a leading gift. Isabella's curiosity being excited to see this rara avis of Herbert (with her the immediate consequence of an inclination was to find the means of its gratification), she asked her parents to send for Bessie to come to New-York, and go to school with her. Mrs. Linwood, a model of conjugal nonentity, gave her usual reply, “just as your papa says, dear." Her father seldom said her nay, and Isabella thought her point gained, till he referred the decision of the matter to her aunt Archer.

"Oh dear! now I shall have to argue the matter an hour; but never mind, I can always persuade aunt at last." Mrs. Archer, as Isabella had foreboded, was opposed to the arrangement-she thought there would be positive unkindness in transplanting a little girl from her own plain, frugal family, to a luxurious establishment in town, where all the refinements and elegances then known in the colony were in daily use. "It is the work of a lifetime, my dear Belle," she said, "to acquire habits of exertion and self-dependance-such habits are essential to this little country-girl-she does not know their worth, but she would be miserable without them-how will she return to her home, where they have a single servant of all-work, after being accustomed to the twelve slaves in your house ?"

"Twelve plagues, aunt! I am sure I should be

happier with one, if that one were our own dear good Rose."

"I believe you would, Belle, happier and better too; for the energy which sometimes finds wrong channels now, would then be well employed."

"Do you see no other objection, aunt, to Bessie's coming?" asked Isabella, somewhat impatient at the episode, though she was the subject of it.

แ "I see none, my dear, but what relates to Bessie herself. If her happiness would on the whole be diminished by her coming, you, my dear generous Belle, would not wish it."

“No, aunt―certainly not-but then I am sure it would not be she will go to all the schools I go to —that I shall make papa promise me—and she will make a great many friends and-and-I want to have her come so much. Now don't, please don't tell papa you disapprove of it—just let me have my own way this time."

?"

"Ah, Belle, when will that time come that you do not have your own way Isabella perceived her aunt would no longer oppose her wishes. The invitation was sent to Bessie, and accepted by her parents; and the child's singular beauty and loveliness secured her friends, one of the goods Isabella had predicted. She did not suffer precisely the evil consequences Mrs. Archer rationally anticipated from her residence in NewYork, yet that, conspiring with events, gave the hue (bright or sad?) to her after life. Physically and

morally, she was one of those delicate structures that require a hardening process-she resembled the exquisite instrument that responds music to the gentle touches of the elements, but is broken by the first rude gust that sweeps over it. But we are anticipating.

"There is a history in all men's lives,

Figuring the nature of the times deceased;
The which observed, a man may prophesy,
With a near aim, of the main chance of things,
As yet not come to life."

CHAPTER II.

"This life, sae far's I understand,
Is a' enchanted fairy-land,

Where pleasure is the magic wand,
That, wielded right,

Makes hours like minutes, hand in hand,
Dance by fu' light.”—BURNS.

As soon as Mr. Linwood became aware of his son's whig tendencies, he determined, as far as possible, to counteract them; and instead of sending him, as he had purposed, to Harvard University, into a district which he considered infected with the worst of plagues, he determined to retain him under his own vigilant eye, at the loyal literary institution in his own city. This was a bitter disappointment to Herbert.

"It is deused hard," he said to Jasper Meredith, who was just setting out for Cambridge to finish his collegiate career there, "that you, who have such a contempt for the Yankees, should go to live among them; when I, who love and honour them from the bottom of my heart, must stay here, play the good boy, and quietly submit to this most unreasonable paternal fiat."

"No more of my contempt for the Yankees, Hal,

an' thou lovest me," replied Jasper; "you remember Æsop's advice to Croesus at the Persian court?"

"No, I am sure I do not. You have the most provoking way of resting the lever by which you bring out your own knowledge on your friend's ignorance."

Pardon me, Herbert; I was only going to remind you of the Phrygian sage's counsel to Crœsus, to speak flattery at court, or hold his tongue. I assure you, that as long as I live among these soidisant sovereigns, I shall conceal my spleen, if I do not get rid of it."

"Oh, you'll get rid of it. They need only to be seen at their homes to be admired and loved."

"Loved!"

"Yes, loved; to tell you the truth, Jasper," Herbert's honest face reddened as he spoke, "it was something of this matter of loving that I have been trying for the last week to make up my mind to speak to you. You may think me fool, dunce, or what you please; but, mark me, I am seriousyou remember Bessie Lee ?"

"Perfectly! I understand you-excellent !"— “Hear me out, and then laugh as much as you like. Eliot, Bessie's brother, will be your classmate-you will naturally be friends-for he is a first-rate-and you will naturally-"

"Fall in love with his pretty sister?"

"If not forewarned, you certainly would; for there is nothing like her this side heaven. But