may assert, and gives testimony against the degradation of the world. It is the natural evidence of heaven. It teaches how real is the bliss which the unmaterial 'may give; and it tells, what no argument can evince, and what many a gifted intellect hath unluckily not known, or hath fatally forgotten, that the spirit can feel. Love sympathises with Piety, if present, and suggests it if absent; for the one is the health of the heart, and the other is the sanity of the soul. Love, and its return, is the only complete enjoyment in life. It is the only state of which the happiness is in itself; in which to be is to be blessed. All other conditions are valued for what they bring, rather than for what they are; all, more or less, depend upon opinion for their worth. Of Love only, may the general principle be not affirmed, that if we Abstract what others feel, what others think, It is well that we should have this tried assurance that there is a joy which the world can neither give nor take away. It is well that we should experience this feeling for a time, if it were only to enlarge our consciousness and elevate our hope. Against the follies of the future, as well as the cares of the present, there descends no more healing or more fragrant balm upon the fretted soul, than when the spirit of the youthful heart nestles in the warm, soft thought of love. Let the sentiment be cherished; or, if past, let the bliss be remembered: for a thousand eager hearts have strayed into a cold and mad discomfort from not knowing of the still and sacred pleasure of pure love. When, therefore, a glancing eye, or a spring-white smile flashes on the high musings of the lonely mind, let the soft influence it heralds sink on thy heart with a subduing weight: the time may come, when the heaven of thy fancy will shed upon thy soul no drops like those. I speak not now of that tumultuous and unpoised passion which will sometimes start within the breast, and madden the heart with wild report of pleasure which it transcends the wish to shape; but the cleareyed, though earnest, affection, which rests enriched in its own calmness, and is all-sufficient to itself. The former of these is fancy built on ignorance, and, by its very nature, must perish whenever it is realised. The latter is based upon profound and thorough experience, and seems but the renewing of a once-proved confidence, by the free-masonry of kindred hopes. The one is shunned by sobriety as much as it shuns the reason; the other is respectable before the judgment almost to religion. We may conceive how the spirit on its entrance into a future world may be "changed in a moment,” into a purity fit for the relish of celestial pleasures, when we observe how thoroughly in an instant a look or a blush can fling back the imagination and the heart into the simple tastes and sweet and mild visions of boyhood. To me, as at this time, my thoughts were floating in a golden air, the whole earth seemed transfigured into the mild glory of a paradisal world. The opal tints of spring-light were on all the forms that rose before my fancy. No memory appeared within my mind that was not tinged with pleasantness. The flush of young delight was new-purpling all in the air. Within the visible sphere, there rose and spread a summer world of balms and summer sounds, where Hope" reigned lord and king;" and all was endless life and all was splendid light. Whether it be to rear the sunny dome of justapproaching joys, or to hew out the Errool structures of dark apprehension, there is no architect like feeling. When quickened by gladness or fear, the subtle builder fills all the thought with instant-springing palaces, or dreary caves that have no bound. As with the love of past years, the views and wishes and sentiments of past years returned upon me, the intermediate period seemed blotted from existence. The renewal of one common interest knit me wholly into union with my former self, and I but dimly remembered any other state or mood of life. It seemed now, as if in that intermediary time, half of my moral life had been parlayzed, and as if my sense of all things must have been dim and dream-like; yet, while that time was passing, life seemed to pulse within me as fully and as naturally as at this moment. Such are the mysteries of our being! It is wonderful how completely the feelings are, in their inception at least, under the control of the will. It is absolutely in the choice of a man whether a woman shall become to him an object of entire indifference, or whether the course of his thoughts and fancies shall be such that his spirit, bending to her as the ocean to the moon, must breathe by her glances and glow by her light. A week before I had looked on Emily without an emotion or an impression, because the thought of love was absent; now, she absorbed my every consciousness; she had become my mental being; every thought assumed her likeness; every recollection was fragrant with her sweetness: her memory garmented my soul. Her image multiplied itself through every pictured scene; wherever my sight was turned, she stood, with a fascination floating round her. It was with a light step and a gay heart that I set out on the following morning to keep the appointment which Emily had permitted. I rang the bell and sent in my name; word was returned that Miss Wilson was engaged. 66 Is she ill?" I inquired, with some anxiety. "She is entirely well," said the servant. 66 Is she not at home?" said I. "She is at home, but engaged." "Did she give you no message for me?" "None." I turned from the door, extremely surprised at this denial, and not a little vexed and sorry. I could not conjecture to what mistake on the one hand or the other it could be imputed. I could not have forgotten the hour that had been named, nor could my card very well have been mistaken; still, it was not possible, after what had passed between Emily and myself, to 15 VOL. I. attribute the refusal to deliberate inattention. I had, however, no means of satisfying the doubt until the lapse of a day gave me authority to call again; till which time, I must remain in doubt. I was sitting at home in the evening of the same day, when Mr. Tyler was announced. "The club, of which I spoke to you," said he, "sups together to-night. If you feel inclined to go out, we will walk down there." 66 Certainly," said I, "I will go with you with great pleasure;" and I took my hat and went out in company. We had walked on through two or three streets when we arrived in front of Mr. Tyler's house. "Excuse me for one moment," said he; "I want to get something here. If you will walk on, I will overtake you immediately." I strolled on for a short distance and presently saw, by the lamp-light on the other side of the way, a man, whom I was sure was an old family servant whom my father had carried with him to the south. John Black was an important integral in my father's household, and I thought that I should have heard of his dismissal if it had taken place. Supposing, therefore, that if he were the person I thought him to be, he must have come to the north on some business for his master, I ran over and called him by name. He seemed delighted when he saw me, and exclaimed, “I am very thankful, sir, to have met you thus in person. I was just going to your house and should not have found you in. I have this moment come in town with this letter from your father; he ordered me to put it into your own hands, as it is of importance. I return to him immediately. He told me, also, sir, not to let any one see me give it to you, and to desire you to read it alone." He gave me the letter and left me. I crossed back to the other side of the way, and seeing Tyler coming out of the door at that moment, I hastily thrust the package into my pocket, intending to come away from his club as soon as possible, and read it at my leisure. I should have left him, and gone home at once, but to do so abruptly, might have given him offence, and to state the motive would have opposed the injunction of my father-an order which I resolved to obey strictly, because I did not understand it. We walked a considerable distance beyond the frequented parts of the town, and passed through several winding streets quite unknown to me, before reaching the place which Mr. Tyler at length pointed out as the club-house. It was one of those large and princely structures which one meets with occasionally in the retired parts of a great city, of which the character and the position seem so much at variance that it is difficult to tell for what purpose it could ever have served, and which stands, amidst meanness and obscurity a monument of the caprice of wealth or the fickleness of fashion. The building had its front upon a narrow and deserted street, but the massive marble steps and heavy cornices which frowned in the moonlight, gave it a grand and imposing air. In the idlest mood you would have paused before such a building to guess what its history could have been. We entered, and passed through a lofty arched hall into a large back room, where we found twelve or fif teen persons sitting at a supper-table. Mr. Tyler brought me to a seat near one end of the table, next to a person with whom I had some acquaintance, and as there was no other place near it went himself to the other end of the room. An The apartment was a handsone one, well lighted, and hung with pictures of a good deal of merit. open door at the end led to a library which appeared to be elegantly furnished. I cast my eyes along the table to make my observations on the character of the company. Half a dozen of the number were persons whom I knew, and all of them men of fashion and fortune; the others had a gentlemanlike seeming, and the assembly, upon the whole, was one into which I could not but congratulate myself on finding entrance. At this moment, however, I had no inclination to |