into a chair; and while her desk lay open before her, she rested her head upon the palm of her hand, as if the gush of pleasure's life blood gave her pain. She read Mrs. Smith's letter, and her eyes filled with tears; but they were not tears of sorrow or regret, but the overflowings of a sensitive and happy heart-tears which like the dew of the morning sparkle in the sunshine which absorbs them-then, she answered Mrs, Smith's letter. 'Out of the abundance of the heart,' Agnes both spoke and wrote; and the subjoined epistle is one thoroughly characteristic.

"MY DEAR FANNY,"

May 29th, &c.

"The die is cast for better or for worse! Your kind and well-meant expostulations came too late. Yesterday, at the church of St. Austin, Wallace Arnold and I were united in the holy estate of matrimony. Henceforth, if you know ought against it, you are to hold your peace for ever, and what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.

Can you not congratulate me? Oh, Fanny, say not one word more to throw a shadow across the sunshiny prospect before me. Even, should you still think that I have taken a step that will be fatal to my happiness, hold your peace, and-like a child who has wandered alone in the wilderness, and knows not that it is lost to its father's house, and to the voice of its brothers and sisters-let me still sport and trifle with the wild flowers around me, or fall asleep in happy unconsciousness of impending danger. You wish to know the particulars

of my acquaintance with Wallace. He was my father's pupil, and protègè, and my first recollections of him are associated with boxes of sweetmeats and playthings, which he was in the habit of bringing me in childhood; for he has known me from infancy, and is several years older than I am. When he left London, for the University, he was absent five years; and of course, upon his return, his little pet, Miss Agnes Fleetwood, had sprung up into a young lady. I dont know how it was, but we soon became wonderfully intimate. Wallace contrived some excuse to be at Square nearly every evening. My father patronised him, and liked him. I delighted in his society,—and altho' I only laughed at his ardent professions of attachment to me, regarding attentions of this kind from him, just as a matter of course, every day homage, like his daily supply of playthings when I was a child, I always thought him my best friend, and made him my confidante. It was not until after my father's death that we entered into a decisive engagement. I was then at Brighton, where Wallace joined me immediately. If this step were taken prematurely, remember, it was in accordance with my father's urgent wishes, expressed on his death-bed.

You are aware of the alteration in my religious sentiments that followed the death of my father. It was then that my situation appeared the most critical. My first impulse was to break off for ever, my connection with an avowed sceptic. But how could I?-Let your own heart answer the question. I sent for Wallace immediately. He was at that time pursuing his profes

sional engagements in London, and we had a long and painful interview. Finally, it was agreed that all intercourse between us should be suspended during the interval of two years; and if, after the expiration of the term, we continued unchanged in affection, no further obstacle to our marriage should be urged. Wallace attributed all this to caprice on my part, or to-only guess what, Fanny-a secret penchant for Adolphe Montarre !—He left immediately for the continent. you imagine my feelings?

Can

I felt a gloomy

towards me, and He had seen so

Two long, long years succeeded; and then, I received a highly formal note from Mr. Arnold, briefly expressing a wish to do himself the honor of calling upon Miss Fleetwood on the following evening, to which, of course, I replied, in terms equally ceremonious. O, the deceitfulness of our human nature! How I longed to see him; and yet, I could not help feeling nervous about the first rencontre-just the first look and smile. It seemed such an age since we had met. presentiment that he must be changed all would not be right between us. much more of the world than I had, and I fancied that it must have exercised its bleak influence upon him, and chilled his affection with its withering satire. I felt certain that we never should know and love each other just as we had done that there must be a cloud between us-and oh, what a chilling, biting influence there is, in the first free glance of the eye that tells you that you are deceived-when your friend looks at you, but something at once reveals that the soul is not there; and

you

feel that the warmth of glowing affection, which to you, gave life to the whole character is wanting.

Well, to-morrow evening came; and beneath the merry light of a certain gorgeous chandelier, which is suspended in our salle a compagnie in

-Square, Wallace placed his cold hand upon my heart, and our eyes met and vowed eternal constancy, in the first mute recognition.

We are married;-and I have received a most pressing invitation, from Mrs. Fleetwood, to spend the summer at the Old Hall; and so, my dear Fanny, I venture to look forward to seeing good father Smith, and hearing your own kind voice again, in a few days. I hope that Wallace and I shall yet spend many pleasant quiet evenings, at the Clifton Rectory.

My love to Mr. Smith, and the children. Mr. Arnold begs to be remembered to the good people at Clifton, with whom he hopes soon to be better acquainted.

Ever yours, faithfully,

AGNES.

But where is Clifton? and who are these good people, that we have so often mentioned? We will answer the question in our next chapter.

CHAPTER II.

"No one is so much alone in the universe as a denier of God. With an orphaned heart which has lost the greatest of fathers, he stands mourning by the immeasurable corpse of nature, no longer moved or sustained by the Spirit of the Universe, but growing in its grave; and he mourns until he himself crumbles away from the dead body."-J. P. RICHTER.

THE village which we have designated Clifton-albeit, it is not under this name that the inquisitive traveller must look for it-lies, somewhere, in the North of England, and not very far from the small manufacturing town of B—. It is situated upon the banks of a beautiful little river, which winds merrily along over its bed of shining pebbles, its progress occasionally interrupted, however, by massive fragments of solid rock, with their bald heads here and there relieved with tufts of green moss, or of river grass. On the south side of the river, just below old John Jackson's farm-a clumsy, red brick building, like a huge barn perforated with an array of small windows-are the stepping stones-a row of rude blocks, set in regular order across the river-and over this slippery footpath files of Clifton Laborers, bearing their implements of husbandry upon their shoulders, may be seen measuring their steps in the mellow sunlight of a summer's evening-their long, grotesque shadows pencilled out upon the surface of the stream below. Losing sight of the stepping stones, but still keeping by the side of the river, a white speck-which in the

C