Prospered by a favoring breeze, a few hours sufficed to bear the vessel to its destined harbor; and that night, sheltered, in comparative comfort, beneath the hospitable roof of Mr. Williamson, Ellen’s father, Agnes sank into deep and quiet repose.

CHAPTER X.

April, capricious, yet beautiful child of Spring, once more smiled upon the bleak shores and sterile plains which, when we last beheld them, were encompassed by the chilling atmosphere, and loomed bleak and desolate beneath the sombre sky of, to that land at least, unpropitious winter.

Welcome to all the inhabitants of that rude coast, the return of the season was hailed with pleasure the deepest, the liveliest, with gratitude as warm as ever expanded the human heart, by her whom, an exile from her native shores, had been compelled to sojourn for a season on its rocky and cheerless wastes.  Five months had now elapsed since, rescued by the kind-hearted sailors, Agnes had become an inmate of the fisherman’s cottage, and these months had seemed to her like a separate existence, so widely had their experience differed from that of her accustomed every-day life.

But deem not, gentle reader, that they had been spent by her in sinful repining at the hardships of her lot.  During the first part of her sojourn among them, severe sickness, caused no doubt by previous exposure and anxiety, had prostrated her system, and brought her to the very borders of the grave, but through the unremitting care of Mrs. Williamson and her daughter, she was restored to health; and full of gratitude to heaven for this double preservation of her life, which had been thus vouchsafed, her first inquiry was, how she could best return the debt of gratitude due to her Father in Heaven, and those through whose kindly instrumentality she was thus raised up again.  Nor was she long in ascertaining the path of duty, nor hesitating in commencing and pursuing it with eagerness.

One day, soon after her recovery, she was sitting by the fire, when Ellen, the fisherman’s daughter, to whom we have before alluded, entered the room, and observing that Agnes looked somewhat downcast, kindly inquired the cause, for the gratitude she had manifested for every little act of kindness, had deeply endeared her to those with whom she was now associated.

“I hope you do not feel any worse, dear lady,” she said.

“Oh, no, Ellen,” was the reply, while a smile instantly dissipated the shadow that had obscured for a moment her countenance.  “And how deeply grateful should I feel,” she added after a short pause, “first to my Heavenly Father, and then to you and your kind family, whose unwearied care and attention have been so instrumental in my recovery; and I trust yet to have it in my power to show my sense of your kindness.”

“Don’t, Miss Wiltshire, please don’t say anything more.  Why, we only did what any persons, with common feelings, would have done.”