuilt and improved their dwellings; began to cultivate their land, and that with such success, that fruit and flowers, and shady trees, and fields of waving grain, were, in a comparatively short time, to be seen in every direction, so that with regard to those changes, and the instrumentality through which they had been effected, it is little wonder that Mrs. Williamson, as she pointed them out to her family, would now and then exclaim,—­

“The wilderness and the solitary place were made glad by her, and the desert rejoices and blossoms as the rose.”

Verily Agnes Bernard has her reward now, in the enjoyments which cluster so thickly around her; in the happiness of which she is at once the dispenser and partaker; but how greatly shall it be increased, when, from a Saviour’s lips, shall be heard the welcome plaudit:—­

“Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least of these, ye did it unto me.”