At last, after a week had passed, Thomas Ward fully forgave his wife every thing, and sat himself down to write her a long letter, filled with all kinds of arguments, reasons, and entreaties favourable to a voyage across the Atlantic.  Thus he wrote, in part:—­

......."As to wild Indians, Lizzy, of which you have such fear,
there are none within a thousand miles, and they are tame enough. 
The fierce animals are all killed, and I have not seen a single
serpent, except a garter snake, that is as harmless as a tow string. 
Come then, Lizzy, come!  I have not known a happy moment since I left
you, and I am sure you cannot be happy.  This is a land of peace and
plenty—­a land where—­”

Thomas Ward did not know that a stranger had entered the room, and was now looking over his shoulder, and reading what he had written.  Just as his pen was on the sentence left unfinished above, a pair of soft hands were suddenly drawn across his eyes, and a strangely familiar voice said, tremblingly—­“Guess who it is!”

Before he had time to think or to guess, the hands passed from his eyes to his neck, and a warm wet cheek was laid tightly against his own.  He could not see the face that lay so close to his, but he knew that Lizzy’s arms were around him, that her tears were upon his face, and that her heart was beating against him.

“Bless us!” ejaculated the old farmer, who had followed after the young woman who had asked at the door with such an eager interest for Thomas Ward—­“what does all this mean?”

By this time Thomas had gained a full view of his wife’s tearful but happy face.  Then he hugged her to his bosom over and over again, much to the surprise and delight of the farmer’s urchins, who happened to be in the room.

“Here she is, sir; here she is!” he cried to the farmer, as soon as he could see any thing else but Lizzy’s face, and then first became aware of the old gentleman’s presence; “here is your English dairy maid.”

“Then it’s your wife, Thomas, sure enough.”

“Oh, yes, sir; I thought she would be along after a while, but didn’t expect this happiness so soon.”

“How is this, my young lady?” asked the farmer, good-humouredly—­“how is this?  I thought you wasn’t going to come to this country.  But I suppose the very next packet after your husband left saw you on board.  All I blame him for is not taking you under his arm, as I would have done, and bringing you along as so much baggage.  But no doubt you found it much pleasanter coming over alone than it would have been in company with your husband—­no doubt at all of it.”

The kind-hearted farmer then took his children out of the room, and, closing the door, left the reunited husband and wife alone.  Lizzy was too happy to say any thing about how wrong she had been in not consenting to go with her husband; but she owned that he had not been gone five minutes before she would have given the world, if she had possessed it, to have been with him.  Ten days afterwards another packet sailed for the United States, and she took passage in it.  On arriving in New York she was fortunate enough to fall in with a passenger who had come over in the Shamrock, and from him learned where she could find her husband, who acknowledged that she had given him the most agreeable surprise he had ever known in his life.