Susan Hopley was a native of the village of Mapleton—at least, so we choose to call it-in the south-eastern part of England; where her father was a day-labourer on the farm of a Mr. Whitehead. He was an industrious sober man, his wife a worthy woman, and their family consisted only of Susan, and a boy named Andrew, who was a few years younger. But the mother was weakly, and unable to undertake any thing more than the care of her house and children; and the father's wages were only just sufficient to supply his family with the necessaries of life; leaving nothing to spare for education, which was then much more expensive and of much more difficult attainment than it is now. So