her to think seriously on the subject, she threw back the light waving curls from her bright forehead with both her hands, and absolutely danced and screamed with delight. That the elegant high-souled young gentleman, whose mind was always apparently towering in the clouds, and whose thoughts appeared to be soaring far above the laughing, merry world in which she lived, should have looked on her with an eye of affection, appeared to her the last degree astonishing and laughable. The heart of woman has been well called an enigma. That of a girl of sixteen is as incomprehensible to me in its workings, as the matured woman's. After she had recovered in some measure from her surprise, and her first burst of merriment had subsided, Sarah, from some cause inexplicable even to herself, began to feel alarmed. It was so singular that she, of all others should have gained the affections of one so different, so unlike herself, it frightened her " 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange; 'twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful"-and yet, when she thought of it more, it did not appear so very ludicrous. She began to believe that she possessed qualities and attractions of which she herself had been unaware, and as her self-examination continued, she felt uncommonly serious. A moment afterwards she was vexed to find her eyes filled with tears. She wondered what could be the matter with her. She did not feel so very bad, and if she did, she had no cause for it. Her aunt approached her at the moment, when hastily wiping the unwelcome intruders from her eyes, she laughed bysterically and fled to her room.

Within half an hour after her next meeting with her love, Sarah had nestled down by his side on the sofa, as quiet as a well-behaved infant, and was listening to the really sweet voice with which he was reciting some song of love;

ba

And ah

The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which he sung another's love

Interpreted his own.

She listened with a flitting blush;

With downcast eyes and modest grace;"

And, when the interview was concluded, she was an altered woman." Under the direction of her accomplished lover she went through a regular course of novel-reading, and at length came out a finished young lady of sentiment. Eugene Aram had completed her studies, and she was at the period of my visit everything that my young friend could have desired.

Again and again did he tell her, that could he have torn from the book of his life one dark, fearful leaf, he might now have been happy. But alas ! the recollection of a single, dreadful deed, was sufficient to poison all his joys. He would take her to the window and "look forth into the deep and ineffable stillness of the night, and indulge the reflections that it suggested." "Ye mystic lights," he would say, soliloquizing; "worlds upon worlds-infinite-incalculable? Can we look upon you, note your appointed order, and your unvarying course, and not feel that we are indeed the poorest puppets of an all-pervading destiny? Shall we think our prayers can avert a doom woven with the skein of events? To change a particle of our fate might change the destiny of millions! Shall the link forsake the chain, and yet the chain be unbroken? Away, then, with our vague repinings and our blind demands. The colours of our existence were doomed before our birth-our sorrows and our crimes ;-millions of ages back, when this hoary earth was peopled by other kinds, yea! ere its atoms had formed one layer of its present soil, the eternal and the all-seeing Ruler of the universe, Destiny, or God, had here fixed the moment of our birth and the limits of our career. What then is crime?-Fate! What life?— Submission!" And then as she looked wondering and admiringly up into his face, he would turn to his beloved, and laying his hand upon her fair forehead, exclaim: ""Tis too true! 'tis too true! the impress of existence will soon be left here. For although a parent's solicitude may shield you from suffering, or a husband with a tenderness that 'will not suffer the summer wind to visit you too roughly,' may watch over you, still in a few years care will lay his blighting, mouldering hand upon you, and your brow now so fair, so polished, will then bear his corroding mark. Yes, my beloved Sarah, wrinkles and age are the common lot of all. And yet, when I look upon your young and beautiful face, I think how soon care and time will mar it. I feel disposed to arraign the wisdom of Providence, and ask why we have been sent here, to flutter away a brief existence-to spring up-flourish for a moment, and-die !”

After a burst of feeling like this, the young gentleman, completely overcome by his own gloomy forebodings, would hasten away, leaving the object of his fears and sorrows either melted or frightened into tears.

But I am dwelling too much at length on this chapter of their loves. It was soon finished; for at about this period my

young friend met with the unfortunate passage in Childe Harold, and, as I have before mentioned, he determined to put its precepts into practice. He had already sickened of his last assumed character, with the sad aspect and dolorous strain of moralizing which he conceived necessary to sustain it; and it was therefore with something like a feeling of relief that, at his next visit, be seated himself, after a slight bow to his mistress, by the side of her aunt, and engaged her in conversation. Sarah, although unable to account for the absence of bis usual attention, addresssed him with a playful remark on his personal appearance, to which he made a reply that surprised and mortified her exceedingly, and soon afterward took his leave. At the expiration of two or three days he called on her again, and finding himself received very coldly, he apologized for the rudeness of his conduct at his last visit, and with some difficulty succeeded in re-establishing himself in her good graces. Sarah, who really felt much relieved by his apology, was now in high spirits, and never before had she appeared so enchanting in the eyes of her lover. He congratulated himself on the success of his new theory, and determined to adhere to it strictly. Accordingly, after enjoying the sunshine of her smiles for a few days, he concluded to vary the scene by the introduction of a little shade, and took occasion, in the midst of one of her kindest and most loving moods, to shock and insult her by a rude speech. She was again for a period very indignant; but he again, after much trouble, was enabled to mollify her anger and soothe her wounded feelings. He was now in raptures. Wherever he met me, he expatiated with enthusiasm on the efficacy of his new recipe for the conquest of the female heart, and the delights of quarrels and reconciliations. I had my doubts of the continuance of his happiness. I knew that the subject of his operations, notwithstanding her recent acquirements in sentimentality, could not endure his caprices much longer. With all her affectations, there was a vein of good sense in her composition which I felt confident would, sooner or later, relieve her of the tyranny of her despotic admirer. I was not disappointed. It was during a morning call, while I was sitting at the parlour window, in conversation with her, that I observed the experimentalist ascend the steps of her father's house, and after ringing the bell, and receiving an answer from the servant walk off. I mentioned the circumstance to the young lady, and remarked, that I presumed the servant had made a mistake in not admitting him. She answered me very quietly, that the young man had, in a most strange manner, forgotten

the treatment a lady was entitled to receive from a gentleman —and that, until he should again become a little familiar with the courtesies, or at least the decencies of society, she had been obliged to direct the servant to refuse him admittance.

When I next met my young friend, he was confident that he should soon be able to regain his former standing with Sarah; but after three months' assiduity, finding all his overtures for reconciliation treated with contempt, he was constrained to believe, that he had irrecoverably lost her affections. His confidence, however, in the soundness of the Byronian doctrine of piquing and soothing remained unshaken. He attributed the ill success of his first experiment to his not having administered his specific in proper quantities. In his 'prentice essay, he said he had given Sarah "too much pique:" so much, indeed, that the after "soothing" prescription did not take effect. He professed himself to have grown wiser by his recent experience, and said he hoped to have better fortune in other quarters. But a strange fatality attended his practice under his new theory. House after house was closed to him, and about a year after his adoption of the "piquing and soothing system," he acknowledged to me that he had not a single valuable female acquaintance left.

100000

THE FALL OF ADAM.

THE following images are such as none but an imagnition truly poetical could conceive. They are descriptive of the moral consequences of Adam's fall:

"Fell Disease arose

And blew o'er earth his pestilential breath;
A train of evils followed on his steps.

There came Misfortune with his iron schythe,
Dropping with human blood; there Envy stalk'd,
And fann'd the flames of hell-fell Fury there

Yell'd to the winds, and stamp'd the hollow ground:
There came wan Melancholy slowly on,
Telling her sorrows to the list'ning night;
Folded her arms upon her heaving bosom ;

Her face directed to the dewy moon.

There came Remorse absorbed in gloomy thoughts.
There rush'd Despair-his dark eye rolled in blood;
He tore his mantle from his raging breast,
And plunged his dagger in his heart. There came
Poor Lunacy, in tattered robe, and waved

A straw, and told the kingdoms which he ruled.
Lastly came Death, clothed in his night of terrors,
And clasped his victim in his shiv'ring arms."

i

A COUNTRY RAMBLE.

Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege
Through all the years of this our life. to lead
From joy to joy; for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith that all which we behold
Is full of blessings.-Wordsworth.

AH, Nature!-young, fresh, blooming, beautiful Nature! how pleasant art thou to the eye of the smoke-dried denizen of the populous city! How grateful is thy balmy breath to his senses -how beneficial to his lungs! We may herd together amid brick and mortar, and enmesh ourselves in the cares and struggles of life ;-we may swarm in theatres; we may congregate in club-rooms, where hot punch and hotter politics, and multitudinous cigars impregnate the whole air with caloric; we may study the crafts of commerce and the tricks of trade ; we may become knowing fellows, and sneer at "innocent ruralities;" we may do all this and more, until we come to think slightingly and disrespectfully of thee-to look upon thee in merely a useful light, as a producer of grain and feeder of cattle, and to deem poets, and all who "babble o' green fields" on a par with Falstaff, in his dotage ;-but let the man who has once been familiar with thy face-who has once sincerely loved thee-find himself on a green sunny knoll some fine summer's morning, gazing upon thee in all thy purity and beauty, and he will feel as if the imaginary elixir of life were poured into his veins-as if the freshness of seventeen had come back upon his heart-his town existence will seem as a confused and feverish dream, and early thoughts and boyish visions will crowd sadly but pleasantly upon his memory. True, his lot is cast amid lanes and streets, and therefore he trudges back to smoke and dust, to bustle and business once again; but not without having his feelings, as well as his frame. fresh-aired; not without having some earth-stains cleansed from his mind, and at least a few of the muddy incrustations