beautiful youth with an unquaking heart. "I have been far away-Amy-across the seas. My father-you may have heard of it, was illand I attended his bed. I loved him, Amy,I loved my father--but he is dead," and here the noble youth's tears fell fast. "Nothing now but the world's laugh prevents my making you my wife-yes-my wife-sweet Lily-and what care I for the world? Thou art both earth and heaven to me." for hours-or for days-or weeks-or months." | Amy's dream was over-and she looked on the Amy was kindly and tenderly told by her father and her lover all that she had uttered, as far as they understood it, during her illness. Nor had the innocent creature any thing more to tell. Her soul was, after the fever, quiet and calm, and happy.. The form, voice and shape of that beautiful youth, were to her little more now than the words and the sights of a dream. Sickness and decay had brought her spirits back to all the humble and tranquil thoughts and feelings of her lowly life. As her kind Walter lifted up her head with his gentle hand, and laid it down again as gently on the pillow be had smoothed : "Walter, I will be thy wife! for thee my affection is calm and deepbut that other-Oh! that was only a passing dream?" Walter leaned over her and kissed her pale lips. "Yes, Walter," she continued, " I once promised to marry none other, but now I promise to marry thee, if indeed God will forgive me such words, lying as I do, perhaps on my death-hed. I utter them to make you happy. If I live, life will be dear to me, only for thy sake-if 1 die, walk thou along with my father at the coffin's head, and lay thine || Amy in the mould." Walter Harden heard ber affectionate words with a deep delight, but he determined in his soul not to bind Amy down to these promises, sacred and fervent as they were, if on her complete recovery, he discovered that they originated in gratitude and not in love. Once Amy expressed surprize that young Elliot had never coine to enquire how she was during her illness. When Walter told her he had been hurried off to France, the day after she had seen him, to attend the death-bed of his father, and had not yet returned to Scotland; but that the ladies of the priory had sent every day, and that to their kindness was owing many of the conveniences she had enjoyed. Amy Gordon rose from her sick-bed, and even as the flower whose name she bore, did she again lift up her drooping head beneath the dews and sunshine. Again did she go to the hill side, and sit by, and sing beside her flock, and the Lily of Liddesdale was now bright and beautiful as ever. She was returning homewards by herself from the far-off hills during one rich golden sunset, when, in a dark hollow, she heard the sound of horses' feet, and in an instant young George Elliot was at her side. No. 166. Vol. XXVI. The impetuous, ardent, and impassioned boy scarcely looked in Amy's face; so with a powerful arm he lifted her upon another steed, which, till now, she had scarcely observedother horsemen seemed to the frightened, and speechless, and motionless maiden to be near, and away they went over the smooth turf like the wind, till her eyes were blind with the rapid flight, and her head dizzy. She heard kind words whispered in her ear; but Amy, since the fever, had never been so strong as before, and her high blooded palfrey was now carrying her fleetly away over hill and hollow in a swoon. As last she seemed to be falling down from the height, but softly, as if borne on the wings of the air; and as her feet touched the ground, she knew that young Elliot had taken her from that fleet courser, and looking up, she saw she was in a wood of old shadowy trees of gigantic size, perfectly still, and far away from all known dwellings both on hill and plain. But a cottage was before her, and she and young Elliot were on the green in front. Amy's soul sickened at the still, secluded, lovely, and lonely sight. "This shall be our bridal abode," whispered her lover into her ear with panting breath. "Fear me not-distrust me not-I am not base-but my love to thee is tender and true. This very evening must thou be mine, and may the hand that now clasps thy sweet waist wither, and the tongue, that wooes thee be palsied, if ever I cease to love thee as, my Amy,-my lily,-my wedded wife!" The wearied and half fainting maiden. could as yet make no reply. Just then a stately and beautiful lady came smiling from the cottage door, and Amy knew it was the sister of Elliot, and kneeled down before her.. "Amy," said the lady with a gentle voice, as she took her hand, "Amy Gordon ! my brother loves you, and he has won me to acknowledge you as my sister." Amy had now nothing to 3 M fear: she felt persuaded now, that in good truth young Elliot wished to make her his wife. Might she indeed live the lady of the Priory? such changes had been of old, and sung in many a ballad; but these thoughts passed on and away like the sun's rays upon a stream. She thought on Walter Harden, and in an instant her soul was fixed. "Will you, my noble and honored master, suffer me, all unworthy as I am, to be yours, to leave your bosom, sir, I am too miserable about you, to pretend to feel any offence, because you will not let me go. I might well be proud of your love; but let me kneel down at your beautiful sister's feet, for to her I may be able to speak." The agitated youth released Amy from his arms, and she flung herself down upon her knees before that lady. "Lady! hear me speak, a simple uneducated girl, and tell me if you would wish to hear me break an oath sworn upon the bible, and so lose my immortal soul? So have I sworn to be the wife of a poor shepherd; and lady, may I be on the left hand of God at the great judgment day, if ever I be foresworn. I love Walter. Do you counsel me to break his kind, faithful heart? Oh! sir, had I been born a lady, I would have lived-died for you-gone with you all over the world. Even now, dearly as I love Walter Harden, fain would I lay down and die upon this daisied green, and be buried beneath it, rather than that poor Amy Gordon should affect the soul of her young master thus. Send me away-spurn me from you-let me crawl away out of your presence-I can find my way back to my father's house." It might have been a trying thing to the pride of this high-minded and high-born youth, to be refused by the daughter of one of his poorest shepherds. But all pride was extinguished, and so seemed for ever and ever the light of this world's happiness. To plead farther, he felt was vain. So he lifted her up in his arms, kissed her madly a hundred times, cheek, brow, neck, and bosom, and then rushed into the woods. Amy followed him with her streaming eyes, and then turned again towards the beautiful lady who was sobbing audibly for her brother's sake. "Oh! weep not, lady! that I poor Amy Gordon have refused to become the wife of your noble brother. The time will come, and soon too, when he, and your fair sisters, and your stately mother, will all be thankful that I yielded not to entreaties that would then have brought disgrace upon your noble house." She to whom Amy fervently spoke, felt that her words were not wholly without truth. Nor could she help admiring the noble, heroic, and virtuous conduct of this poor shepherdess, whom all this world's splendor had failed to lure from the right path. Before this meeting she had thought of Amy, as far her inferior indeed, and it was long before her proper pride had yielded to the love of her brother, whose passion she feared might otherwise have led to some horrible catastrophe. Now that he had fled from them in distraction, this terror again possessed her, and she whispered it to the pale trembling shepherdess. "Follow him,"-"follow him-gentle lady, into the woods, lose not a moment, call upon him by name, and that sweet voice must bring him back. But fear not, he is too good to do evil, fear not, receive my blessing, and let me return to my father's hut, it is but a few miles, and that distance is nothing to one who has lived all her life among the hills. My poor father will think I have died in some solitary place." The lady wept to think that she, whom she had been willing to receive as a sister, should return all by herself so many miles at night, to a lonely hut. But her soul was sick with fear for her brother, so she took from ber shoulders a long rich Indian silk scarf of gorgeous colors, and throwing it over Amy's figure, said, "Fair creature and good, keep it for my sake, and now farewell." She gazed on the Lily for a moment in delighted wonder at her graceful beauty, as she bent on one knee, eurobed in that unwanted garb, and then rising up, gathered the flowing drapery around her, and disappeared. "God in his infinite mercy be praised," cried Walter Harden, as he and the old man, who had been seeking Amy for hours all over the hills, saw the Lily gliding towards them up a little narrow dell, covered from head to foot with the splendid raiment that shone in a soft shower of moonlight. Joy and astonishment for a while held them speechless, but they soon knew all that had happened; and Walter Harden lifted her up in his arms and carried her home, exhausted now and faint with fatigue and trepidation, as if she were but a lamb reserved from a snow-wreath. Next moon was that which the reapers love, || same, walked up to her whom he had known only and before it waned, Amy slept in the bosom of her husband, Walter Harden. Years past on, and other flowers besides the Lily of Liddesdale, were blooming in his house. One summer evening, when the shepherd, his fair wife, and their children, were sitting together on the green before the door, enjoying probably the sight and the noise of the imps much more than the murmurs of the sylvan Liddel, which perhaps they did not hear, a gay cavalcade rode up to the cottage, and a noblelooking young man dismounted from his horse, and gently assisting a beautiful lady to do the bya now almost forgotten affection, and with a beaming smile said, "Fair Lily of Liddesdale, this is my wife, the lady of the Priory, come, it is hard to say which of you should bear off the belle." Amy rose from her seat with an air graceful as ever, but something more matronly than that of Elliot's younger bride-and while these two fair creatures beheld each other with mutual admiration, their husbands stood there equally happy, and equally proud,-George Elliot of the Priory, and Walter Harden of the Glenfoot. THERE is no great need of enforcing on an unmarried lady, the necessity of being agreeable; nor is there any great art requisite in a youthful beauty to enable her to please. Nature has multiplied attractions round her. Youth is in itself attractive. The freshness of budding beauty needs no foreign aid to set it off; it pleases merely because it is fresh, and budding and beautiful. But it is for the married state that a woman needs the most instruction, and in which she should be most on her guard to maintain her powers of pleasing. No woman can expect to be to her husband all that he fancied her when he was a lover. Men are always doomed to be duped, not so much by the arts of the sex, as by their own imaginations. They are always wooing goddesses and marrying mere women. A woman should therefore ascertain what was the charm that rendered her so fascinating as a girl, and endeavour to keep it up when she has become a wife. One great thing doubtless was the chariness of herself and her conduct, which an unmarried female always observes. She should maintain the same niceness and reserve in her person and habits, and endeavour still to preserve a freshness and virgin delicacy in the eye of her husband. She should remember that the province of woman is to be wooed, not to woo; to be caressed, not to caress. Man is an ungrateful being in love; bounty loses instead of winning him. The secret of a woman's power does not consist so much in giving, as in withholding. A woman may give up too much even to her husband. It is to a thousand little delicacies of conduct that she must trust to keep alive passion, and to protect herself from that dangerous familiarity, that thorough acquaintance with every weakness and imperfection, incident to matrimony. By these means she will still maintain her power, though she has surrendered her person, and may continue the romance of love even beyond the honey-moon. "She that hath a wise husband," says Jeremy Taylor, " must entice him to an eternal endearness, by the veil of modesty, and the grave robes of chastity, the ornaments of meekness, and the jewels of faith and charity. She must have no paintings but blushings; her brightness must be purity, and she must shine round about with sweetness and friendship; and she shall be pleasant while she lives, and desired when she dies." I have wandered into a rambling series of remarks on a trite subject, and a dangerous one for a bachelor to meddle with. That I may not, however, appear to contine my observations entirely to the wife, I will conclude with another quotation from Jeremy Taylor, in which the duties of both parties are mentioned; while I would recommend his sermon on the marriage ring, to all those who, wiser than myself, are about entering the happy state of wedlock. "There is scarce any matter of duty but it concerns them both alike, and is only distinguished by names, and hathi its variety by cir cumstance and little accidents; and what in || she rules by them; he rules her by authority, one is called love, in the other is called reve- and she rules him by love; she ought by all rence; and what in the wife is obedience, the means to please him, aad he must by no means same in the man is duty. He provides and displease her." she dispenses; he gives commandments, and THE REFORMERS. WHAT an inexhaustible subject, is the de- || darling pleasure, and again, charity, being a formity of vice and the loveliness of virtue! how incontestible, how convincing, are the proofs! but, if moralists were in earnest, they would find, that the surest mode of amending others, is first to reform themselves. Two citizens, who where neighbours, often indulged themselves with a morning's walk in the vicinity of the metropolis, before the hurrying hours of business came on. In one of these early perambulations, after ordinary conversation had ceased, one of them lamented the deluge of vice, which like an inundation, had overspread the whole land; that virtue was driven to the very confines of these once happy realms; and that even charity herself was preparing to depart: yet, amongst the general dearth of beneficence, he himself had a heart so very compassionate that it uniformly melted with sorrow at a tale of woe, and he longed for nothing more than opportunities to relieve the distresses of his fellow creatures. virtue to which he had never pretended. "Now," added he, to his abashed companion, "you have clearly demonstrated that benevolence is your characteristic, valor is mine! I look with reverence on the annals of former times, which furnish us with so many instances of admirable intrepidity; and sadly regret the want of magnanimity in our days, yet, notwithstanding this almost general defection, I think I may without vanity, boast of as much personal courage as any man breathing; and only require a proper occasion of eliciting proofs of it." They had by this time strolled into the fields at a considerable distance from any houses, when an armed robber rushed suddenly from behind a hedge, and with imprecations, threatened them with instant death, unless they immediately delivered their money. "Now," says the charitable man, " now, my friend, exert yourself and save our lives, and property." He had scarcely finished this fine harangue, when a good looking man in plain attire, approached them, humbly soliciting their attention to his mournful story: he said that his house had been burnt, and his stock in trade completely destroyed, at the same time pro-clared, that if he had rendered the least ducing vouchers for the truth of his asser-assistance, he would undoubtedly have secured tions, from persons of the most undoubted the thief and given him up to justice. credibility. But the threats of the footpad, so intimidated the worthy moralists, that they very quietly delivered their purses. The valiant person, was now ironically upbraided by his companion, who positively de The citizen who had not spoken declared his inability to relieve the unfortunate petitioner; but observed to his friend, that here was a fine opportunity of displaying his favorite virtue. The beneficent man, however, declared that pity, was all he could then afford, as he never carried money about him. The other on the departure of the poor mendicant, began to upbraid his friend: telling him he should have relieved the man himself, had he not been withheld from delicate motives, not wishing to deprive him of his "You could not certainly have expected me," said he "to rush on with chivalric spirit to the attack, for I have naturally a very delicate sense of danger, and should require evident odds in my favor, if ever I came to an encounter, for valor is not my forte, but à d'autres, and a truce to recrimination; let us from henceforth cease to upbraid each other, for we have proved evidently enough, that though charity and valor are terms we understand perfectly well, we nevertheless willingly leave the practice to other men." OLD ENGLISH SERVANTS. THERE is a peculiar character about the servants of old English families that reside principally in the country. They have a quiet, orderly, respectful mode of doing thei rduties. | old English families. strong in their attachment; and the reciprocal regard of masters and servants, though not ardently expressed, is powerful and lasting in The title of " an old family servant," carries with it a thousand kind associations in all parts of the world; and there is no claim upon the They are always neat in their persons, appropriately, and, if I may use the phrase, technically dressed; they move about the house without hurry or noise; there is nothing || homebred charities of the heart more irresis of the bustle of employment, or the voice of command; nothing of that obtrusive housewifery that amounts to a torment. You are not persecuted by the process of making you comfortable; yet every thing is done, and done well. The work of the house is performed as if by magic, but it is the magic of system. Nothing is done by fits and starts, nor at awkward seasons; the whole goes on like welloiled clock work, where there is no noise, or jarring in its operations. English servants, in general, are not treated with great indulgence, nor rewarded by many commendations, for the English are laconic and reserved towards their domestics; but an approving nod, and a kind word from master or mistress, goes as far here, as an excess of praise elsewhere. Neither do servants often exhibit any animated marks of affection to their employers; yet, though quiet, they are tible, than that of having been "born in the house." It is common to see grey-headed domestics of this kind attached to an English family of the "old school," who continue in it to the day of their death, in the enjoyment of steady unaffected kindness, and the performance of faithful, unofficious duty. Such instances of attachment speak well for both master and servant, and the frequency of them speaks well for national character. These observations, however, hold good only with families of the description I have mentioned; and with such as are somewhat retired, and pass the greater part of their time in the country.. As to the powdered menials that, throng the halls of fashionable town residences, they equally reflect the character of the establishments to which they belong; and I do not know more complete epitomes of dissolute. heartlessness, and pampered inutility. To a homeless man, who has no spot on this wide world he can call his own, there is a momentary feeling of something like independence and territorial consequence, when, after a weary day's travel, he kicks off his boots, thrusts his feet into slippers, and stretches himself before the fire. Let the world without go as it may; let kingdoms rise or fall, so long as he has wherewithal to pay his bill, he is, for the time being, a very monarch of all he surveys. The arm chair is his throne, the poker his sceptre, and the little parlor of some twelve feet square, his undisputed empire. It is a morsel of certainty, snatched from the midst of the uncertainties of life; it is a sunny moment gleaming out kindly on a cloudy day, and he who has advanced some way on the pilgrimage of existence, knows the importance of husbanding every morsel and moment of enjoyment. "Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?" thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back in my elbow chair, and cast a complaisant look about the little parlor of the Red Horse, at Stratford-on-Avon. The words of sweet Shakespeare, were just passing through any mind, as the clock struck midnight, from the tower of the church in which he lies buried. There was a gentle tap at the door, and a pretty chamber maid, putting in her smiling face, inquired, with a hesi |