store of affection; not to mention the lustre of her personal posses sions-her pearly teeth and diamond eyes." "It is too much your habit, John, to speak slightingly of serious matters. These qualities I hold not the value of a pin's point, unless they are accompanied by the three indispensable P's to the character of a good wife-Prudence, Piety, and Property." "And is your favourite up-stairs possessed of these qualifications? Tell me, aunt, who is she?" Your old acquaintShe is a Miss Far "The lady up-stairs is a comparative stranger to me, but I am mightily pleased by what I have seen of her. ance, Mrs Smith of Berwick, brought her. quhar, and belongs herself, I believe, to that quarter, although Mrs Smith tells me she has some prospects of finally settling in your own town of Glasgow." "A glass of water, if you please. Tush!-I am quite well, aunt. A mere momentary qualm.-And now I have to reproach you, as well as myself, for leaving the ladies so long to themselves by our idle chat, on a subject which can be talked over again. We must, for very decency, go up stairs. Please introduce me. It is cruel to delay another moment." As my aunt ushered me into the room, with the formal explanation of "Mr Brown, my nephew, from Glasgow," Arabella, who was sitting at a work-table with Mrs Smith, suddenly started, and a deep blush suffused her neck and forehead. While bowing, I contrived to place my finger on my mouth, to indicate I wished no recognition. Mrs Smith seemed to understand this intuitively, for although it was through her I had originally become acquainted with Arabella, she spoke of us as entire strangers. Arabella herself looked uneasy and discomfited; for, with all her talents, such was her natural candour, that she could not support the slightest approach to dissimulation. I myself acted my part but indifferently, and after several blundering attempts at conversation, speedily sought to compose my nerves by a solitary walk in the garden. While chewing a green twig in a profound reverie, I was attracted to a summer-house by a whisper and a wave of the hand. It was Arabella herself. "I have followed you here at some risk," she said, " for I have been burning to tell you that I have no hand in this base rencounter. It was that odious Mrs Smith who decoyed me hither, and I knew not that Mrs Thomson was your aunt till this forenoon. What must you have thought of me?" "I am infinitely obliged to Mrs Smith "— "Nay, do not provoke me, for indeed I am ready to sink with shame and vexation at the vulgar and mean-spirited plot inte which I have been led. Your aunt, I see, is a woman of illiberal notions and contracted habits; and Mrs Smith, with her natural want of all delicacy, brought me hither, under false pretences, to secure her favour. When I understood this, I could have torn the vile busy-body to pieces." "A small dose of prussic acid would perhaps be more advisable." "No trifling, John. I am serious. Go to your aunt immediately, and tell her the circumstances under which we stand. I can bear this state of duplicity no longer." "Dearest and ever noble-minded! To you, as to an angel of light, must my poor earth-bound propensities ever look for exaltation. Deeply as I pity my aunt's illiberalities, henceforth shall I revere her for descrying so speedily your worth. It were in my power at present to deceive her, by affecting to follow her counsel in paying my addresses to you-nay, start not! I cannot do it, for my own sake, and dare not do it, for yours. If my own soul could condescend to such meanness, it were unworthy of worshipping thine." So saying, I sought my aunt with all haste, and told her explicitly that her favourite Miss Farquhar was no other than my betrothed. Whether charmed by my candour or by the reciprocity of our tastes, I know not, but my aunt behaved on this occasion in a manner worthy the sister of my father. Her assistance not only exceeded my expectation, but exceeded my original demand. She even came so far as Glasgow, to patronize with her personal presence our wedding. Nor had she ever reason to regret her generosity; for in her declining years, Arabella administered to her infirmities like a daughter, and our first-born little boy, William, renewed, once more, her long-smothered affection, so that the latter days of her life were benignant and blessed as those of its commencement. While living, she would scarcely allow the little rascal out of her sight; and on her death she proved the extent of her love, by leaving him all her immense property, at my disposal till he came of age, with the exception of only five thousand pounds which went to the South Sea missions, and a handsome annuity of thirty shillings, which, with some trifling assistance of our own, went to the support of an old housekeeper who had got blind and deaf in her service. W. AN OMITTED CHAPTER OF A WORK BUT LITTLE KNOWN.* "A leaf that's doubled down in Memory." The Album of the Heart. "Aback! I will have space, that this swollen heart may heave, The Hurricane, London, February, 1822. -I SAID to myself—nay, almost swore it-that I would not seek to see, but rather shun her for a week to come. 'Tis two days since that,—but two short days; and I have seen her-yea, have drunk delicious poison from her looks, and tasted also a far bitterer draught. At mid-day I waited at her dwelling, ostensibly to see her brother, ere he departed on a journey which he proposed, upon the morrow, setting out on. The waiting-maid alone was in the house, and of her I asked after the health of, and left my name as an inquirer for her brother. This was not enough. Night found me climbing anew that flight of steps which leads to her apartments. There was a perceptible tremble in the knock I gave. A door near her apartment jarred upon its hinges, and was closed again. 'Twas then her mother or herself who was approaching. The step was light-'twas she! The hand of welcome was extended, but it was the hand which, at the threshold of her doorall-every guest,-such is her frank and kind demeanour,-might hold as I did. Does each rude palm tremble thus, thought I, when it experiences this gentle pressure? She had been ill when last I saw her; was it wonder, then, that I eagerly asked how she did, in a tone far different from that which commonly accompanies the daily question, that requireth no answer, or but one like itself— of course "-Such answer she gave-" she was quite well.”—Quite 66 Few have seen the New Pygmalion of that searching and powerful writer, the late William Hazlitt; yet it was by far the most impassioned of his works. Whether the above really formed a portion of the original Ms. admits of doubt; but at least the writer has aimed at imitating some of the characteristics of that publication. well! What! in two days recovered? In two days restored to robust and perfect health? What wrought the cure? The Doctor? -Ay-the Doctor-but not his prescriptions-not his preparations -but his presence. Or was it that the question, ay, even in its eager tone, fell idle on ears filled with the echo of the honeyed words of praise which lips beloved had dropped into them! Yes-it was so;-and all that which, to others, hath a melody, the tone of sympathy-the sound of interest and kindness, was from any one but him, the jarring gibberish of an unknown tongue;-the harshness of rude notes that own no unison with the soft chords which yet reverberate to the touch of love!-or but as the breathings of the idle wind, which, where it listeth, bloweth, and who is there that heedeth it?-Unasked I entered the parlour. As the door receded from my touch there was no sound of voice heard to say welcome. Was she then alone? Was I so fortunate as thus to see within my grasp the long-prayed-for opportunity? Deceitful hope! Miserable, miserable disappointment! He was there-he, he whom I will not name, and cannot-dare not hate;-and yet unhatingly must envy ! Count me your ransoms, Captive Princes;-Reckon me your debts, proud-prostrate Nations ;-Tell me your wealth, pale Avarice-wan hoarders ;-Sum, sum the dreamings of El Dorado riches, ye architects of Fancy, and arithmeticians of Imagination; -say, ye pale tremblers by the furnace gleam, ye hoverers o'er the alembic,-watchers of projection's moment,-say how much your stone, the touch of which makes gold, would turn of lead into the yellow ore, and I will answer, more—yea, ten times told, than all your made-up sums, were I their master, would I give to be that he; if that be she loves him but the tithe that I do doat upon her: Did I turn pale when I beheld him? Yes. Did my tongue falter, and my breath come thick, like Macbeth's fancies, when I tried parlance?-Did it? Did it not!-There was emotion in my finger tips-feeling in every hair, that had the chill of the damp clamminess which forced its way through each pore upon my brow. -Yet I did talk-but it was wildly; and I durst not look at her fond glances, as they shot across the narrow space that severed him and her,-Ah! then the marble of that sculptured mantel piece, on which my head was rested, seemed less hard--and oh! it was less cold methought, than Fate-my fate! There was conversation-I was absent; there was argumentI was dogmatical; there was wit-I was dull; there was pleasure, and I was in pain.—Pain—pain!-why, we have pain when we are hungered are in pain when our fingers bleed-then what poor puling 'tis to call that bondage pain which then I sat beneath; that which quivered on my lips,-beat in my pulse, and trembled in my hand. 'Twas agony. Yet seemed I calm-calm as the weltering wave-huge, like Leviathan, which heaves, but makes no noiserolls on, yet has no foaming crest, or wreck-strewn head to mark its silent sweep. Lacking ought to say, I carelessly observed that this was my day's second visit. 66 Ay""-was the answer-" were you here before? Oh! by the bye—the girl said you were!" That question that cold question, and that "by the bye" that reminiscence of a thing forgotten, how did it stamp despair upon my soul, and turn the very ore of hope into a coin where disappointment's image grinned; and its cold superscription, while it told me that "all-all is vanity," gave currency to that with which the debts of love's fond promises were cancelled. Mother and brother entered-I was rooted to the chair, which, but for their coming, I should have risen to leave. Their seating themselves offered-and 'twas seized by her-the opportunity of placing herself near-nearer-him. Stories were told, to which I seemed to listen. What were they? I cannot tell, for I could not hear-no, nor sit still.-I rose, but I knew that my rising wou'd call him up also, and I-(oh! midway in passion's wild career, how glorious 'tis to make your reason turn, and, taking up one point, stand rooted there-calm as the rock amid the rushing stream; yea, from that station beat the assailing elements of wild emotion, which course on-when baffled there, and, though they near the goal of madness, leave that spot behind them, amid the mind's waste scatheless!)-I,-for I knew that I must quarrel with him,-resolved that he should wait behind me-and he did so.-I made him. -I dreamt he had insulted me-or wished he had,-I burned to stab him, or to be stabbed by him,—the latter rather ;-and had done it, if that the weapons of a warmer clime, where the hand answers to the passions' will, and wears its strength but for the heart's command, had hung about me, and he had been calm-proudly and coldly calm in his fair triumph-and had followed me. Few were the vales that detained me,-cold the hands that press. ed themselves to mine ;-(She did not proffer hers ;)-hurried the step that bore me to the door.-She did not now place kindly on my shoulder that cloak she hallowed with her touch, till that Elijah's mantle was, for inspiration's power, a frozen drapery to it. She did not (she was wont to do so) accompany me to the threshold where she welcomed me.-No!-no !-there was not there that look which made me turn and turn upon the landing place, and linger on the steps.-What then were steps to me? One dash-one whirl-and rush and shock, and I was on the ground, and in the air-the free unwalled-up air-beneath the peaceful and |