thou wouldest an angel-guest: for thus only may bereavement be sanctified unto thee.'

"And now what can I say, Ann? my life's history is thus unfolded to your pitying heart. Long and prosperous be my husband's future career! Fervently do I pray for this, and that brighter days may shine upon him when I am mouldering in the grave.

“I have indeed unheeded the latter part of this fearful prediction, and I am about to pay the penalty.

"Sometimes, in broad day, when I look forth and see the actual breathing world around,-realities, and matter-of-fact, every-day occurrences, in their common routine going forward,—I ask myself, can it be thus? are such things permitted? and then I seek the couch of my beloved child, and I remember, the words have gone forth from Him who cannot err, Thou shalt make no idol;' I remember the solemn vow broken even at the foot of the altar where I swore to 'love,' as well as to honour and obey,' and I bow to the justice of my doom. I no longer marvel at the suggestions of the evil one, embodied in the likeness of that whiteheaded seer. The chastening hand I bless and adore; and as earthly things are passing away, so may the things of eternity become brighter and more visible."

*

I said I would fully transcribe Geraldine's last letter, but I stop, only because the holy names and aspirations which follow are too sacred to be placed here; I dare not even with awe-struck reverence indite them on the same page with other details.

I was fully prepared for all that followed. The next accounts, many weeks afterwards, were forwarded by the Count O'Donnell, containing the information of his nephew's placid departure, and alas! alas! also of Geraldine's.

He said, in his cold measured language, that "she was found dead the next morning after her son's decease, stretched on his couch, and clasping the corpse in her arms."

He decorously spoke of his own grief at the double calamity : he dwelt also on his lady's deep affliction, and the shock she had sustained. I believed both, for I thought it strange that any one should not have loved Geraldine.

Mr. Henry Worthingthon, when I last heard of him, was prospering in worldly possessions, married again, and surrounded by an increasing family.

Long ago Geraldine and her son have been forgotten: I cannot but think it merciful that she was taken with him, for what would life have been to her, when he was no more?

They were buried in the same grave at 'Père la Chaise.' I have

seen the spot a garden of sweets it is, shaded by the beautiful cypress.

The Countess O'Donnel often came there, tended and adorned the grave; but long ere this, amid new interests, she, too, has ceased to remember the dead.

THE ONLY CHILD.

C. A. M. W.

There stood a stately castle upon the mountain side,

With sombre towers and battlements, of stern and warlike pride;
A cold forbidding pile it frowned, for nature aided art,
But not more coldly stern, I ween, than its lordly owner's heart.

No wandering minstrel entered there; no pilgrim, staff in hand;
No Christmas revelries were crowned by mummer's frolic band;
But time was marked by the daily sound of mournful chiming bells,
With clash of steel, and the heavy tramp of watchful sentinels.

O heavy time! O weary hours! for the sweet and timid bird,
Whose thrilling notes, in the old grey tower, at eventide were heard,-
A foreign bird, with drooping head, full wofully it sings,
Pining for free green forest glades, and liberty's blest wings.

The noble earl has caged it fast, that bird of other skies,

From sunny climes and joyous scenes he brought the lovely prize;
The tender one was all too cold: no nest or bosom nigh,
Where it could warm a panting heart, or breathe out each soft sigh.

But years passed on: there came a sound of childhood's merry cry,
With a mother's wrapt and mystic song of cradle lullaby.
The dismal tower was joyous now, the lonely home was blest,
As the lady clasped her only one unto her sheltering breast.

Few may imagine that mother's love; 'twas a fearful sight to see
The human heart preparing thus its doom of agony !

The voice that said, No idols make," will make its dread law heard By many a tortured suppliant, writhing beneath the word.

Her only one, her gifted one, her beautiful and good.—

She would have spilt most cheerfully for him her life's best blood!
The spirit crushed and blighted, with nothing else to love,
Alone could worship wildly thus, and sin 'gainst God above.

Why tremble so, pale flower, at thy love's wild strange excess ?
Why shrink in stricken terror from the thoughts no words express ?
Forebodings cast their shadows, as ye meet that fond dark eye,
Ye murmur, "God is merciful: my child he will not die."

Sadly o'er the distant plains, faintly down the mountain side,
Tolls a heavy muffled bell, telling one has lately died;
From the ancient castle tower roll those deathly sounds, appalling,
On the heart and on the ear of the thoughtful pilgrim falling.

One heart is numbed, one ear hears not, within that lonely tower,
Yet there the shrouded corpse is laid, in the lady's secret bower,
Upon a couch of snowy white, as if outstretched in sleep,

Poor mother! sit not thus like stone: 'twill ease thy pangs to weep.

Turn not that stony look so oft upon the placid smile;

Clasp not the hands so icy cold in thine own hands the while;

Gaze not so tearlessly upon the closed beloved eyes,

That never looked but love on thee, and hushed thy plaintive sighs.

No tear, no sigh, no sign for him, thy beautiful, thine own?
Thine agony hath passed away, thy heart hath turned to stone.
She smiles, and mutters vacantly, "He cannot, must not, die."
Mercy for that poor mother, from the pitying Lord on high!

THE GOVERNESSES' BENEVOLENT INSTITUTION.

"There are many persons that have nothing left them but misery and modesty; and towards such we must add two circumstances of charity :—First, to inquire them out; second, to convey our relief unto them, so as we do not make them ashamed."-JEREMY TAYLOR'S "Holy Living."

ON looking over the "Times," yesterday, my eye caught an advertisement headed thus, "GOVERNESS and COOK WANTED." At first I supposed it must be a satirical jeu d'esprit against society, for tolerating the present position of governesses; but on a careful perusal I found that it was a sober matter-of-fact affair; that the satire was quite unintentional; and that the thrifty advertiser, in order to save a few shillings, had contrived to make one paragraph serve, for the lady, with every desirable accomplishment, who was to educate his daughters, and for the cook, who was to minister to his stomach. This is carrying economy beyond the bounds of propriety, and the decent observance of the outward forms of society.

"Order is heaven's (and earth's) first law, and this confess'd,
Some are, and must be, greater than the rest.”

Without placing the governess very high in the social scale, we certainly think she is sufficiently above the cook to free us from a charge of over-nicety or scrupulousness in objecting to such a juxtaposition of the two.

The advertiser, we think, would have no right to complain, if the governesses who answered his advertisement should prove to be no better educated than a waiting woman. And yet, I will venture to say, this unconscious satirist is one of the loudest in the outcry against those who profess to teach what they know little or nothing about. He is not, perhaps, aware that it is he, and such as he, who help to bring the class of governesses into disrepute, by tempting ill-taught and ill-bred women to offer themselves as teachers to any who will take them. Such persons can afford to teach for a paltry salary what it cost them no money or pains to learn, and they do not feel insults which an educated lady, who knows what is due to one who performs the duties of her office conscientiously, could not submit to.

After thinking about this advertisement, my mind reverted to Miss Becky Sharp, who makes so distinguished a figure in Mr.

Thackeray's bitter-biting and supremely talented satire called "Vanity Fair." It is not to be denied that Miss Becky Sharp, or, as she is now called, Mrs. Rawdon Crawley, is a young woman comme il y en a beaucoup; if you make a slight deduction from her cleverness, which is extraordinary. Nor has the author shown less than his usual discernment, in making her begin life as a professional governess. There are doubtless not a few accomplished, shrewd, unprincipled, designing women, who start in their career as governesses. These make the class feared, and disliked, and suspected, as much as the ignorant vulgar ones make it despised. But women of the Miss Sharp kind never remain governesses long. Their genius would be cramped, and their ambition ungratified, in such a position; they leave the odium of their name upon the class in general, and soar away into a higher field for the exercise of their ingenious spirits.

When we have made allowance for the incompetent and the unprincipled, there will still remain a large number of excellent and admirable women in the class of governesses, who suffer many evils in that position, some of which are caused by the impossibility of keeping the incompetent and the unprincipled out of their ranks. Any one who has had an opportunity of observing the nature of a good governess's life must be aware that it is more full of hardship and trials, and more barren of enjoyments, than that of most women in the middle ranks of society; and such an observer will rejoice to hear of any effectual exertions to lessen the hardships, and multiply the enjoyments, of the governess, by extending to her that kindly sympathy and timely assistance of which she stands in so much need.

THE GOVERNESSES' BENEVOLENT INSTITUTION (as yet in its infancy) has already done much towards alleviating some of the evils to which we allude. The readers of "The Metropolitan" may, perhaps, wish to know more of this institution than can be gathered from the occasional advertisements concerning it which appear in the public papers: a brief account of it is therefore given here.

Like almost all benevolent institutions, this one owes its existence mainly to the exertions of a few disinterested and philanthropic individuals. Indeed, I believe that the chief merit of its foundation is to be attributed to a lady, who spared neither money, time, nor intellectual and bodily exertion, to compass her object. Such unselfish and energetic exertions, in a noble cause, will have their reward. Even now, she is enjoying the rapid success of her darling scheme, and the consciousness of having been a powerful instrument in the good work.

In the year 1843, the institution was established, as its directors declared, in a printed prospectus, issued at the time, "to raise the character of governesses, as a class, and thus to improve the tone