procured a light, he found that from him too life had departed, for his spirit had sunk into sleep-and he was dead. Edith Hamilton was an orphan.

СНАР. ІІ.

No, no, that picture suits thee not,
Sketched for a maid of yore;
She lives no more, or, darker lot!
Her virtues live no more.

Wild flowers, they sought life's ruder air,
Contagious blastments met them there;
Where is the maid-the virtues, where?

Thou art not she !-Ismael Fitzadam.

The Opera was crowded-Sontag in all her glory: the public conceived it impossible that higher glories could be achieved by the human voice; and the acclamations of a proud and noble assemblage, the praise of the high-born and enraptured audience fell sweetly upon the gratified ears of the songsters, sated as they already were with almost superfluous commendation. In a box on the second tier, there sate a young female of surpassing loveliness; she was neatly, yet so elegantly attired that she seemed to be of a different stamp from those around her. It was Edith Hamilton : at her side sate her lover, alas, a lover no longer! Captain Marden he was evidently proud of his companion; and the battery of upturned glasses from fop's alley amused him; for Marden was pleased that he could outvie every one in possessing so lovely a victim. To him it had been an easy conquest: how many such are constantly occurring! how many more such must occur! Mrs. Marden had taken Edith from a lowly station of innocent happiness: she had cultured the intellect, improved the taste, and embellished the understanding of the rustic; but it was all superficialmuch to adorn, but little to improve. In the humble situation for which providence had designed her, Edith might have been admired, contented, and happy. A fashionable education had implanted much good and much evil: it had placed the flowers of the hot-house on the brambles of the heath; and although the plant had become more showy, it was less sweet. Mrs. Marden had chosen a fashionable school for her protegee, and her education was made up of accomplishments: there was, of course, a result of some good points, some bad ones. Of which, gentle reader, could fashion implant the most?

On her parents' death, Edith had become the companion of her patroness. An introduction into society during this period, and the flattering commendations bestowed on her person, had rendered her presuming; and after she had been initiated into the observances of fashionable life, Mrs. Marden was attacked with a severe and sudden illness that rendered her life despaired of in a few days. Her de

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pendent situation emboldened Captain Marden in his addresses to the favourite. Shall I say it, that for months he had secretly offered the incense of admiration at the altar of his victim, until Edith loved? He had offered her youth, beauty and unconquerable love and before the remains of his mother were placed in the tomb, he had promised Edith his protection, or threatened to send her forth an insulted outcast into a harsh and cruel world. Edith had not a friend she had no one to fly to, none to counsel her. On the one hand she saw the gratification of every wish; on the other, wretchedness and suffering. Here, she looked forward to the cold pity of a heartless world; and there she beheld the society and protection of one whom she loved, and who she fondly believed loved her. It was a task to decide; but with fashionable principles only, could she think twice? It was soon over. She had become a thing she had once hardly dared to think upon: she was the guilty object of a licentious passion; and on her first appearance at the opera, she was gratified at the sensation she produced; for she was talented, imaginative and vain. She had learned to think "whatever is, is right;" and she consoled herself in her infamy by a sophistry so specious!

There was another individual whose happiness was somewhat influenced by the fascinations of the beauty. It was Ryland Percival: he had been performing the duties of assistant to the parish doctor at C, when he first saw Edith at her parents' funeral. He was struck with her beauty, captivated by her manners, and enraptured with her society. In a word, he was in love: yet before he had defined his passion, even to himself, Edith had departed for ever from C; and many months elapsed before his duties allowed him to visit London. In that period, the decease of an uncle had placed a competence within his reach; and after many fruitless endeavours to discover the enslaver of his reason, he saw her at the opera on the evening of his first visit. The presence of Marden, whose character he knew, and the look of Edith, conjured up surmises that he hardly dared to think upon; for being possessed of strong feelings, he had cherished in secret a passion for the beauty, that now tinged his character with the melancholy sorrows of hope deferred. He hardly dared to believe that she had fallen he could scarce trust his senses with a thought unworthy of one beloved; he waited therefore the conclusion of the performance that he might trace her home.

After a short and secret watching, Percival felt the dreadful conviction forced upon him, that she was fallen indeed. But who that ever loved can cherish harsh feelings against the object of that overwhelming passion? He knew her to be guilty in the eye of a world whose goodness is little but veiled guilt; yet he wished to know whether Edith was indeed the same, and he lingered at the door of the house till he saw Marden lead her to a carriage; and, waiting to catch the footman, he learned her address and retired.

*

The scene was changed.-He was alone in a boudoir, whose meanest object was calculated to please. Edith's idea of the beau

tiful had been carried into effect as far as limitless extravagance could conduce to perfection. The light fell through a painted window, and disclosed an assemblage of all that is coveted or admired: it was an apartment that contained every thing that could dazzle the senses or subdue the understanding. Books of the rarest beauty-pictures of the best schools-sculptures of the finest taste -and the boudoir opened into a conservatory, whose choice exotics made the air redolent with perfume. Percival looked around him with a pang. If Edith had been bought, she had certainly fetched a price but alas! what price can redeem a ruined soul? and as he listened to the rippling of water and the warbling of birds, he lamented that one so favoured should now be degraded to be only the minister to illicit desire. He shuddered when he thought of the prostitution of so much taste; and he was lost in thought when Edith entered. She was changed, though still the same-more lovely perhaps, though less innocent. She saluted him as a friend; and, as she reverted to old times, a tear trembled in her eye, and Percival's voice was less strong than usual. He felt the early wounds of his heart were already opened. Bleeding forth a flood of anguished feelings, and seizing her hand, he imprinted one kiss upon her cheek, breathed one "God bless you!" and tore himself away.

CHAP. III.

I ne'er without a sigh beheld the tear
On beauty's cheek to love and pity dear!
Nor has the muse e'er framed a fabled lay,
To show the world how woman goes astray;
I would not give a guileless bosom pain,
Nor on unspotted honour cast a stain.

Though time has graved his wrinkles on my brow,
And rudely chilled the heart's enraptured glow,
I once could love-still highly prize the fair;

A friendly monitor, I cry " Beware!"

For them I write, for them record my tale,

As angels lovely, but as mortals frail.-Balfour.

Percival had resolved on continuing his medical studies, and had passed a season at the Hotel Dieu; and during the summer vacation he made a tour of Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. He had ever thought of one whom he had loved; and he would have given worlds for an invisible.cap, that he might be conveyed whither he would. How often then would he have watched the course of Edith Hamilton! In his own mind he had often contrasted the race after pleasure, enervating, intoxicating, and debasing, with the serene course of retired life, where a due exercise of the senses produces enjoyment, whilst over-exertion invariably leads to weakness of the spirit, and a yearning after excitements still more cloying.

At length he was at Florence, gay sunny Florence-the city of palaces and pictures-the resort of the idle and the luxurious-surrounded by vine-clad mountains, decked with innumerable villas,

and washed by the meandering Arno. Here he rested for awhile, examining its architecture, its sculptures, and its beauties, revelling in a continued excitement of intellectual delight. One evening he was sauntering upou the Prada, wiling away an hour in witnessing the sun setting gloriously behind the Tuscan hills. In a fit of musing, he heard his native tongue spoken with elegance unusual in a foreign clime; and looking round, he beheld a party of English walking on the delightful spot he had himself chosen. Percival was pleased to find himself near those who reminded him of England. As they passed, he thought them some of his country's aristocracy; for they bore with them the air of conscious rank and station and when Percival looked upon the lady who formed the belle, and who seemed the fascination of the group, he recognised the well-known features of Edith Hamilton.

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She knew him too: and, with a look that none witnessed but himself, she placed her finger on her lip. In a few moments they had passed; and Percival returned home to discover what was now the fate of the beauty. Summoning an inquisitive fellow, whom he had occasionally employed, and who fulfilled the office of valet, courier, messenger, or lacquey (many of whom are to be found in every place where English wealth is spent), Percival gave him directions to trace out the fair one, and learn what he could of herself and her companions. He then went to the opera, and found the object of his first love decked out in the fullest elegance of capricious fashion, and forming a source of attraction equal to the Prima Donna herself. During the performance, he refrained from noticing her more than common curiosity for a reigning belle might have prompted, and he retired early to learn from his inquisitive attendant, that Lady Altonmore, and his lordship, were staying a few weeks at a a villa in the campagna with a party of English. He learned also that his lordship was un magnifico;" and that his residence was a continued scene of every species of merriment and diversion.

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For a time, Percival wavered in his mind whether he should watch her progress, or fly from her fascinations. He had nerved his heart sufficiently to feel no regret that another revelled in the possession of those beauties which had once enslaved him; but his was no transient passion: he felt that her presence even now possessed a power of entrancing his senses; and he feared lest he should be again sufficiently unmanned to become the slave of passion. Weighing his own feelings, therefore, he resolved to fly from the presence of a being whose power over him was too great for his comfort; and, taking a last walk on the banks of the Arno, he started to find himself in company with the assumed Lady Altonmore. She was alone.

"Is it you, Edith ?" he enquired as she approached him, and by her blush of recognition, told that his appearance at least was unexpected. "Is it you, Edith, or am I suffering from mental delusion? Am I speaking to Miss Hamilton?"

"You are right, Percival," said the lady, "I am the same being, though I am changed in name. You know in whose company I am staying?" "I do," replied he. "I know him for one that never let female innocence stand in the way of his libertine passions, -as

one that never yet shewed the nobleness of nobility, nor the honour of high birth. Are you his wife, Edith, or- Percival lingered on the word.

"Heaven forbid!" ejaculated the unblushing Lady Altonmore. “Wives are quite unfashionable in the present state of society. The march of intellect has taught the elite of the world, that temporary marriages are by far the most agreeable."

"Is this your opinion, madam?" enquired Percival, or is it a tale with which you would amuse me? There was a time when these were not your sentiments, Edith. But you are changed now. I see but little respect for the lesson of a dying parent. Do you imagine," and Percival's voice grew serious, "do you imagine that you will ever meet that parent again, if the commencement of your life be in the company of the libertine Lord Altonmore. Forgive me, if I create a momentary pang in your bosom ; but I cannot endure to see you participating in the licentious orgies of which common report announces you high priestess. There was a time, Edith, when I would have given worlds for your companionship,but now” He paused, for Edith was in tears, and Percival's cheek was blanched with mental suffering whilst he spoke; but after a momentary effort, she resumed her gaiety. "Come, come, Ryland," she exclaimed, "no more of this; you blame me because you have never been subjected to the same temptations. You think yourself good because you have not yet fallen. Take care of yourself.--You may live to pity me more than you condemn. I am too old to take advice, you too young to give it. Let us part friends. Addio!"

CHAP. IV.

Faded and frail the glorious form,

And changed the soul within,

While pain and grief, and strife, and storm,
Told the dark secret-SIN !—- M. J. J.

Two years are fled, and where is the beauty now? Time has sped on with rapid pinion since Lady Altonmore was the belle of Florence; and though I shall not seek to follow her through all her protean forms, or the labyrinthine mazes of duplicity and deceit, I shall recount her next meeting with Ryland Percival.

Shall I confess a boyish admiration to account for any interest I might feel in the fate of one so lovely and so loved? I trust that, for the sake of human nature, it will not be necessary for me to do so. Would that on earth there might be an interest created in the bosoms of ninety and nine for every one that wanders from the path of rectitude. Would that every man now breathing could see into the deep recesses of the human heart, whilst he thoughtlessly ministers to the gratification of his own licentious passions, and supports a course of life that he ought to recoil from with horror. Tear off the mask of duplicity that hides human nature, and we find the world pouring forth all the vials of its indignation at the course of life led