Flora Lyndsay

a question rather suddenly put to his young wife, by Lieutenant Lyndsay, as he paused in his walk t

ee years old in her lap, was calmly watching its sleeping face with inexpressible delight. S

ou ask, d

Flora, that you cannot g

ppy ever since, that I have never given it a sec

how I could provide for

nd the mother bent over her sleeping child, and kissed it

tall girl; and other little pets may be treading upon her foo

iness, had dismissed all such

ohn. I wish that it could be expu

illustration of its meaning. Nay, don't look so despondingly. If you

for the future are very limited. We are both the younger children of large families, whose wealth and consequence is now a thing of the past. We have nothing to hope or anticipate from rich relations; but we have enough to be comfortable, and are surrounded with many

to him. But he did not yield to the temptation, or swerve from

ove. Too happy, I might

y n

very small?" wi

ur present wants. A

But Flora, I am too proud to be indebted to friends for the common necessaries of life; and without doing something to improve our scanty means, it might come to that.

y could not furnish an argument against such home truths. "Let us drop th

, without any reference to our own likes and dislikes. Our marriage would have been a most imprudent one, had it been contracted on any other terms; and we are b

hose society renders life a blessing and poverty endurable-to abandon a certain good for an uncertain better, to be sought for among untried

or us to provide against the dark hour before it comes suddenly upon us. Our future prospects press upon my heart and brain too forc

so

l have to encounter. The legacy left you by your aunt will pay our expenses o

nad

eye br

hat it is not to th

ct of land, and where some of the happiest years of my life were spent. You are not wise, Flora, to regard the Cape with such horror. No person wou

lions! I never should dare to stir beyond the garden, for fear of being stung or devoured. And then, I hav

inful, by taking you to a country to which you are so averse, I have made choice of Canada, hoping that it might be more to your taste.

happiness more than his own-for it was no small sacrifice to Lyndsay to giv

ll the world! I will try and reconcile

ou with your mother until I ha

encounter a thousand dangers, than remain in England without

young husband kissed the tears

as his dear

e followed him to t

and hold out such encouragement of ultimate success and independence, that they have decided me in my choice of making a trial of the backwoods. I promised to meet him this morning at the Crown Inn (where he puts up), to look over maps and plans, and have s

ery word of that eventful conversation, which they had held together the morning before their marriage, upon th

and Flora, full of love and faith, was not hard to be persuaded. She considered that to be his wife, endowed as he was by nature with so many moral and intellectual qualities, with a fine face and noble form, would mak

t deprive him of these, and a disagreeable companion for life would remain to remind me constantly of my choice. But a generous, talente

er convictions, did right. The world, we know, would scarcely agree

d from one mind, at least. Flora knew her husband too well to suspect him of changing a resolution he had once formed on the suggestion of duty. She felt, too, that he was right,-that painful as the struggle was, to part with all dear to her on earth, save him, that it must be made. "Yes, I can, and wil

to co