For they, in their salvation, know
No vestige of their former woe,
While thro' them all the Heavens do flow.

Thus art thou wedded to the skies,
And watched by ever-loving eyes,
And warned by yearning sympathies.

THE HOME OF WOODRUFFE THE
GARDENER.

IN EIGHT CHAPTERS. — CHAPTER I.

"How pleased the boy looks, to be sure!"
observed Woodruffe to his wife, as his son
Allan caught up little Moss (as Maurice had
chosen to call himself before he could speak
plain) and made him jump from the top of the
the drawers upon the chair, and then from the
chair to the ground. "He is making all that
racket just because he is so pleased he does
not know what to do with himself."

"I suppose he will forgive Fleming now for
carrying off Abby," said the, mother. "I say,
Allan, what do you think now of Abby
marrying away from us?"

"Why, I think it's a very good thing. You
know she never told me that we should go
and live where she lived, and in such a pretty
place, too, where I may have a garden of my
own, and see what I can make of it—all fresh
from the beginning, as father says."

"You are to try your hand at the business,
I know," replied the mother, "but I never
heard your father, nor any one else, say that
the place was a pretty one. I did not think
new railway stations had been pretty places
at all."

"It sounds so to him, naturally," interposed
Woodruffe. "He hears of a south aspect, and
a slope to the north for shelter, and the town
seen far off; and that sounds all very pleasant.
And then, there is the thought of the journey,
and the change, and the fun of getting the
ground all into nice order, and, best of all,
the seeing his sister so soon again. Youth is
the time for hope and joy, you know, love."

And Woodruffe began to whistle, and
stepped forward to take his turn at jumping
Moss, whom he carried in one flight from the
top of the drawers to the floor. Mrs.
Woodruffe smiled, as she thought that youth was
not the only season, with some people, for
hope and joy.

Her husband, always disposed to look on
the bright side, was particularly happy this
evening. The lease of his market-garden
ground was just expiring. He had prospered
on it; and would have desired nothing better
than to live by it as long as he lived at all. He
desired this so much that he would not
believe a word of what people had been saying
for two years past, that his ground would be
wanted by his landlord on the expiration of
the lease, and that it would not be let again.
His wife had long foreseen this; but not till
the last moment would he do what she
thought should have been done long before—
offer to buy the ground. At the ordinary
price of land, he could accomplish the
purchase of it; but when he found his landlord
unwilling to sell, he bid higher and
higher, till his wife was so alarmed at the
rashness, that she was glad when a prospect
of entire removal opened. Woodruffe was
sure that he could have paid off all he offered
at the end of a few years; but his partner
thought it would have been a heavy burden
on their minds, and a sad waste of money;
and she was therefore, in her heart, obliged
to the landlord for persisting in his refusal
to sell.

When that was settled, Woodruffe became
suddenly sure that he could pick up an acre
or two of land somewhere not far off. But
he was mistaken; and, if he had not been
mistaken, market-gardening was no longer
the profitable business it had been, when it
enabled him to lay by something every year.
By the opening of a railway, the townspeople,
a few miles off, got themselves better supplied
with vegetables from another quarter, it was
this which put it into the son-in-law's head
to propose the removal of the family into
Staffordshire, where he held a small
appointment on a railway. Land might be had at a
low rent near the little country station where
his business lay; and the railway brought
within twenty minutes' distance a town where
there must be a considerable demand for
garden produce. The place was in a raw
state at present; and there were so few
houses, that, if there had been a choice of
time, the Flemings would rather have put off
the coming of the family till some of the
cottages already planned had been built; but
the Woodruffes must remove in September,
and all parties agreed that they should not
mind a little crowding for a few months.
Fleming's cottage was to hold them all till
some chance of more accommodation should
offer.

"I'll tell you what," said Woodruffe, after
standing for some time, half whistling and
thinking, with that expression on his face
which his wife had long learned to be afraid
of, "I'll write to-morrow—let's see—I may as
well do it to-night;" and he looked round for
paper and ink. "I'll write to Fleming, and
get him to buy the land for me at once."

"Before you see it?" said his wife, looking
up from her stocking mending.

"Yes. I know all about it, as much as if I
were standing on it this moment; and I am
sick of this work—of being turned out just
when I had made the most of a place, and got
attached to it. I'll make a sure thing of it
this time, and not have such a pull at my
heartstrings again. And the land will be
cheaper now than later; and we shall go to
work upon it with such heart, if it is our
own! Eh?"

"Certainly, if we find, after seeing it, that
we like it as well as we expect. I would just
wait till then."