"I have naturally," says Raphael, smiling, "been so much engrossed with the occurrence of the morning, that I wholly neglected to give you this letter, Mr. Burbank. I received it at the postoffice as I passed, and owe you an apology."

As he speaks, Mr. Raphael Inky draws from his breast a yellow-enveloped letter, with a huge "card," and a picture of a steam engine in one corner, by way of advertisement; and this letter he delivers to the old man.

Joseph Burbank's face lights up as he sees the name upon the envelope—the business "card"-and he hastily opens and reads the letter. Virginia is attracted by an exclamation of profound pleasure and satisfaction from her father.

"What is it, dear father?" she says, "I trust, good news-is it not?"

"Read, dear," says the old man, smiling triumphantly, and he hands the letter to his daughter.

It contains the following words: "Sir,

"Your's of the 5th ult. received. We beg to state that after a thorough examination and trial of the model, for increasing stroke of piston in steam engines such as we manufacture, we feel authorized in saying that your invention is one of the first value and importance. Would be pleased to hold an interview with you, at once, in relation to the purchase of the patent-right, which you suggest. Your favor accompanying the model requests, in case of our approval of the invention, some estimate of its value to our house, and an offer for the right to manufacture. Our wish is, in all cases, to consult the interests of the inventor as well as ourselves, and offer a fair equivalent. We are justified in proposing, therefore, to you the sum of fifty thousand dollars for the right to manufacture engines, with your improvement, for five years.

"If this proposal meets with your approval, we are prepared to close at once all arrangements. If not, we should be pleased to know your estimate, for further consideration, in an interview.

"Resp❜y,

"BROWN & WILKS."

Virginia gave the letter to her hus band, and in a moment had her arm around the old man and was crying o his bosom. It was not because she covete wealth-very far from that, but to se her father meet with the long deferre success; to know that his labors and anxieties were all crowned at last; to find heaven at last rewarding all his toils and giving him the right to say, "They laughed at me, called me dreamer, light brain; and now they see that I can carry out my thought, and advance the grea interests of civilization;" this was wha made the tender girl throw her arm around the aged form, and shed happy tears upon his bosom !

The old man's agitation was not nes so great. Why should he stand in as tonishment at what was a simple recog nition of the merit, which he knew hi thought possessed? As well look to find the great author turn pale with surprise when the world roars in applause of hi magnum opus, whose proportions he ha contemplated for so long a time in secret knowing the full height of his vast pile

"I am glad," was all the old mar said, "for now we shall be comfortable and happy, dear; and," turning towar Raphael, "my daughter will possess a dowry, such as she should bring to such a good husband.”

That was all; and the old mechanician turned again to his machinery, and soor became absorbed in his favorite proceed ing.

He scarcely saw the figures of the gir and young man, as they disappeared int the tastefully decorated little sitting-room And yet the picture, as they stood now by the cheerful fire, was one worth looking at. The manly countenance o Raphael was illumined by a happy smil and his soft eyes dwelt tenderly upon the delicate girl, who leaned her head upor his shoulder.

Ah, Raphael! On your shoulder Has no other forehead ever leaned there! Has no voice whispered under the brigh moon, How sweet it must be to h loved!" Do you think now, as you gazı upon the face of her who is all the world to you, upon that countenance with i

soft blue eyes, and delicate rose-tint in the cheeks, and ripe red lips, full of childlike sweetness, and innocence and goodness? Do you think, good Raphael, that it would have been a wiser thing to marry the owner of the other face-the dashing damsel with the bright and abundant gold-and trust your happiness to dinners, routs and glitter? Do you think that Almira, with her money, would have made you a better wife, and given you a happier existence, than the little maid beside you? Do you repent the composition of the famous note, torn up and trodden under foot; the choice you made of the lady whom you would visit on that morning?

We reply for you, honest Raphael, to one and all of these intrusive questions. You do not think the other alliance would have been wiser; you do not think the dashing damsel would have made you happier; nor do you repent the composition of the note.

And if some inveterate intruder still demanded on what grounds you entertained opinions so peculiar; we think you might point simply to the figure at your side and say, "She is mine;" except that possibly you could not speak for the long clinging kiss, and close embrace, which tells you that your happiness is not what you almost think it is—an idle dream!

IX.

HIS NEW-YEAR'S GIFT.

We trust we need not call the reader's attention to the delicate tact, and highly graceful treatment expended upon the termination of the foregoing chapter. It was necessary to state the fact that Mr. Raphael Inky kissed his wife upon their wedding day, but from an announcement so abrupt, and in such bad taste, our polite feelings very naturally recoiled. We flatter ourselves that the incidental wav, however, in which the fact is suggestol-intimated as it were-is after the

best precedents and most approved authorities of our best society.

Having married our friend happily, the story of his life is naturally concluded, as our friends, the novelists, take care to impress upon their reader, in their novels. Perhaps, however, it may not be uninteresting to Mr. Inky's friends to be told of his present circumstances.

He has established the popular journal known as the "Palladium of Liberty, and World Regenerator," which has attained already a circulation of seven hundred thousand, and is rapidly increasing. His celebrated romance, "Sclavonikoff, or the Lovely Maid of the Danube," first appeared in its columns, but has been republished in volume form and translated into all the languages of Europe, where it has attained an aggregate circulation of nine million copies. We are happy to have it in our power to announce that his new work, to be called "The Stygian Lake," will appear at an early day; when all orders will be filled with respect to priority. Four hundred thousand copies have already been ordered.

Mr. Inky lives with his father-in-law in a beautiful suburban villa, and to the pleasant shadow of this sweet retreat he regularly retires every afternoon-thus setting an example to husbands throughout the world.

We called to see him the other evening, and found him seated upon his portico caressing the bright curls of a little creature called Virginia, who was prattling at his side. In a moment his wife came out, and the handsome face of her husband filled with tranquil happiness as he gazed at her.

"We were speaking of old days, dear," said our friend softly, "and I was thinking of our wedding day-when the letter came, you know, approving our father's invention."

"Yes, that was your New-Year's gift," was the reply of the lovely and blooming lady, "your New-Year's gift to father."

"My New-Year's gift was better still," he said, drawing to him the fair blushing face, "the gift your father gave me; shall I call you Raphael's New-Year's gift?" "Call me anything which belongs en

Perhaps no object of thought and emotion is at once so interesting and sublime as history. It manifests rather the power and progress of society than individual life and character, and the philosophy and illustrations which it bears to the mind are so much the more enlarged in their sublimity. It is true that physical power and effect can never surpass the moral sublime, of which man in the noblest images of his nature is the object. But as the race is immeasurably superior in power to the individual, and its virtue cannot be so easily impeached, so is its moral sublimity purer and loftier, belittling all the glories of man and making us, on reflection, low and sad in the appreciation of our own persons and interests. What can be more sublime than the growth of great nations, always petty in their beginnings, and spreading their empires to the confines of earth and seas, and perfecting the great and grand ideas of government!

Seven centuries before the Christian Era, a thousand huts on the banks of the Tiber was all there was of the city and nation, which commencing its conquests with Southern Italy carried its arms to the Pyramids of Egypt. across the Dardanelles, and to the waters of the Atlantic. But a later history, more terrible and dramatic, and more fraught with the sublime lessons of politics and destiny, was to surpass these events of conquest and glory, and to devote Rome to the Scourge of God, and blot with the dark traces of Asiatic and Scandinavian barbarism the bright glories of the past. It seems, indeed, as if the progress and power of the Empire had but prepared, as it were, to render more terribly grand the dark, desolating struggle of the legions of proud Rome with the rugged barbarians of the North, amid the maddened horrors of such a war.

But it is not our purpose to make any part of the Roman history an object of emotion, however close may be the connection between the sources of sublimity

in history and political lessons and thoughts. Still less is any purpose entertained to recount events or butcher history with sketches of imagination and scenic narrative. The interest which I am anxious to express in the last pages of the Roman history, is that only of cause and effect, seeking to show the intricate relations between ancient and modern history, and those elements of mind and government which obscurely associated in the middle ages to form the civilization of the seventeenth century.

One of the earliest and most constant features of the Roman history was its aristocracy, which was as implacable as the love of liberty, which opposed it. Among early nations, aristocracy is not conventional, but formed for useful pur poses, and the good of society. So it was in Egypt and Greece. But in Rome, even among the earliest institutions of Romulus, we find what is most curious, an invidiously distinguished aristocracy of family-the patrician order, composed of the descendants of the Senators. This aristocracy was conventional and vile; it produced but few great men; it was destitute of the commonest virtues of aristocracy, and dishonored by its own insincerity; it existed under a republican form of government, and, at the same time, it was divided from the people by the most invidious laws, distinctions and fashions; it had every deformity to render it unpopular, and was an element of passion and violence in the government. With all this, there existed among the people a strong love of liberty, a people courageous and easily made desperate, assisted by the most remarkable intelligence, and often exhibiting, as in Cincinnatus, that "inbred loyalty unto virtue, which can serve her without a livery."

The early portions of the Roman history are occupied by constant struggles of the people to break down the power of the aristocracy, the monopoly of land, strikingly enough illustrated by a series of famines, and particularly the system