impressive consciousness that the narrator had seen with her own
eyes, and personally acted in the scenes which she described; these
accompaniments, taken with the additional circumstance, that she
who told the tale was one far too deeply and sadly impressed with
religious principle, to misrepresent or fabricate what she repeated as
fact, gave to the tale a depth of interest which the events recorded
could hardly, themselves, have produced. I became acquainted with
the lady from whose lips I heard this narrative, nearly twenty years
since, and the story struck my fancy so much, that I committed it
to paper while it was still fresh in my mind, and should its perusal
afford you entertainment for a listless half hour, my labour shall not
have been bestowed in vain. I find that I have taken the story down as
she told it, in the first person, and, perhaps, this is as it should
be. She began as follows.

My maiden name was Richardson,[A] the designation of a family of
some distinction in the county of Tyrone. I was the younger of two
daughters, and we were the only children. There was a difference in
our ages of nearly six years, so that I did not, in my childhood,
enjoy that close companionship which sisterhood, in other
circumstances, necessarily involves; and while I was still a child, my
sister was married. The person upon whom she bestowed her hand, was a
Mr. Carew, a gentleman of property and consideration in the north
of England. I remember well the eventful day of the wedding; the
thronging carriages, the noisy menials, the loud laughter, the merry
faces, and the gay dresses. Such sights were then new to me, and
harmonized ill with the sorrowful feelings with which I regarded the
event which was to separate me, as it turned out, for ever, from a
sister whose tenderness alone had hitherto more than supplied all that
I wanted in my mother's affection. The day soon arrived which was to