his entire property,) and is under no one's control. He will always be very dear to me. But here comes Mark with the Prayer Book."
"Lay it here, Mark," said Mr. Weston, "and ring the bell for the servants. I like all who can to come and unite with me in thanking God for His many mercies. Strange, I have opened the Holy Book where David says, (and we will join with him,) 'Praise the Lord, oh! my soul, and all that is within me, praise his holy name.'"
Chapter III.
After the other members of the family had retired, Mr. Weston, as was usual with him, sat for a while in the parlor to read. The closing hour of the day is, of all, the time that we love to dwell on the subject nearest our heart. As, at the approach of death, the powers of the mind rally, and the mortal, faint and feeble, with but a few sparks of decaying life within him, arouses to a sense of his condition, and puts forth all his energies, to meet the hour of parting with earth and turning his face to heaven; so, at the close of the evening, the mind, wearied with its day's travelling, is about to sink into that repose as necessary for it as for the body—that repose so often compared to the one in which the tired struggler with life, has "forever wrapped the drapery of his couch about him, and laid down to pleasant dreams." Ere yielding, it turns with energy to the calls of memory, though it is so soon to forget all for a while. It hears voices long since hushed, and eyes gaze into it that have looked their last upon earthly visions. Time is forgotten, Affection for a while holds her reign, Sorrow appears with her train of
