dizziness, threw himself upon a sofa. The other end was occupied by a lady, but he was busy with his own thoughts and did not perceive immediately that it was Cecile. He rose at the discovery, and seating himself at her side, asked some indifferent question, and became instantly absorbed in watching a pastille lamp that was sending up the odor of its burnt spices in a pale, thin smoke, from a small altar of alabaster. There is no knowing how long so deep a reverie might have lasted, had not the music suddenly changed to a particular waltz which was played under Cecile's pillow every night of her sweet life by the divinest little French musical box, presented to her, (as the note she read every time she wound it up, expressed it) "by her very affectionate cousin, Gerald Grey." It is surprising how a very little circumstance will overturn a very magnanimous resolution. Gerald had come to the ball with a desperate vow in his heart, to be as excessively civil to Cecile as if love was a mere matter of poetry. He had locked the door upon Alfonse, to that worthy person's mingled grief and indignation, before his toilet was half completed, and after practising a cold look before the glass for an hour, had really wrought himself up to the hallucination that he was capable of such a precious piece of martyrdom. Well-the waltz went on, and as the second bar stole out from Bennett's eloquent Cremona, the fascination of the pastille lamp began to waver. The eye of our hero wandered about the pedestal of the altar, and from that to the square toe of his pump, and then, with a sudden calmness, he twirled his glove once round his forefinger and looked up :

"Cecile !"

But Cecile was proud, (there is no pride, lady, like that of a timid girl,) and it was not a mere word that was to allay the fever of her indignant heart, or remove from her beautiful lip the calm scorn that concealed every trace of emotion. Not that she cared for atonement; but she felt that her sincere affection had been trifled with, carelessly, and without reason, and she could not forgive him till he was sensible of it. His petulant and hasty departure on his last evening visit had first surprised her. She was low spirited and sick that night, and she had answered him, she knew not what, except that it was not meant unkindly. It was evident, from his manner and his unusually long absence, that he was offended, but she believed him generous, though hasty, and after the request he had made to attend her particularly at the Ball, and the time he had since had for reflection, she was sure he would not fail to embrace the opportunity, offered him by the choice of characters, for a reconciliation. His appearance as Helen's attendant in the costume of the Earl, had disappointed her, but still she was rather pained than offended, and it was not till he added to all this a frivolous in

difference, and a well-bred neglect little short of insult, that her indignation was roused, and she permitted herself to feel resentment.

She did not start when she heard her name, but drawing up her graceful neck and bending her head slightly, the least in the world, towards him, she waited with a coolness that looked mightily like earnest, for him to proceed. For once in his life, Gerald was enbarrassed. There was something in the look of the hitherto gentle and timid girl for which he was not prepared, and between the contending feelings of love and pride, and a vague fear that after all he might be wrong, he bit his lip till the blood came and was silent. An intimate acquaintance now approached, and asked Cecile to waltz. Gerald started.

"You will not waltz now, Cecile ?"

She hesitated a moment, and the refusal trembled on her lip, but her pride rallied instantly, and giving her hand to her partner with a deliberate grace, she left him.

It was now Gerald's turn to be heroic. He called for a repetition of Cecile's favorite waltz, and dashed across the room to a beautiful widow who was surrounded with claimants for her hand, and insisted so violently that she was engaged to waltz next with him, that she was persuaded, in spite of her memory, and the positive asseveration of nine veracious beaux to the contrary. He had learned to waltz abroad, and was always remarkable for his elegance, but he never danced so gracefully as now. His whole soul seemed to be in his motion, and as the gay lady entered into it with as much spirit as himself, they soon attracted the undivided attention of the company, and were left alone upon the floor. His partner was a woman of splendid figure, admirably adapted for display, and it was really a beautiful show as they floated about in the graceful and voluptuous circles of the waltz.

What a short-sighted villain for a demi-god was Comus, to wish that there was a window in men's bosoms! How then would it have been possible for Gerald Grey to be so beautifully dramatic, as to conceal the very bitterness of his heart under a mask of gaiety? and, then, besides, would not the fashionable world have lost the report of a new engagement, a circumstance as necessary to the happiness of the next morning as the punctuality of the ever-to-be paid Manuel to his appointed hour. There was not a lady in the room who looked on Gerald's bright face as he rose and fell to the graceful impulse of the music, who would not have staked "honor bright and shining" on his being past recovery in love with the six thousand a year' that was now getting dizzy on his arm, and looking up into his eyes from her half drooped and shadowy lashes like a creature in a dream-the expression was so exultingly happy! Never was there a more complacent smile than his on the face of a human being. It was, indeed, far too happy for the leader of the elite; and

if he had not looked particularly miserable, and cut his bosom friend the next day in Broadway, his decision upon the next "tie" would have had no more weight than a Congress member's.

The music stopped, and Gerald led away his partner to her place, and leaning over to her ear, talked to her with an air of utter devotion, till her score of admirers gathered again around her. When her attention was no longer exclusively his, his object was accomplished, and, strolling off with an air of carelessness, he went in search of Helen.

She was sitting on a chaise longué, playing with an ice, and speaking occasionally to one and another of a crowd of fashionable men gathered in a circle around. She made room for Gerald beside her, and he sat down and listened with the proper resignation to compliments upon his brilliant display in the waltz, and the usual agreeable pleasantries upon his favor with the belle widow.

"Helen," said he, as she laid the least divisible fraction of ice upon her exquisite lip, "I think I have heard you say that a Ball is the place of all others for an offer."

"Positively, Gerald! and the widow no doubt accepted you?" added the gay girl, with her musical laugh, and a mischievous glance at his face as if she had anticipated a confession.

"But do you really think it the best place?" he asked again, so earnestly that she suspected for a moment that it was true.

"Far-far-my dear Colebs! for if the offer is an agreeable one, a monosyllable is enough, and if it is not, one can get away, you know, and there is no chance for Despair to be pathetic and blow out his brains and frighten one. No place like it, Gerald !" and she played "c'est l'amour" with her spoon upon the glass, and patted her foot as if it was a subject of the least interest in the world to her.

"It is a pretty cameo!" said Gerald, taking up the ungloved hand, as it fell after giving her glass to a gentlemen; and under pretence of examining it more minutely, he leaned forward, and pressing the white fingers with a nervous violence, said something in a low earnest tone which engrossed her whole attention instantly.

"But Cecile"-said she, at last, as he stopped, with the blood glowing in his temples, and his lips set firmly together :

"No-Helen-no! I have loved Cecile-and that sincerely. I could again-worship her if you will-for she is all that is fair and noble. But she is fickle-very fickle-and too young to love—and does not-nay, do not interrupt me-I know she does not, love me! I dare not commit my happiness to her. She would become weary of me in a day-I am sure she would-and I have struggled against my affection for her-and it is yours-all and forever, Helen-if you will have it!"

Helen sunk back on her seat, and pressed her hand upon her eyes. A thunderbolt could not have astonished her more. Gerald rose and stood before her a moment, to screen her from observation, and then, whispering a caution in her ear to conceal her agitation, he left her.

I fear I must advance a new theory of love. I do not see how I can get my hero out of difficulty on the old one. It is manifestly against every established principle of romance for a gentleman to love one lady and make love to another, and I fear, if I attempt to account for it on a natural principle, notwithstanding the enlightened spirit of the age, I shall be shut up like Galileo " for a profane person." Like other martyrs, however, I will keep my eye on the reward, and, as I doubt not to be enrolled among the illuminati, in after ages, with Copernicus and Captain Symmes, I state my belief in defiance of death and the Inquisition, that, under certain influences not laid down in philosophy, a man may love one lady and make love to another. It has been too long the fashion among song-singers and tale-tellers to represent the hero, through all difficulties, and under all misunderstandings, faithful and true. Human nature, as they show it, must be either stone or angelic. The lover is slighted, (or thinks so, which is the same thing in love as well as law,) and they permit him to feel no resentment. He is convinced that he is not loved, and, though no jury would go out upon the evidence, and he is barbarously misused by his mistress, he pines on, in the teeth of depravity and the doctors. She may neglect him, and abuse him, curl her hair even with his sonnets, and she is still the adorable Blousabella;-nay-she may marry and forget him, and he is no theme for poetry if he does not live a bachelor and leave his money to her children! Now however this might have done in the days of Barbara Allen and Chevalier Bayard, such principles in our time are manifestly false and pernicious. The age has altered essentially. The sometime fashion of love has gone out. Constancy is a worm-eaten tradition, "laid up in lavender," with high heels and petticoats of brocade. The "Lions" of the nineteenth century would never fall at the feet of Una, and Penelope, if she did not incontinently cut Ulysses, would be the most neglected of "wall-flowers." Flirtation is the chief end of woman, and "tit-fortat" the motto of lovers' quarrels. A rejected beau compasses heaven and earth to marry for spite somebody richer or prettier, and humility and heroism are (alas !) but country cousins in the fashionable family of the Virtues.

Gerald had no doubt in his own mind that he loved Cecile far better than Helen. He knew perfectly well that if he was sure of winning and retaining her affection, there would be no comparison between that and his present chance for happiness. But he was not

hero enough to forswear all good because he could not secure the greatest, and his first thought after his supposed discovery of Cecile's indifference-one that did more credit to the common sense than the romance of his character-was to see how much of the wreck of his hopes could be saved, and what, next to the possession of his first object was attainable. He knew that Helen would never marry "for love," merely; that her affections would follow her duty, if the object were worthy, and that respect and the indulgent assiduities of good breeding would come fully up to her expectations of matrimonial felicity. He did not dream therefore that he was acting ungenerously by his gay cousin, and as there was not another woman in the world, except Cecile, whom he would have preferred, and her extreme dignity and knowledge of the elegant refinements of life were qualities not to be impaired by time, he was certain that his affection for her, however doubtful at first, would increase daily. He did not more than half suspect, that, with all his philosophy, his principal reason for addressing her was to be Cecile's brother. In all his reveries upon the subject, Cecile's image as an inmate under his roof, had been the prominent feature. The developement of her beautiful mind had been a study of exceeding interest to him, and his imagination dwelt more than he was aware on the delightful confidence she would have in him as her sister's husband, and the privileges it would bring of familiar and daily intercourse. Instead of dreaming of domestic tetes-a-tetes with Helen, he was imagining Cecile in all the varieties of her new relation. He fancied her sitting by him in the twilight, and riding with him in the summer days, and speculating with him by the winter's fire on the fine topics of knowledge. It is, doubtless, one of the most delightful relations in the world, and all its possible circumstances came up successively in his mind till he believed it was better, after all, as it was, and that the happiness of both would be more certainly secured by the result. A slight feeling of pride, too, mingled with these anticipations. He felt that he had not been fully appreciated by Cecile, and he looked forward to a fuller developement of his character with something very like exultation. He believed that the occasional indifference upon which he had relied for testimony, arose from weariness of his society, but he remembered that he had seldom seen her alone, and that the conversation had always been of that forced and negative character which the presence of others renders necessary. This difficulty would now be removed, and, as the whole course of his education had tended to accomplish him in those minute delicacies of manner and feeling which are so invaluable at the fireside, it was perhaps an allowable vanity in him to calculate on an increase of respect and affection with a more intimate acquaintance. It was altogether a very tolerable picture, and though every thought of Helen