himself, for by his frugality and industry the young carpenter had even already saved a little store of money. Perhaps it was because he was apt to view every one, and George among them, with an unfavourable eye; perhaps because his worldly experience soon enabled him to discover the one drawback in George we have already mentioned-his want of that moral courage which would give him strength to resist temptation after the indecisive "No" had been uttered. But the farmer's opposition was not of long continuance for his wife, with whom George was an immense favourite, was his most staunch supporter; and the farmer at last, perforce, yielded to her superior arguments or superior lungs--which? hers, and rivet themselves on the same objects, in faith you would, to conclude your happy simile, have accused him of possessing "cat's eyes." At the head of the table we can see the austere features of the Farmer; at the bottom, and directly opposite to him, is the happy openhearted face and matronly form of Ellen's mother. By her side is seated Annie Wilson, fresh in her young beauty; five years younger than George, and as like him as one of nature's fairer and softer mould can be to man, composed, as he is, of "sterner stuff." The remainder of the guests who had been especially invited were most of them blood-relations either to the bride or the bridegroom. Presently, however, the good dame looks up at the old-fashioned timepiece that counts the hours and the fleeting minutes of their everyday and Sunday existence, without pausing never so little, to take breath; the good dame, I say, looks up, and then starts up energetically, almost bringing down with the effort the table, contents, and all, with her. Nothing disconcerted, however, or unheeding it, she looks towards the happy pair," and exclaims, in a loud tone, Bless me, Nelly, it is ten o'clock, and you ought to be at church by this time! Deary me, deary me, come along; we shall keep parson Goodheart waiting! Deary me, deary me, come child!" Ellen herself was as pretty and perfect a specimen of a country lass, who puts forth the claim to a rustic beauty, as the eye could wish to rest upon. She was-to use a term inappro- | priate in the present instance, but very expressive nevertheless-a petite blonde; her face clothed with a profusion of dimples-deuce take them!-though, extraordinary to relate, their effect was mostly lost, for she was of a pensive disposition, and seldom indulged in the joyous" laughter so usual, so natural to youth. Her form was gracefulness itself; not according to the horrid rules required by distorted Fashion, but the free and artless beauty of Nature. What her character was will be further developed in the course of this little history. Needs it for us now to enter the dwellinga compact-looking, comfortable homestead-of Farmer Johnston. It is one of the largest and neatest-looking cottages the village of Crayford can boast. The same sun that shines o'er field and meadow sheds through the little diamond panes of glass a brilliance that fills with its glory every room which looks towards the Great Luminary. Into the largest of these we must enter. At a table which groaned beneath the weight of a profusion of viands-for in their rustic simplicity the wedding-breakfast took place before, and not after, the awful ceremonywere grouped as many persons, of both sexes, as could conveniently be placed round it. From the heartsome though subdued laughter, and from the incessant talking, it may easily be concluded that it is a meeting of joyful occasion. There are two, however, who sit apart from the rest-these are the bride and bridegroom, and, if we see quite distinctly, the latter has his arm round the fair girl's waist; but amid the general rejoicing, this circumstance is either unnoticed, or not commented upon. That they are happy we can see, by glancing in their faces; although their joy appears too concentrated in each other to find relief in noisy laughter, or even in smiles. George is whispering, in low tones, to his beloved; who looks down, blushingly and agitated, upon her feet, admiring their symmetry, no doubt, for they "Like little mice peeped out." -"Little mice," indeed! Why, Sir John Suckling, if you had beheld George's eyes follow Ellen obeyed, trembling and blushing like the newly-wakened rose; while her breath seemed to come short and quick. George was at first disinclined to part with her, but, snatching the half reluctantly-given kiss, he consigned her to the care of his sister, watching her disappearance with all the ardour and affection of a young and true lover. He soon, however, had the felicity of seeing her return; and then what a hurrying to and fro, what a bustle was there among the guests, as some necessary article of apparel was to be found! what a "confusion worse confounded" of tongues, as one besought the other's assistance in putting on a shawl or a bonnet in the best possible manner, and with the greatest regard to becomingness! Taking Ellen under his arm-she, by the bye, looking quite "killing" in her young happinessGeorge led the way to the little church, followed, in order and with precision, by the whole party; and never had there entered that quiet place, to be linked in the holy tie with which they were about to be united, a more happy, a more loving, a more handsome pair, than George Wilson and Ellen Johnston. At the very moment the group entered the porch the bells struck up their merry sound, as if in greeting; at least so thought George, for he pressed Ellen's arm with a greater degree of tenderness, looking fondly into her face the while, as he uttered, "My own Nelly!" But those three words only, dear reader. And yet the language of love was breathed from the lips of that humble artizan with a tone as eloquent and impassioned, and be sure as sincere, as from the lips of the child of luxury, with all the advantages of an expensive education; for true love has but one method, be it in riches or in poverty; and the words fall from the heart and invest themselves with as much truthfulness and fervency, albeit the heart be covered by a fustian jacket instead of beating beneath the embroiderer's chefs d'œuvres. There was no audible reply to George's exclamation; but he fancied that his pressure was slightly-very slightly-returned. It will be needless to pause in order to describe the auspicious ceremony; nor the good-humoured attempt of the minister to claim his due-the first salute on the lips of the newly-wedded; nor the bride's bashful resistance; nor the manner in which George interposed his sturdy arm, and took it himself-suffice it to say that it was performed in due time for George, much to Ellen's chagrin, to judge from the pout that displayed itself on her pretty lips, to take his accustomed place in the choir. Nor will it be very interesting | to know particularly what occurred during the remainder of the happy day; how George gave himself a holiday from his scholastic duties to the village children; nor how Ellen and himself took a long, long walk over the daisy-crowned fields, through pleasant little woods; at one time wandering by the hedgeside, now clothed with all the wild luxuriance and beauty of nature, at another following the course of a limpid brooklet, rippling on with its soft murmur, all too silent in their own happiness; for joy-that true, deep joy which but rarely visits the hours of mortals-is ever beyond all speech; nor the hilarity of the wedding-dinner, with its pleasant jests and hearty expressions of love; nor how, in the evening, George took his bride homehome to a cottage after Ellen's own heart, all covered with honeysuckle, and roses, and jasmine-with a sweet little garden in front, and a large one in the rear, well stocked with fruit and vegetables for domestic purposes; nor how the happiness of both was complete. A month flew by like the wings of the wind, and would it not be thought that their lives passed in perpetual sunshine-a course of as pure and perfect happiness as could fall to the lot of the descendants of Adam? But no; a month-a short month-after their marriage, a cloud obscured the fair expanse of their matrimonial horizon, that seemed to George as if it would darken it for ever; and he experienced that sudden revulsion of feeling that the truehearted and most loving do when they discover some even the most trifling-blemish in the object on which the affection is centred, and in whom they had previously beheld only perfection. This cloud arose from the fact which George discovered, that Ellen not only did not care for music, but absolutely disliked it! Now from his early youth music had been a passion with George; and he had straitened his means of enjoyment that he might purchase his violin, and receive instructions in playing. Music was to him a source of unaffected mental enjoyment, for, independently of its soothing qualities, George felt a higher and nobler pleasure in the "gentle art;" and it was with a deep sense of pain that he discovered this trait in his Ellen's character. From this difference in their tastes happened the most lamentable results. Ellen prided herself upon her fulfilment of her household duties; she was always at work upon something connected with its offices; washing, cleaning, scrubbing perpetually. Brought up by a bustling and over-industrious mother, she had imbibed a contrariety of ideas, which George saw, when too late, ill corresponded with his, of domestic felicity. Her highest pride was to be enabled to boast that her house was the best ordered, her parlour the neatest, her kitchen the most scrupulously clean, her household implements the best preserved, of the whole village. Besides, she thought that the sole duty of George was to work all day, and that if he came home and found his evening-meal ready prepared for him, and his house kept in the strictest order, he must necessarily be as happy as it was possible she could make him. But things fell out differently to what she expected. One evening George returned home from his daily work, tired and dispirited; he was melancholy, he knew not why. He sat himself down; his meal was ready, to be sure; but he certainly thought, as he gazed on the yet undried floor, that his wife spent too much time and labour upon such overstrained cleanliness; besides, he considered it might have been done sufficiently in time before his return to admit of its being perfectly dry; for he confessed to himself that it would have been more pleasant to have occupied a dry rather than a damp room. He had yielded to Ellen's wish to partake of his meal in the kitchen instead of the parlour-that he thought a great sacrifice; and he felt the present one doubly the more, but he said nothing. Ellen busied herself in assisting him to his dinner: he looked into her face; all that was written on its surface was an exemplification of her own tidiness, primness, carefulness, and love of order; no smile or harmless look of kindness accompanied her movements; all was done mechanically, and he fancied, for the first time, that everything was performed more from a sense of duty than a feeling of pleasure. The meal was therefore dispatched by both in almost total silence; but thought was busy in George's brain in no way so favourable to Ellen as was usual. The violin had been locked up in its case since their marriage, and had not been once opened. For the first few evenings they were accustomed to take walks about the neighbourhood; but as the first sensation of the novelty of her situation wore away in Ellen's bosom, she raised objections and refused to accompany him as usual. George went out, therefore, for the first time since their marriage, alone; however, he did not feel happy, and could not enjoy the beauty of the evening without the presence of his wife, so he quickly returned home; where his wife met him, with her bible in her hand, and began to read aloud from its divine pages. Far from being of an irreligious turn of mind, George listened with devout attention to her too far to recede; at least so his remnant of moral courage whispered him, and he sat down among them. His violin was brought out; he played, and his playing was hailed with shouts of delight. Their applause intoxicated him; he played his very best, and nothing could give bounds to their demonstrations of pleasure. Poor George! his fate was sealed. He promised to become one of their too much overcome by the spirits he had drunk to return to Crayford. monotonous, cold delivery, but when evening succeeds to evening in this routine, even the strongest and best cannot help at times feeling awearied at the changeless succession of appointed duties to appointed hours, and on the evening of which we speak it was with a feeling of greater weariness and prostration of energy than ever that George beheld his wife produce her bible and arrange herself to read from it the whole evening, as usual; he therefore re-club; and after the lapse of a few hours he was quested her to bring out his violin. For a considerable time she held out, saying that he should think of higher objects than such a senseless, irrational amusement. Here arose the first difference between them. The violin was at last brought, and Ellen sat down to work with pouting lip and flushed cheek. Heedless of this, George played over his favourite pieces in his very best manner; he endeavoured to give more expression to the airs than he had ever tried to do before, but they had no effect on his wife; they even tended to heighten her colour and deepen the frown on her forehead. To his question as to whether she did not admire any particular air he had played, she invariably replied that she did not do so; that she could not bear music; that it was only an employment fit for those who had nothing to do, and not for a working man, who had, or should have, the welfare of his family at heart. Thus affairs proceeded, till George began to feel tired of playing nightly to one who was so dead to the beauty and effect of music; yet he still played, but without any attempt to win his wife to experience the same exquisite sensations he himself did. It happened unfortunately at this time that George met with an old schoolfellow, who had likewise shewed a great taste for music in his youth, and was so excellent a performer on the flute that he was engaged in the orchestra of the theatre in a very large town nearly contiguous to the village where George resided. This renewal of their acquaintance led to the most unhappy results, for William Markham was of a very opposite disposition from George. A bold and successful libertine, it was no wonder that with the common sophistry of his kind, he persuaded George that it was the duty of his wife to give way in everything to a husband; that, were it his case, he would let her pursue her own course, and that if he absented himself from her for an evening, she would soon turn round and yield. It is needless to say that George was led astray by the wretched cant of a man in all respects much his inferior in point of mental acquirements, and that evening beheld him hastening to the town of C-, to join his newly-found friend, Markham. By him he was taken to some low public-house, where, in a small room, dense with the smoke of tobacco and redolent of the fumes of spirits, a number of persons were seated at a large table, which exhibited in various ways the appliances and effects of their debauch. He was startled at first-terribly startled; for his mind revolted at mixing with the bloated, sensual beings before him. But he had gone In the morning, however, he returned home; but it was only to meet bitter reproaches from his wife, who should have soothed and reclaimed rather than have irritated his already erring heart. He proceeded to his work; but his mind was dwelling on the hard reception he had met with from Ellen, and his heart swelled with a feeling alike strange and painful: that evening therefore was spent as the former. Thus gradually the character of George gave way; he neglected his work, he did not see his wife for days, all the money he could obtain was spent among his besotted companions: but in all this there was one burning thought ever present to his imagination-the unkind treatment of his wife, and the morbid state of feeling engendered by this unhappiness; and his having yielded to temptation made this unkindness appear a monster shape to his brain. Ellen, poor thing, was compelled to part not only with their little treasures to give herself the means of existence, and her husband the means of procuring drink; but the cottage was soon completely stripped of its once prized furniture, and presented a truly wretched appearance. Her father had refused all assistance to her-he replied to her entreaties that as she had sown so might she reap; and her mother possessed not the power to assist her. Almost the last thing that was disposed of was the violin, which had been the cause of their mutual misery. From that moment George began to yield to utter despair, and long for death to end his sufferings; from that moment Ellen began to think. She was in a fair way to become a mother, and that was a double incentive to exertion. Something ought to be done; but what she could not imagine. As her last resource she applied to the Minister, and frankly stated the whole circumstances. He compre hended the whole case in a second, and shewed Ellen how wrong she had been in not giving way to her husband; he explained to her that instead of opposing his taste for harmless recreation, if she had endeavoured to foster a liking for it in herself, their happiness would have been on as fair a footing as with mortals it could be. She wept and owned her error. The Minister was a good and worthy man; he judged that all might be remedied if managed judiciously, and so determined to advance her a sum of money, by way of loan, that might enable her to redeem their furniture and effects she had sacrificed. All this was done, and done promptly, and the cottage presented the same aspect of internal comfort that it did before; but George had not been home for some evenings. That day, however, he returned home-but too much intoxicated, to perceive the changed appearance of things, or the unwonted softness of his bed. In the morning, however, he rose; and when he beheld the change, he was struck dumb with astonishment; he almost looked upon everything as a dream, and gazed silently into the face of Ellen for explanation. But she judged it more prudent not to say anything, but to abide till time was ripe. Seeing that she did not comply with his request, he ate his breakfast in silence, and hurried away; but the first principle of returning Good was strong within him, and this day he set himself resolutely to work, and many were the comments and rejoicings of the worthy villagers when they beheld him labouring in his shop as usual. Orders, like honours, came thick upon him; they were executed with dispatch, and the time arrived when he should return home. It was with a feeling of uncertainty and doubt that he entered; but that uncertainty was removed when he beheld his meal prepared for him, and on the table beside it, his dearly-loved violin, which he deemed he had lost for ever. He sat down too much overcome to speak. Ellen approached him, and throwing her arms around him affectionately, pointed to the signs of their future happiness. He comprehended all in a moment, and folding Ellen in his embrace, he yielded to his emotions in a manner that the callous and hard-hearted think derogatory to manhood; but which is far otherwise. When the well-springs of the human heart are full almost to bursting, he who is ashamed to let them flow is less or more than Man. Oh! how happy were George and Ellen that evening! The violin was taken up, George played badly, Ellen praised him, and endeavoured to make herself pleased with his efforts; he played better, she praised him the more, and before the night closed upon them, Ellen had not only conquered her previous dislike to music, but had already begun to imbibe a taste for it, and George was in the perfection of happiness to behold the marked and happy change in her, The good minister's advice prospered; they are now as happy a pair as it would be possible to meet-happy with each other, and happy with the world. Their eldest child-for they have many-proved to be a boy; and Ellen, as she kisses him and parts the curling hair on his forehead, shows him the well-known violin, and makes his little heart leap with joy as she promises him that he too, like his father, shall one day be a Violin-player. The last time I visited the village of Crayford, I perceived a visible change for the better, both in the domestic arrangements of George and in the village itself. It is said that he now employs several journeymen, and but seldom occupies himself in aught save the inventive portion of his trade. I have been told too that a Mechanics' Institute has sprung up, and is in a very flourishing condition, and mainly through the instrumentality of George, who generously sacrificed a very considerable collection of books, with which he who founded it endowed it. Annie Wilson too, I almost forgot to say, is married to a young clergyman, who now fills the place of the good minister who has slept with his Fathers for some years. George, however, has no need to use his violin at church now, for he was one who set on foot a subscription-in which all who could, willingly joined-for presenting an organ to the sacred edifice; and he may be seen frequently on Sundays, and on spare afternoons, in the loft, practising the sublime creations of Bach, and Handel, and Haydn; and he has already acquired considerable proficiency on the instrument. He has no desire, however, to take away the office from the poor blind organist who has been attached to the village church since the gift of the organ made such a situation necessary; but George, amid all his prosperity-for I need scarcely say he is now a very important personage in the village-is not proud, and does not and cannot forget the period at which he laboured at his humble shop, and fulfilled his voluntary duties in that church (before the organ sent forth its solemn peal, to guide and assist the children's voices) as a Violin-player. DANTE'S MEETING WITH CASELLO IN PURGATORY. (From "Il Purgatorio."-Canto II.) Still near the sea we slowly kept our way, Appear'd a light, gliding across the main. Then, from one side did suddenly appear Shone the white vision with the outstretch'd wings; Then, as he knew the heavenly boat so bright, Than his broad wings, between these distant lands. As unto us still nearer, nearer comes The Bird divine, yet brighter he appears! Together in one voice the spirits sung, Gazing around, as in strange regions placed, But now on every side, with burning haste, Sol launched his arrowy beams of dazzling light, And from mid heaven bright Capricornus chas'd. The souls upon us rais'd their wondering sight, Saying, "We pray ye, if ye can, to shew The path whereby to climb this mountain's height." And Virgil said, "Perchance, ye deem we know Then I beheld one spirit before them move, With such an eager clasp to welcome me, That in my heart it waken'd the like love. Vain shades, to sight alone reality! Why this delay- this negligence? Haste, haste; The pastures, feeding on the oats or tares, Leave the sweet song, and to the lone coast dart, Like one who heeds not where his course may lieNor with less swiftness did we twain depart. THE DEATH-WATCH. D. M. M. In an antique room of a mansion rare "Ha! ha!" cried Death, as he scann'd them o'er, Whilst peeping in at the low-arch'd door"A plenty of chat, a plenty of glee, I wist not one is thinking of me. "I'll just steal in while the mirth is so rifeI love to meddle a bit with life! I wot their joy will be chang'd to woe, When they are hearing my time-piece go!" Thrice I stretch'd out my arms, and thrice in vain He paus'd, and his watch wound carefully, Folded them on my breast, all mournfully, Amazement on my face depicted plain, Whereat the shadow smiled, and backward drew; And I press'd onward, following him again. Softly he bade me rest; and then I knew The spirit dear, and pray'd him there to stay Awhile, that I might hear his accents too. He said "While I was bound in mortal clay I lov'd thee; so I love thee now, when freed; Therefore I stay; but whither leads thy way ?" "Casello mine: I journey here, indeed, Ere I return to my abode on earth," I cried. "But say, what cause, what bitter need Tore thee from that fair earth?" I said "If not forbid the memory Commenced he, and so sweetly, that the sound Still rings within my memory, soft and clear. My master, I, and they who linger'd round, Listen'd, enchanted by the magic spell, His silver notes; when suddenly came past Till it tick'd away in an ecstasy. A month, and behold the maiden was laid On a quiet bier 'neath the hearse-plume's shade! The Death-watch tick'd not o'er her coffin cold, * Casello was a musician, and a dear friend of the For her moments, her minutes, her hours were told, poet's. CHARLOTTE CAYNE. |