is always right and pleasant to keep well with one's relations whether by blood or marriage. You know cousin Andrew's mother was a Howlet. It is true his father was a Scotchman; but as he did not come over till after the revolution, he never fought against us. And he bought a fine farm, and he became a naturalized citizen as soon as he could, and married one of grandfather Howlet's nieces, and Andrew and all the children were born within thirty miles of Boston."

"I think it highly probable I may go, and make them a visit," replied Eunice. "I like to gratify good, honest, quiet people: they are so scarce.' Eunice then got some sewing, and wished to pursue it with her usual industry, but she unconsciously kept it most of the time lying idly in her lap; her eyes being fixed on the ancient china jars that ornamented the high old-fashioned mantel-piece. After awhile, Charty appeared at the door, looked about mysteriously, and then came quite in, and carefully closed the door behind her.

"Well, Charty?" said Madame Rookley, rubbing her eyes, having been roused from a doze in the rocking-chair.

Charty walked up to the younger lady, and said, "Miss Eunice, as I was attacking the barberries, setting by the side-door in the kitchen, who should come in but the grocer's boy with a basket of things what you'd ordered this morning; and Job was rubbing up his silver, and he and the grocer boy got into a talk; and the grocer-boy told such great news, that as soon as I had heard him out, and he had took his department, I thought I'd come and let you know. Only think-old Stackhouse is married to a widow-woman."

"Charty, Charty!" said Madam Rookley, "I cannot allow any minister to be mentioned in such a disrespectful manner."

"I don't care," replied Charty; "he desarves to be called old Stackhouse. Has not he forsook poor Miss Eunice three times over, and so I told the grocer's boy. Have not I lived in the family ever since he began to come about the house, just after he lost his first wife of all; and have not I been watching his proceedings the whole time. And only think, this here widow-woman is Mrs. Ludilam Ludilow: for the grocer's boy (who is very 'cute for a boy) remembered her name ezackly. But, when he said she was rich, I cut him short off, for I knows better than that any day."

"Is not she rich, Charty," inquired Eunice, thrown quite off her guard," is not she really a rich southern widow?"

"Well, she's not so very southern any how," answered Charty, "for she only comes from Delaware state, just t'other side of the Pensilvany line, about two miles from old Chester. My own brother belonged to her once, and lived with her till he run away. Talk of her slaves! She never owned but three, and there's none of them left with her now but an old neger-man and his wife, that would not sell for nothing hardly. When she

goes a travelling, she always hires a coloured gal to go along, and wait on her, and make a show. And then her plantation-what is it!—a framehouse, and a weedy garden, and an old mullenfield. To be sure, they say she has a few acres of pine-barren somewhere down near the capes; and that there pine-barren, which she always called her estate in the south, was the whole fortin she brung her first husband, who run through all he had with hoss-racing, and julaps. And she's a great fierce-looking woman, with dark-red cheeks. To be sure she dresses powerful."

"But are you sure this is the same lady?" asked Madam Rookley.

"As sure as death; Mrs. Ludilam Ludilow; for her own husband bought my own brother, of the master that I belonged to myself, and who left me my freedom when he died, because I was such a great cook, and beat the whole world at tarrapin. And then I went to live in Phildelfy, for I had took a dislike to old Delaware, after I was free. This is the very widow-woman; and so you see, Mr. Stackhouse (if I must call him so) has got no great bargain; at least of this present wife. And now, Miss Eunice, my advice is, that if she should die ever so much, you never take no further notice of old Stackhouse, nor dress plain to please him, nor waste pesarves upon him no more. I always thought him a poor match, with all his different specie of children, married and single, and the half dozen old daughters, all living at home through all the stepmothers; and nobody marrying none of them. I am so glad the widow Ludilow has catched him: for she's a rale tartar, when you find her out. And it's just what he desarves for marrying everybody but you. But be sure not to have him next time, even if he does make up his mind to favour you with an axing."

Just then a knock at the street-door hastened the exit of Charty, who finished her advice by stepping close up to Eunice, and saying, "Upon further sideration, Miss Eunice, maybe we had better not call him old Stackhouse, and talk hard of him and his wife before people, for fear they should say 'sour grapes.'" Having lingered awhile in the hall, to see who came in when Job opened the door, Charty returned to her barberries, and to tell the other domestics in the kitchen, "that Miss Eunice was taking on awful; and had strong thoughts of sueing old Stackhouse for breakage of promise,"

The visitors were two ladies, who kindly came to discuss with their dear friend Eunice Rookley the loss of her quondam admirer. One of them informed her that Mr. and Mrs. Stackhouse were now gone to the lady's estates in the south, for the purpose of selling off all her property, including her mansion-house, her plantation, her slaves, and her tract of back-land; afterwards making arrangements to reside permanently in New Hampshire. The other visitor now prit la parole, and

added that in about a fortnight the bride and groom were coming to pass a few weeks in Boston, that the groom might have an opportunity of introducing the bride to his Boston friends, and giving her a taste of the hospitalities and civilities of the city.

Our heroine did not trust herself to speak; but she could not forbear biting her lips, and contracting her brow.

Presently, in came another lady to inquire why Eunice Rookley had allowed Mr. Stackhouse to give her the slip. Eunice now vehemently protested that there never had been any thing serious between her and Mr. Stackhouse; and that they had never regarded each other as any thing more than friends, or rather as mere acquaintances. One of the visitors seemed to believe that on the gentleman's part that might be true, adding,

Certainly, as you say, dear Eunice, I never did observe any thing particular in Mr. Stackhouse's attentions to you. Indeed, lest any erroneous impression should get abroad, I made a point of telling every body that though, of course Mr. Stackhouse could not help esteeming Miss Rookley, as a very notable, prudent, respectable woman, they might rely on it he had not the most distant idea of making her the fourth Mrs. Stackhouse."

"Did you know," said another of the ladies, addressing Eunice, "that at the very time Mr. Stackhouse was staying here last spring, he was trying his utmost to get that little flirt, Fanny Flyabout, who quizzed him all the while, and then ran away with her cousin just from college."

As soon as these three ladies had gone, there came in two sisters, who made, however, a short visit, talking of indifferent things; but one of them said, on rising to depart, Eunice, when you begin to go out again, we hope our house will be one of the first places you will call at. You are quite a stranger there."

"Begin to go out," said Eunice; "I really do not understand you, Maria. I go out every day, and shall certainly continue to do so."

"Oh! but after what has happened, I conclude you will hardly like to be seen much for a few weeks, till the thing has blown over. You know, when a gentleman has jilted a lady (more shame for him to do so) people are apt to look at her, and talk about her."

"No daughter of mine ever was jilted in her life," said Madam Rookley, "and I think it a very ugly word. If you mean Mr. Stackhouse, he never was any thing more than a mere visitor at the house-just a common acquaintance."

"Excuse me," said the other young lady, going close up to Madam Rookley, and speaking in an under tone, "I would not for the world wound dear Eunice's feelings; but did Mr. Stackhouse never offer himself to her-In plain terms, did he never pop the question?"

"Never," replied Madam Rookley, evincing

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symptoms of great disgust; "and it would have been of no use if he had."

"There now, Maria," said the same lady, "that is exactly what I always told you. You know I wore myself out with arguing that Mr. Stackhouse was never in the least smitten with dear Eunice Rookley, and that, though he respected her greatly (as every one must), he had not the most distant idea of her as a wife."

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And why was it a thing so very impossible?" said Madam Rookley, reddening highly. "Miss Eunice Rookley is a match for Mr. Stackhouse's betters, though he is a minister. A great affair, indeed, to lose him. A man sixty-five years old, with sixteen children, and no money, except the trifle that he obtained with each of his three wives. I am sure he would have been no feather in the cap of the Rookley family."

Madam Rookley forgot Charty's caution respecting sour grapes. But it was easy to perceive that sour grapes came immediately into the heads of the two visitors; though they cordially agreed to this opinion of Mr. Stackhouse; and took their leave declaring they would take pains to undeceive the public, and to contradict all absurd reports of his ever having been an admirer of Miss Rookley. Eunice, teazed and worried "to the top of her bent," tried to sit resolutely silent, determined not to reply a single word to any further conversation on the subject of Mr. Stackhouse, for whom she now imagined herself to feel nothing but dislike, as indeed he deserved.

The two sisters had scarcely gone, when Mrs. Upshaw, one of the opposite neighbours, came over. Her business, it seems, was to inform Miss Rookley that being herself from New Hampshire (where she was a member of Mr. Stackhouse's church), she felt it her duty when he came with his bride to Boston to give them a party. "I, of course, shall send you an invitation, as usual," said she, "but I leave it to yourself, dear Eunice, to come or not, just as you choose. If it will be in the least painful for you to meet them, I shall not be at all offended if you decline the invitation; though, of course, very sorry to miss the pleasure of your company. And I shall take care to discountenance all invidious remarks I may hear on the subject, and shall desire my husband to silence any jokes that the gentlemen may have about it. You know what men are on those occasions. But, I beg of you, my dear Eunice, to act exactly according to your own feelings, and come or not, just as you think best. I hear that the bride and groom are a very loving couple. Indeed that was always Mr. Stackhouse's way, with each of his former wives. His manner, to say the truth, is affectionate to every body, which accounts for his great popularity. If you should come, and find it the least disagreeable to see Mr. Stackhouse with his bride, I will let you slip off as delicately as possible. But I think you had best make up your mind to endure the sight, for they will be partied all round by his friends at the

North End, and I know not how you can always avoid meeting them. Perhaps it will be most advisable to try and bear it."

Eunice felt now as if she could not bear another word. Her patience was completely exhausted, and, not trusting herself to answer, she hastily quitted the room, leaving her mother to decline for her the invitation. Habit is second nature; and

our heroine paused a moment in the hall, and looked towards the kitchen-door, considering whether she should try and divert her mind by helping Charty to forward the barberries; or whether she should retire to her own room, and relieve her feelings by venting them in an unre. strained fit of crying. She chose the latter. (To be continued.)

I FOUND myself looking with some interest at the back of a lady's head. The theatre was crowded, and I had come in late, and the object of my curiosity, whoever she might be, was listening very attentively to the play. She did not move. I had time to build a lifetime romance about her before I had seen a feature of her face. But her ears were small and of an exquisite oval, and she had that rarest beauty of woman-the hair arched and joined to the white neck with the same finish as on the temples. Nature oftenest slights this part of her masterpiece.

The curtain dropped, and I stretched eagerly forward to catch a glimpse of the profile. But no! -she sat next one of the slender pilasters, and with her head leaned against it, remained immovable.

I left the box, and with some difficulty made my way into the crowded pit. Elbowing, apologizing, persevering, I at last gained a point where I knew I could see my incognita at the most advantage. I turned-pshaw!-how was it possible I had not recognized her!

Kate Crediford!

There was no getting out again, for a while at least, without giving offence to the crowd I had jostled so unceremoniously. I sat down-vexed

and commenced a desperate study of the figure of Shakspeare on the drop-curtain.

Of course I had been a lover of Miss Crediford's, or I could not have turned with indifference from the handsomest woman in the theatre. She was very beautiful-there was no disputing. But we love women a little for what we do know of them, and a great deal more for what we do not. I had love-read Kate Crediford to the last leaf. We parted as easily as a reader and a book. Flirtation is a circulating library, in which we seldom ask twice for the same volume, and I gave up Kate to the next reader, feeling no property even in the marks I had made in her perusal. A little

quarrel sufficed as an excuse for the closing of the book, and both of us studiously avoided a reconciliation.

As I sat in the pit, I remembered suddenly a mole on her left cheek, and I turned toward her with the simple curiosity to know whether it was visible at that distance. Kate looked sad. She still leaned immovably against the slight column, and her dark eyes, it struck me, were moist. Her mouth, with this peculiar expression upon her countenance, was certainly inexpressibly sweetthe turned down corners ending in dimples which in that particular place, I have always observed, are like wells of unfathomable melancholy. Poor Kate!-what was the matter with her.

As I turned back to my dull study of the curtain, a little pettish with myself for the interest with which I had looked at an old flame, I detected half a sigh under my white waistcoat; but instantly persuading myself that it was a disposition to cough, coughed, and began to hum "suoni la tromba." The curtain rose and the play went on. It was odd that I had never seen Kate in that humour before. I did not think she could be sad. Kate Crediford sad! Why, she was the most volatile, light-hearted, care-for-nothing coquette that ever held up her fingers to be kissed. I wonder, has any one really annoyed you, my poor Kate! thought I. Could I, by chance, be of any service to you-for, after all, I owe you something! I looked at her again.

Strange that I had ever looked at that face without emotion! The vigils of an ever-wakeful, ever-passionate, yet ever-tearful and melancholy spirit, seemed set, and kept under those heavy and motionless eyelids. And she, as I saw her now, was the very model and semblance of the character that I had all my life been vainly seeking! This was the creature I had sighed for when turning away from the too mirthful tenderness of

Kate Crediford! There was something new, or something for the moment miswritten, in that familiar countenance!

I made my way out of the pit with some difficulty, and returned to sit near her. After a few minutes a gentleman in the next box rose and left the seat vacant on the other side of the pilaster against which she leaned. I went around while the orchestra were playing a loud march, and, without being observed by the thoughtful beauty, seated myself in the vacant place.

Why did my eyes flush and moisten, as I looked upon the small white hand lying on the cushioned barrier between us! I knew every vein of it, like the strings of my own heart. I had held it spread out in my own, and followed its delicate blue traceries with a rose-stem, for hours and hours, while imploring, and reproaching, and reasoning over love's lights and shadows. I knew the feel of every one of those exquisite fingers-those rolled up rose-leaves, with nails like pieces cut from the lip of a shell! Oh, the promises I had kissed into oaths on that little chef d'œuvre of nature's tinted alabaster!-the psalms and sermons I had sat out holding it, in her father's pew!-the moons I had tired out of the sky, making of it a bridge for our hearts passing backward and forward! And how could that little wretch of a hand, that knew me better than its own other hand, (for we had been more together,) lie there, so unconscious of my presence! How could she -Kate Crediford-sit next me, as she was doing, with only a stuffed partition between us, and her head leaning on one side of a pilaster, and mine on the other, and never start, nor recognise, nor be at all aware of my neighbourhood. She was not playing a part, it was easy to see. Oh, I knew those little relaxed fingers too well! Sadness, indolent and luxurious sadness, was expressed in her countenance, and her abstraction was unfeigned and contemplative. Could she have so utterly forgotten me-magnetically, that is to say! Could the atmosphere about her, that would once have trembled betrayingly at my approach, like the fanning of an angel's invisible wing, have lost the sense of my presence!

I tried to magnetize her hand. I fixed my eyes on that little open palm, and with all the intensity I could summon, kissed it mentally in its rosy centre. I reproached the ungrateful thing for its dulness and forgetfulness, and brought to bear upon it a focus of old memories of pressures and caresses, to which a stone would scarce have the heart to be insensible.

But I belie myself in writing this with a smile. I watched those unmoving fingers with a heartache. I could not see the face, nor read the thought of the woman who had once loved me, and who sat near me, now, so unconsciously-but if a memory had stirred, if a pulse had quickened its beat, those finely strung fingers I well knew would have trembled responsively. Had she forgotten me altogether! Is that possible

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can a woman close the leaves of her heart over a once loved and deeply written name, like the waves over a vessel's track-like the air over the division of a bird's flight!

I had intended to speak presently to Miss Crediford, but every moment the restraint became greater. I felt no more privileged to speak to her than the stranger who had left the seat I occupied. I drew back, for fear of encroaching on her room, or disturbing the fold of her shawl. I dared not speak to her. And, while I was arguing the matter to myself, the party who were with her, apparently tired of the play, arose and left the theatre, Kate following last, but unspoken to, and unconscious altogether of having been near any one whom she knew.

I went home and wrote to her all night, for there was no sleeping till I had given vent to this new fever at my heart. And in the morning I took the leading thoughts from my heap of incoherent scribblings, and embodied them more coolly in a letter.

"You will think, when you look at the signature, that this is to be the old story. And you will be as much mistaken as you are in believing that I was ever your lover, till a few hours ago. I have declared love to you, it is true. I have been happy with you, and wretched without you; I have thought of you, dreamed of you, haunted you, sworn to you, and devoted to you all and more than you exacted, of time and outward service and adoration; but I love you now for the first time of my life. Shall I be so happy as to make you comprehend this startling contradiction?

"There are many chambers in the heart, Kate; and the spirits of some of us dwell, most fondly and secretly, in the chamber of tears, avowedly in the outer and ever-open chamber of mirth. Over the sacred threshold, guarded by sadness, much that we select and smile upon, and follow with adulation in the common walks of life, never passes. We admire the gay. They make our melancholy sweeter by contrast, when we retire within ourselves. We pursue them. We take them to our hearts-to the outer vestibule of our hearts--and if they are gay only, they are content with the unconsecrated tribute which we pay them there. But the chamber within is, meantime, lonely. It aches with its desolation.' The echo of the mirthful admiration without jars upon its mournful silence. It longs for love, but love toned with its own sadness--love that can penetrate deeper than smiles ever come--love that, having once entered, can be locked in with its key of melancholy, and brooded over with the long dream of a lifetime. But that deep-hidden and unseen chamber of the heart may be long untenanted. And, meantime, the spirit becomes weary of mirth, and impatiently quenches the fire even upon its outer altar, and in the complete loneliness of a heart that has no inmate or idol, gay or tearful, lives mechanically on.

"Do you guess at my meaning, Kate? Do you

remember the merriment of our first meeting? Do you remember, in what a frolic of thoughtlessness you first permitted me to raise to my lips those restless fingers? Do you remember the mock condescension, the merry haughtiness, the rallying and feigned incredulity with which you received my successive steps of vowing and lovemaking the arch look when it was begun, the laugh when it was over, the untiring follies we kept up, after vows plighted, and the future planned and sworn to! That you were in earnest as much as you were capable of being, I fully believed. You would not else have been so prodigal of the sweet bestowings of a maiden's tenderness. But how often have I left you with the feeling, that, in the hours I had passed with you, my spirit had been alone! How often have I wondered if there were depths in my heart, which love could never reach! how often mourned that in the procession of love there was no place allotted for its sweetest and dearest followers-tears and silence! Oh, Kate-sweet as was that sungleam of early passion, I did not love you! I tired of your smiles, waiting in vain for your sadness. I left you, and thought of you no more!

"But, now-(and you will be surprised to know that I have been so near to you unperceived)-I have drank an intoxication from one glance into your eyes, which throws open to you every door of my heart, subdues to your control every nerve and feeling of my existence. Last night, I sat an hour, tracing again the transparent and well-remembered veins upon your hand, and oh how the language written in those branching and mystic lines had changed in meaning and power. You were sad. I saw you from a distance, and, with amazement at an expression upon your face which I had never before seen, I came and sat near you. It was the look I had longed for when I knew you, and when tired of your mirth. It was the look I had searched the world for, combined with such beauty as yours. It was a look of tender and passionate melancholy, which revealed to me an unsuspected chamber in your heart--a chamber of tears. Ah, why were you never sad before! Why have we lost-why have I lost the eternity's worth of sweet hours when you loved me with that concealed treasure in your bosom? Alas! that angels must walk the world, unrecognised, till too late! Alas, that I have held in my arms and pressed to my lips, and loosed again with trifling and weariness, the creature whom it was my life's errand, the thirst and passionate longing of my nature, to find and worship!

"Oh Heaven! with what new value do I now number over your adorable graces of person! How spiritualized is every familiar feature, once so de

plorably misappreciated! How compulsive of respectful adoration is that flexible waist, that step of aerial lightness, that swan like motion, which I once dared to praise triflingly and half mockingly, like the tints of a flower or the chance beauty of a bird! And those bright lips! How did I ever look on them, and not know that within their rosy portals slept, voiceless for awhile, the controlling spell of my destiny-the tearful spirit followed and called in my dreams, with perpetual longing! Strange value given to features and outward loveliness by qualities within! Strange witchery of sadness in a woman! Oh, there is, in mirth and folly, dear Kate, no air for love's breathing, still less of food for constancy, or of holiness to consecrate and heighten beauty of person.

"What can I say else, except to implore to be permitted to approach you-to offer my life to you to begin, thus late, after being known to you so long, the worship which till death is your due. Pardon me if I have written abruptly and wildly. I shall await your answer in an agony of expectation. I do not willingly breathe till I see youtill I weep at your feet over my blindness and forgetfulness. Adieu! but let it not be for long, I pray you!"

I despatched this letter, and it would be difficult to embody in language the agony I suffered in waiting for a reply. I walked my room, that endless morning, with a death-pang in every stepso fearful was I-so prophetically fearful-that I had forfeited for ever the heart I had once flung from me!

It was noon when a letter arrived. It was in a handwriting new to me. But it was on the subject which possessed my existence, and it was of final import. It follows:

"DEAR SIR,-My wife wishes me to write to you, and inform you of her marriage, which took place a week or two since, and of which she She remarked to presumes you are not aware. me, that you thought her looking unhappy last evening when you chanced to see her at the play. As she seemed to regret not being able to answer your note herself, I may perhaps convey the proper apology by taking upon myself to mention to you, that, in consequence of eating an imprudent quantity of unripe fruit, she felt ill before going to the theatre, and was obliged to leave early. To-day she seems seriously indisposed. I trust she will be well enough to see you in a day or two, and remain,

Yours, truly,

SAMUEL SMITHERS."

But I never called on Mrs. Samuel Smithers.