could vision extend thither, I should see the flowers of the season placed as before, on my table and on my pillow."

To have once seen Ellen Fanshawe indeed, was never to forget her. Perkins had found her a blooming country maiden, but the spiritualizing influence which he exercised, while it left her pure and innocent as before, raised her gradually, but inevitably, above the condition in which she was born. Her mind became progressively elevated to the contemplation of objects of which she had never dreamed; and she had learned to look at the fair bright world around, and dream of brighter ones, through the intervention of her young friend and instructor. I never thought of her as any other than his companion for life, should life be spared. If not married in very deed, I esteemed them already, as spiritually united. Edward Perkins, I felt assured, could never have another wife-Ellen Fanshawe, another husband.

I did not part from Julia, without the promise of a correspondence. I would take no refusal, and indeed, I do not know that any was attempted. Some degree of sweet confusion was certainly evinced. "How can I write to you, Charles; I have almost never written a letter in my life. Always residing with my mother, I have had few or no opportunities of forming a correspondence."

"So much the better for me, dearest," I rejoined―" no fairer opportunity could exist than do you promise me?" "I do." In effect, on arriving at my uncle's, a couple of letters, in a legible female hand, with the super

now

-

scription "To Charles Thornley Esqr." awaited my arrival.

"Ah! rogue," said my uncle, after he had given us a hearty reception, "is this the way thou art getting on? I must see this young lady who has committed such havoc with thy heart. And thou too," turning to Perkins, "what hast been about? I'll be bound thou hast not idled

thy time any more than my nephew." A blush was the only reply to this. "I see how it is, wise and learned as thou surely art, thou hast not escaped any more than the rest of us." Perkins protested against being termed one or the other; or if it were even true, that he should therefore be debarred from the exercise of the happiest prerogative of his nature. My kind uncle however, was already out of hearing, having gone to give directions touching matters connected with our arrival. As for myself, I hurried to my chamber to find nectar and ambrosia in the contents of Julia's letters.

I.

"Dear, dear Charles, your absence has left a sad and dreary blank which I have never been able to fill up. Our sitting room, the garden, the books we used to read together, the guitar, the now untouched music,-for how could I play alone -all remind me of you. If I ever sing, it is to imbody in some plaintive melody, the regrets of absence, the misery of separation from

those we love, and the ardent desire to meet

again.

"My mother, in accents new to her, as they are strange and delightful to me, adverts again and again to your departure, in such terms as, well, I could not have thought it, that I should miss that youth so much.". It was a perfect happiness to her, preparing for breakfast, dinner, and supper; in thinking of, and seeing after your welfare; in plotting and considering how you could be induced to eat of this dish or of that; whether or not the doctor would forbid, and when your arm would get well. I really believe-forgive me for saying so, that it would be a comfort to her, if some harmless accident should again consign you to her charge, and to all the good things which she would not fail to procure for you. I am sure such a consummation, always failing the accident, would be a real satisfaction to your poor Julia.

66

Somebody has been at the pains—was it I,

to teach my poor starling to say-' where's Charles, pretty Charles-where is he gone?" Did the dear bird divine my thoughts—or did he hear my foolish whisperings when alone? My mother says that all my liveliness is gone. 'Why, child, you used to run and jump about when Charles Thornley was here. If he wanted a book, you flew rather than ran to procure it--now you move, when you move at all, at a snail's pace, what has come over you, my child?'

"I wonder was my mother ever in love? Did sudden blushes rise in her cheeks when somebody's name was but spoken-or did her heart flutter and bound when a well known voice, or a foot-fall that had been heard before, echoed in her ear?

"Mamma says that every young woman should know plain work forsooth; and here, I have been busy with our housekeeper, hemming, sewing, and cutting out; I have spoiled two whole-no matter what-by cutting bias