sume my story. After a moment's consideration, I told | heartily for myself alone. I wished on another account Mr. Von Caleb that I too was under a necessity (and to form an attachment in this way. My friends call was I not?) to return home speedily; and as I hoped ere long to follow Judith across the ocean, I felt the less difficulty at parting with her now; because a quick return home to make my preparations, would enable me the sooner to set off on my voyage.

me romantic, and I confess a fault which they would not impute to me without evidence. I am conscious indeed of a warm and I suppose a romantic attachment to the country-London bred as I am. Particularly do I love mountain scenery, and would most delight to spend my days among the sublime and beautiful works of nature, and a virtuous rural population, such as are found in your country. With my strong predilection for such a life, how could I expect to form a happy al

"Well, then, (said he, raising his voice,) our boat will go to-morrow morning at six. As this will be your last evening together for some time, I will leave you to yourselves. You will not be sorry for that I suppose? I shall be out awhile on some business with Mr. Levi.liance in London, where all or nearly all are bred to He will not interrupt you, for we are after money." He smiled as he spoke the last words.

"Then, (said I,) as you go at six in the morning, I may as well take the Lancaster stage that goes at three

o'clock."

"So then we have settled it, (said Mr. Von Caleb,) Good bye, till supper time."

He went out with his usual heavy tread; and when he had shut the door behind him, I heard Judith's door open gently on her side of the parlor. I had risen and was standing about the middle of the floor, without my crutch, which I no longer needed. I turned and met her eyes with mine. What a look she gave me of commingled love and sorrow! Lapproached the chair on which she leaned. She looked up again into my face. I saw the rising moisture of her eyes, as she said, "This night then we must part." The last word was stifled under a wave of emotion. I opened my arms; she fell upon my bosom, and for the first time we felt each other's embrace. Oh, Elysian moment! It was the seal of our betrothal, and the pure delight of love. Several minutes elapsed before we could utter a word. We had seated ourselves on chairs, and we continued to sit with drooping heads until we recovered the power of conversation.

After some exchanges of sentiment on the prospect of separation, I took occasion to allude to what I had just heard of the wealth of herself and family. "Then he told you that too? Well I am glad that you did not know it sooner."

"Since I have heard it at last, dear Judith, I will tell you that it gives me the satisfaction to know that you can afford to take a poor husband."

relish artificial objects and manners, and to covet wealth as the means of artificial splendor and the pompous show of fashionable life. I could not entrust my heart to any, where the prospect of finding a congenial spirit was so hopeless. In the days of my sorest affliction, God was pleased to show me a heart in all respects agreeable to my desires, and to give me the love of that heart under circumstances that banished all possibility of suspecting its sincerity. He has bound us together by the strongest ties of sympathy in all that makes prosperity joyful and calamity grievous. But I forget that there is one root of bitterness planted in the garden of our affections."

"Forget it, dear Judith, forever; it shall never spring up to trouble us."

After a little further conversation the servants brought in our tea, and we sent an invitation to Judith's friends to join us. Mr. Von Caleb came. After tea I went out for half an hour to enter my name at the stage office, and to give Judith and her friend the opportunity of completing their arrangements. On my return from the stage office near the hotel, I found Mr. Von Caleb in the bar-room. He shook my hand affectionately, and told me that he would let me and Judith spend the remainder of the evening alone; so with another friendly shake of the hand, he bade me farewell.

When I entered the parlor, I found Judith sitting pensively on the sofa. We were both sad almost to death. We first arranged that I should write to her at farthest by Mr. Levi, who was to embark at New York on the first of June. I might write to her as soon as I reached home, and then the oftener the better, she said, were it only to let her know of my welfare. I pro"Poor in pelf, he may be; (said she promptly,) but I mised not to be hasty in my final determination about know the wealth of his mind; that is the highest of all our engagement; for so she again required, although a endowments; and in comparison with that gold and sigh escaped her when she made the requirement. If I silver are but dross. If such earthy dower as I can ratified the engagement, she would be happy to see me bring, be of any consequence, I rejoice in it for this that in London as soon as I pleased, but I must understand you can the better afford to take me for a wife. Such that she could not put off her mourning weeds for a wealth as I have is nothing to be proud of; for millions bridal dress, until she had given a full year's sorrow to of it would argue no personal worth but only good for her dear lost Eli; so that if an early visit to London tune. I have hitherto found my worldly goods rather should not suit my convenience, she would not impute an obstacle to my happiness; for while they brought the delay to alienation of heart. If I annulled the enme numerous suitors, they brought with these appli-gagement, I must still consider her as my grateful, decants for my favor the painful suspicion, that my for-voted friend, who would rejoice, at any opportunity of tune, not myself, was the object of pursuit. There-showing her gratitude for my disinterested kindness fore I could love none of them, because, however sin- and care. Her voice faltered when she spoke of the cere their professions might be, they could not give the contingency that I might decline the marriage; yet proof of real affection that my heart required. Often her conscientious judgment on this point wavered not, did I wish that I could appear divested of accidental painful as the expression of it evidently was. She circumstances, and just as I was in myself, an honest, made the self-denying sacrifice of her own feelings to simple maiden; and then might find some congenial give me every advantage for the security of my happisoul whom I could freely love, and who would love meness. Many expressions of tenderness did she utter,

and of ardent gratitude and unalterable friendship, | vision, arrayed by fancy in all the charms of happy whatever I might do with our connubial engagement. love and pastoral scenery.

I wondered-in fact I was not well pleased-at her repeated allusions to the possibility of my discarding her-an act as remote from my thoughts at that time as Heaven is from Tartarus. But she had evidently reflected much upon the causes that might operate a change in my views. As to her own part in our correspondence, she promised to write as soon as she landed in England, and would then wait for a letter from me before she wrote again.

Having in these and other particulars come to a full understanding with each other, we had leisure to feel how distressingly near was the dreaded moment of separation. Two or three hours more, and we must part. What were our feelings? Oh hours of sorrow and delight! How did we snatch every fleeting moment, to fill higher and to mingle deeper the cup of our youthful love! We clung to each other's embrace; our tears mingled as they fell; our hearts answered throb for throb. How could we part? The clock struck eleven. "Adieu"-but she stammered in the

attempt to utter it.

"Not yet, not yet; I cannot leave you." One more hour passed away-the last hour-it flew with eagles' wings, as it shed down upon us all the delicious lux ury of innocent sweetest affection saddened-the full relish of the bitter-sweet of love-the fiery rapture of joy, flooded with grief, yet bursting through the flood.

Propriety admitted of no longer delay. The clock sounded the hour of midnight, long and loud, with clang after clang. Clang after clang struck on our hearts the knell of the last blissful hour; then all was still again, except our beating hearts. Our time was come; yes, the last moment of our realized union with its unutterable sensations; the separation must now begin, and widen and widen, till lands and seas should intervene, and time and chance should cast all their changes and their hazards between us, and possibly open a gulf impassably broad and deep, across which our now blended hearts could never commune again. Once more she meant to say, Adieu," "but the word died on her lips. I caught the expiring accent as I pressed my lips to her's; the balmy sweetness remains to this day. We retired to our respective chambers like criminals going to execution, so deadly was the sadness of that parting.

66

CHAPTER IX.

THE STUDENT'S RETURN.

Fifteen minutes before three o'clock, my waking dreams were interrupted by the servant, who announced that the stage coach would soon be at the door. I got up, dressed myself in a hurry, and wrote another adieu to my love; which, although but five lines in length, was sufficient to carry me away again into the fairy land of dreams; there I sat with my elbow on the table and my head on my hand, till the servant, supposing me asleep, jogged me. I started up, hastened down to the bar, and called for my bill, which the clerk had, rather strangely I thought, declined to furnish until now. When he gave it to me, I found the surgeon's and all as I had requested, made out in full, but unexpectedly paid by Mr. Von Caleb, according to a receipt appended. With the bill the clerk also handed me two other papers; the one was a sealed packet directed to myself, and the other a receipt for me to sign, acknowledging that my bill was presented with the receipt as aforesaid, and that a packet was given me, directed as aforesaid, and sealed with a seal having the word "Fidelity" for its motto. "Who wrote this ?" I asked. "Mr. Von Caleb," answered the clerk, who added that Mr. V. was a very particular man in doing business. "Yes, (said I,) he seems to know how to guard against tricks upon travellers."

I had scarcely signed the receipt, before I was summoned to take my seat in the coach. I handed the clerk my billetdoux, thrust the papers into my pocket, and hastened out. On taking my seat I looked up at Judith's window-it was lighted-her sadly declining form was distinctly shadowed forth upon it, with the head resting on the hand, as if she were looking down upon me. "Shade of my beloved (said I in my full heart)-shade of my beloved, fare thee well, fare thee well." The whip cracked, the wheels rattled over the pavement, and I no more saw even the shade of my beloved. "Now we are parted indeed," said my heart, aching and not ceasing to ache.

I was driven rapidly to Lancaster, heavy with grief and watching, yet unable to rest from the spontaneous workings of the imagination. The dear image floated continually in the fields of mental vision; the music of Could I sleep? Not a wink. The sensations of that voice still sweetly chimed upon fancy's ear; those the evening kept thrilling in my nerves; unconquera- eyes whose look could never be forgotten, shed incesble musings on the past and the future, ran perpetually | sant lovebeams into my soul; and that pure soft heart— through my mind. I seemed to have lived an age with. I felt it beating yet responsively to mine.

in the last three weeks. To go back alone to the home I spoke not to my fellow-passengers. I heard not and the landscapes of my boyhood, though less than a their conversation. Time and space were flying past, month before it was the object of my fondest desire, as the vehicle crushed the pebbles of the road, and the seemed now like going into the shades of death; for flint-stones sparkled under the armed hoofs of the whilst I would be returning to my hills again, my horses; but I marked not the flight of time or space; Judith would be on her way to cross the wide ocean, my spirit was away with Judith, first in the parlor, and would soon be far hidden from my sight among the next in the steamboat-watching the tear-drops as they myriads of London. But I imagined myself following fell from her eyes, and the palpitations of that affecher course, traversing the seas, pressing her again to tionate heart; and my thoughts, like spiritual messen my bosom, yes to my "heart of hearts" in the dear gers, seemed to penetrate into the recesses of th character of wife, and bringing her back to bless my throbbing breast, and to find my own image cherish sylvan days in the green vallies of Virginia. This as a nursling there. Thus I enjoyed a realizing s was the new age of gold that was rising to my mental of the fact, that although time and space might

rate our bodies, our souls could still melt and mingle | this celestial nectar and ambrosia." Sol gazed upon into one.

At the breakfast house, I took the opportunity to open the sealed packet that I received at the bar. Under the envelope I found two sealed billets; the one was superscribed in Judith's hand-writing, and contained something hard. I opened the other first to have it out of the way. I read as follows:

was

the lovely portrait-kissed it-then gazed-then kissed it again, alternately, until the stage-driver's signal roused me. I put the dear jewel into my pocket, and resumed my place in the coach. Away we went with whirling wheels, which left behind them a train of dust ground from the stones of the pavement. At the rate of eight miles an hour was I carried homewards, but away from the place where I had parted with Judith. Judith's note; and nine times steal a look at her portrait, before we stopped for dinner at Lancaster. I dined without appetite, and continued my journey towards Harrisburg. About ten o'clock at night we reached the sleeping house. I went supperless to bed, and after tossing about till midnight, fell into a troubled sleep. At Lancaster I had suspended my beautiful locket-case by a ribbon about my neck, and put it into my bosom directly against my heart. I was wakened out of my unquiet sleep by some unusual sensation. I felt for what was uppermost in my thoughts, the golden treasure of my bosom; and behold! I found it drawn out, and lying at the full length of the ribbon, towards the front side of the bed. I knew instantly that some rogue had attempted to filch it, and had failed only from my ready wakefulness. I suspected a fellow passenger, who slept in the room with me. I had that af ternoon detected him eyeing my jewel, once that I drew it out to take a sly look. I thought then that he coveted "Two o'clock.-How can I sleep, when the sound of my treasure, and had the look of a rogue. For safety, the wheels that are to carry you away will soon be therefore, I locked it up in the very bottom of my trunk ; heard in the street? My cousin, Von Caleb, sends me hard as I felt the self-denial to be, when I deprived myword that he is awake, and will take care that you re-self of the opportunity to look at my Judith's likeness, ceive whatever communication I may yet have to make. some ten or twelve times a day. This only I would repeat to my dear friend: In your happy valley think of your Judith; but be prudent and destroy not your happiness and consequently her's, by obeying your desire at the expense of your judg ment and conscience. If after reflection you cannot marry a Jewess—yet I know that you love one-always love her. Yes, my heart tells me that you will. Write at all events before June-as a friend, if nothing more. The enclosed memorial was brought from England by cousin Von Caleb, and put into his trunk when he left Boston. He had forgotten it until after he went to bed. He has sent it to me, asking what I would do with it. I give it to my beloved preserver, knowing that he will value it as a keepsake; and value it the more, if he should never again see- -Oh, that painful thought! let it die in silence. Farewell, once more, dear friend, farewell, farewell. J. B."

"Mr. Garame,-Pardon me for using a little art to do you an act of justice, which you might have de-Nine times, according to my conjecture, did I read my clined otherwise to accept; but which, as agent for my cousin Nathan Bensaddi, I could not in good conscience neglect, nor would he be satisfied to learn that it omitted. Your kindness to his daughter has put you to considerable expense and trouble. The enclosed note of one hundred dollars may reimburse the expense; but for the trouble, which you would count as nothing, and for the generous kind-heartedness, which we count above all price, I know not what compensation we can make you, except you conclude to take my sweet young cousin herself. However that may be, I pray the God of Israel to reward your goodness with every blessing. Farewell, kind friend, ISAAC VON Caleb." This was all quite agreeable. Agreeable in matter because delicately agreeable in manner. I thought I saw my Judith's delicate tact in the management of this little affair. The other note was surprisingly interesting.

The last words of this note were blotted with tears. With trembling hands and a beating heart, I unwrapped the memorial, wondering what it could be that under its wrappings felt roundish and hard like a coin, but considerably larger. Think of my exultation, when I discovered it to be an elegantly wrought golden locketcase, which opened with a spring, and exhibited to my eyes a perfect miniature likeness of my own Judith! Oh, that sweet face! That well formed bust! Whilst I leaned over and devoured this picture with my eyes, I was called to breakfast. "Breakfast indeed! (said my heart:) Who could leave such a feast of the soul to put coarse viands into his stomach? Let the body wait for its earthy nutriment, until the spirit is satisfied with VOL. V-63

By three o'clock the next morning I was again on my way. At Harrisburg I ate a little breakfast; then crossing the Susquehanna, I reached Carlyle early in the afternoon. Here my strength and spirits began to fail so greatly, that I doubted my ability to pursue the journey without a day's rest. The extraordinary scenes in which I had been engaged during three weeks, had kept me in a state of constant excitement; ten days confinement in Philadelphia had impaired my health, and now two days of violent emotion, watchfulness, and loss of appetite, had exhausted me. Such a protracted strain upon the nervous system, followed by loss of appetite, want of sleep and fatigue of travelling, was ful prostration of both corporeal and mental powers. In the case of one who, like myself, is constitutionally subject to fits of melancholy, the necessary consequence would be a state of deep mental dejection, accompanied with sombre and dispiriting views on all subjects. I cannot otherwise account for a change, which on this second day of my journey, began to come over my spirit.

more than human nature could bear without a distress

I frequently read my dear Judith's note; at first in the morning with the same unmixed pleasure as on the preceding day; but in the afternoon the word Jewess began to grate a little on my feelings, and to suggest some thoughts, transient and obscure, yet rather unpleasant; amounting to no more than a general impression, that my happiness in love would have been complete, if with all its positively agreeable circumstances, this unfortunate one of my beloved's Judaism had not been mingled.

In the neighborhood of Carlyle, I recognised clearly | my heart would take the amiable Judith to the home the features of the Great Valley, my native land, with and society of my former days, and imagine what new which previously to the last few months, all the affec-pleasures she would bring with her, and with what new tions and pleasures of my life had been associated. charms she would invest my future dwelling place in Here, though with less sublimity of mountain and less this lovely land; then uncalled for, would the same variety of low ground, were the parallel ridges, and the and other loathsome ideas come in like imps of Satan, wide interval of rich slopes, with their limestone rocks and thrust their ugly visages into the very foreground and rivulets; all which reminded me strongly of the of the picture. "Jewess," "Jewess," would I repeat, objects of my boyish delight. This effect of scenery as if by some instigation of the arch fiend. Yes, a to revive old habits of thought and feeling, was increas- Jewess is to be my wife. My children are to be halfed on the third day, when I felt partially refreshed af-blooded Jews. My neighbors are to point at her as we ter some hours of sound sleep. I had pursued my pass by and say, "That is the Jewess." When we go journey notwithstanding my exhaustion; better pro- to church-we, do I say? Perhaps she will not go to bably had it been for me, if my impatience to reach church; but be wishing for her Rabbi and her synahome had permitted me to stop and recruit my wasted gogue; but suppose that in compliance with my desire, strength. However, on the third day I saw the coun- she do go to church; then every eye is upon hertry assuming more and more the appearance of my whispers go round, "The Jewess has come to church! native land; then more and more did my thoughts Do you know whether she is likely to be converted?" revert to former days-days of calm delight in study, and so on. Then the minister preaches at her, and or cheerful amusement, in rambling over hill and dale, deals out anathemas against the unbelieving Jews-and fishing in deep shady pool, or gathering flowers on I am to be reproached, and to reproach myself, for the meadow sides or wild mountain steeps. inconsistency of professing christianity and yet marrying an unbelieving Jewess, and making her the mistress and the mother of my family. Oh how can I do it?

With the revival of old and fixed habits of mind, my new delirium of passion began to abate; not that I thought Judith less beautiful or less worthy; but now when the placid current of old thoughts and feelings was started afresh, the new torrent of amorous passion began naturally to exhaust itself. Judith, all charming as she was, no longer engrossed all my powers of thought and feeling. Her lovely presence with all its affecting circumstances, our parting with its unutterable emotions of delight and sorrow, had raised within me a turbid and overwhelming tempest of feeling, which had so far abated under the influences just mentioned, that calm reason could now begin to shoot some rays of its light through the troubled atmosphere of the mind. Yet the mental fluctuations that followed, ought perhaps to be attributed as much to the disease of low spirits, as to the efforts of reason to sway the violence of passion. I shall not stop to philosophise, but proceed with my story.

Whatever the cause might be, it so happened that on the third day of my travels, the word Jewess in the dear note so often read, began to strike positively disagreeable impressions upon my mind. Whilst I would be musing on my lovely Judith, and seeing her with fancy's eye arrayed in all her charms, that troublesome word "Jewess" would come with some ugly thought behind it, and dissipate, as with a wizard's spell, the fascinating colors of the vision.

On the fourth day, when I entered Virginia, the souring tendency of my thoughts increased. More frequently would that detestable word return and trouble the sweet current of my feelings. "Jewess," "Jewess," would I say to myself, and that too in spite of myself. "Am I really in love with the daughter of a Jew? Am I to connect myself with that accursed race?" Every successive day would such villainous thoughts rush in more obtrusively. When I looked at the mountains on either side of the way, and at the ever changing views occurring along the road, and recognized the likeness of my dear homestead in many a wood-crowned hill and rocky vale, I would think of my youthful delights, and the long familiar faces of those whom I loved; then gliding from the past to the future,

I groaned with horror at these reflections; unable to banish them as baseless fancies, and vexed with myself for admitting them. But every day they crowded harder into my mind, assuming at each return more grim and appalling aspects. In vain did I muster facts and affections against them. Judith's personal charms; Judith's amiable temper, extraordinary intelligence, admirable genius, exquisite accomplishments, fascinating manners-our congenial tastes, our mutual love, her generous pledge to me, my assurances to her-all that had filled and captivated my soul for weeks-all were brought forward on the side of love, and admitted on the other side to be true-yet could not all these considerations banish the hateful accompaniments of that cursed word, "Jewess!" Still would it come and fetch its goblin retinue of conscientious scruples and ingrained prejudices.

Sometimes indeed my love was victorious, and beat this haggard crew out of the field. Judith would rise in all her charms before my imagination-memory would tell the affecting story of our grief-born union of hearts-reason would demonstrate her inestimable worth-impassioned fancy would adorn her, as nature had adorned her, with the hues and lineaments of angelic loveliness, and my heart would be feeding on the delicious vision. But then, (my black bile begin. ning to work,) all of a sudden, like the harpies of old, and quite as abominable as those monsters, a new flight of black vulturine thoughts would descend upon the banquet of my soul, and change the zest into nausea by their defilements. "Jewess," "Jewess," would I again mutter like a demoniac. "A Jewish wife must make me miserable. When I teach my children the doctrines of christianity, their Jewish mother will be a hindrance to their faith and a grief to mine. I must either omit the worship of God in my family, or be disturbed in my devotions by the thought, that when I utter the Saviour's name and express my reliance on his mediation, the partner of my bosom, whether she kneel like a hypocrite, or sit like an infidel, will in her heart attach the title of impostor to that venerable

name." Then would my heart rise up with disgust | built for the king of the giants. Again were my homeagainst the whole race of unbelieving Jews, ancient felt pleasures more vividly restored, when I crossed the and modern. Then in rapid succession would texts of high swell of Timberridge in the middle of the Great Scripture, facts in history, passages in books of travels, Valley and saw far away in the southern horizon, the and all that I had read or heard, that was dishonorable dim Peaks of Otter, shooting their points deeply into to the Jews, rise up in my memory and fill me with the vault of Heaven. Next, the familiar scenes near detestation of the very name of Jew. "The Jews! my father's cottage shed their sweet influence upon my The stiff-necked hard-hearted race, (would I mutter | heart, from verdant hill and from meadow brook, stealbitterly,) who provoked the patience of God, until Heing its way along the dale beneath the covert of its by his prophets cursed and banned them out of his willows. When the cedar cliffs by the river showed mercy and from the pale of human society, and made me the pathway to the dear nook where I drew my them a hissing and a curse among all nations." Did infant breath, I sprang from the coach, threaded each they not, like furious demons, cry out Crucify him, well known turn by rock and tree, saw in all its rural crucify him?" And how many acts of fiendish malig-quietude the home of childhood, bounded into the nity and loathsome baseness, have they committed? house, heard the cry of joyful surprise, flung myself They are hated by all nations, by Christian, Mussul- first on one breast, then on another, of parents, sisters man, Pagan-" by saint, by savage, and by sage"-all and friends, and received with delight the enthusiastic concur in executing the Divine curse upon them. And greetings of the servants, whose sooty faces were enI am to marry one of them! Oh, why was so beauti-lightened by the shining white of their teeth, and the ful, so amiable a creature born of the accursed race? not less shining whites of their glad eyes. Now for The miserly knavish race! The scorn and the detes- awhile I felt as simply happy as I had been, when tation of travellers in Poland, and wheresoever stranIn rustic boyhood, free from care, gers are exposed to their knavish tricks and unprincipled exactions! Faugh! The squalid occupants of suburbs and streets, where a decent passenger is nauseated by their filth! The bearded venders of old clothes! The malignant Shylocks of the money market! Their very name has become a term for villainy and extortion. Jew signifies miser and rogue. Yet these people I must take into my bosom for my wife's sake-and call them cousin!

Such was often the train of my reflections, especially when the evil spirit of melancholy diffused his bile over my thoughts. Judith herself was always lovely to my soul; the black demon could not dim the lustre of her beauty, nor stain the purity of her character, except by incorporating her with the mass of her nation, so as to obscure the merits that shone out from her charming individuality. But the one fact personal to her, her Judaical education, combined with prejudices against her people, harassed me from day to day, and crossed the path of my love with an omen too sinister, and too obviously real, to be any longer regarded as a mere freak of the brain, originating in melancholy.

I hooked the trout and chased the hare.

But I soon relapsed into my distressing meditations. When the first gale of delight on arriving at home had blown over, I remembered my matrimonial engagement with a Jewess, and the remembrance struck a damp on my feelings. "Now (thought I) comes my sorest trial. I must tell my parents and friends that I am about to fetch a Jewish wife into their circle; and how it will shock them! How they will wonder and grieve!” I had walked out to look over my old play grounds, and my favorite bank for summer fishing and reading beneath the shade of a broad elm, when these painful thoughts occurred. To banish them, I returned to the house and busied myself with conversation. I was not yet delivered from my tormentors, when my sister Elizabeth asked me for the key of my trunk, that she might dispose of my apparel. Then I remembered the dear portrait, which I had not taken out, and in the confusion of my thoughts seldom even remembered, since it was put away. Fearing that it might be found and bring on a premature discovery, I hastened up The contest of antagonist principles began at last to stairs alone, took it out, opened the case, and again felt assume a degree of regularity, after the misty turbu- the witching charm of those lovely features, to such a lence of my feelings had measurably subsided. But degree that all doubts and fears vanished like ghosts the violence of the mental strife rather increased, as before the rosy-fingered beams of Aurora. "I will the opposing principles began more distinctly to array write to-morrow," said I, as I closed the case and lockthemselves for the contest. I will not call it a contested it up in my drawer. On going to bed I looked at it between love and reason, for there was evidently much reason on the side of love; but in the ranks of the other side, there was not only a host of prejudices, but something besides, of giant force and of ghastly aspect. The agony of the struggle was temporarily abated by the appearance of my beloved Rockbridge. When I entered its confines, I hailed with delight the grim aspect of the Jump Mountain, as he reared his black and shaggy brow over the border of the landscape. Not less did the great Hogback please my eye, when I saw him, the next in order, bend up his swelling ridge bristled with pines. But most joyfully did I behold the rising majesty of the House Mountain, as it gradually stood forth in solitary grandeur, and exposed to view its double ridge and huge buttresses, like a palace

again, and felt doubly assured that the soul which beamed through those eyes, could never make a husband unhappy. "I will write to-morrow, (said I again,) and inform her of my safe arrival, and of my unalterable determination to fulfil our engagement." I went to bed and mused sweetly on my Judith, until my waking thoughts faded away into the purple twilight of dreams; then Judith herself appeared in a green meadow of fairy land, gathering sweet flowers,-her form invested with the airy lightness of a sylph, and colored with the rainbow tints of a blessed spirit.

The next morning I slept so long and soundly, that when I awoke I heard the family at breakfast. I dressed myself and hurried down to join them. After breakfast we went to the parlor, where I was pleasantly