"Oh, I've no doubt you did, and made me ridiculous enough; but there's one comfort, if you ruined my case, you will suffer nearly as much as I shall. But as all lovers say, anything is better than suspense. I shall leave to-morrow; if I am prospered, then you may exercise your wit ad libitum."

He was absent a week, and when he returned, the bright smile which illumined his features as plainly assured me of the result of his mission,' as did the two short words which he breathed into my ear as he bent over to give me his usual affectionate salutation.

"But the particulars," said I, when the usual hour had arrived for uninterrupted communing. "I've a right to know the love affairs in my own family."

Well, my experience confirmed the truth of the remark respecting 'the course of true love,' but unfortunately my difficulties might all be classed under the head of ridiculous. I found Miss Murray in the midst of her family, rejoicing in the possession of some half dozen brothers, all younger than herself;-not fancy boys, but the genuine article, with turned-up noses and dirty fingers, and who manifested quite as much curiosity to learn the business of their visitor, in despite of family winks and private nudges, as was consistent with perfect good breeding. She seemed much embarrassed at meeting me, and so many times inquired particularly concerning your health, in apparent forgetfulness that the subject had been thoroughly exhausted, that I began to fear you were suffering from some secret malady, of which I had been kept in ignorance. The family, of course, were inclined to treat me with hospitality, but how to find an opportunity to declare the object of my visit, was the question. The truth is, never was poor mortal so troubled to give it even the semblance of sentiment. A morning call, with little bullet heads glancing in and out of the room, was no time; it was too cold for an evening stroll, and pitch dark into the bargain; and a ride over the frozen grounds would have been utterly inadmissible, so that I feared I should be absolutely driven to ask her to give me a private interview in another apartment, and without any circumlocution put the question, Pray, will you marry me, dear Ally Croker." However, where there's a will there's a way.' In due time I blundered forth

something which she understood, and in due time she accepted me, and there's the entire history of the affair; and I can assure you, the whole scene and its accompaniments were as little in accordance with my preconceived notions on this subject as you can well imagine."

"You expected she would bury her head on your shoulder in a transport of gratitude I suppose."

"If I did, I was disappointed. I believe she would as soon have thought of cutting it off-and I am not sure but I like her the better for it. As to any emotion she displayed, the deponent saith not."

"No doubt, everything was 'virtuousest, wisest, discreetest, best,' and then there was the asking the Pa and Ma."

"Yes! but it was much less embarrassing and awkward than I anticipated. It seemed the most natural thing in the world that I should ask them for their daughter; and knowing her as they did they must have expected as a matter of course that I should fancy her; but it cost them a great effort to resign her. Why, he said, and he grasped my hand warmly as he spoke, that she was the very joy of his heart,' and when I endeavoured to express my sense of obligation for so priceless a treasure, his eyes moistened, and I am not sure but my own twinkled a little." "But the time?—when is the happy moment?"

"Ah! there's the rub, I thought I was very good that I named no earlier period than next month; but will you believe me they would not listen to it before Spring; and Mary, too—she turned traitor and only laughed at my agonies. It was in vain that I entreated and implored, and expended eloquence enough to have immortalized me if it had only been in court or in Congress. I left nothing undone, I humbled myself upon my knees, I loaded her with reproaches, and her parents; till finding I could not be silenced, will you believe it, that she, the uncompromising advocate of liberty of speech and opposer of gag-law, went the unjustifiable length of putting her hand over my mouth. I think she did not get it away in a hurry!-However," said he, pausing to recover breath, “our wooing was a most proper one, and I attended as strictly to the 'proprieties' as do dramatic authors to the unities.""

"But," said he, after a brief silence, "it is not alone her unrivalled powers of conversation, or her delightful man

its best and truest disciples are among the deeply smitten, the sorest stricken, the most keenly afflicted of the human family-they are sanctified in wo. And we ask why does this lot of calamity so frequently, so inexplicably, fall to the virtuous and unoffending; but the mystery must remain unsolved till mind expands in the boundless light and surpassing knowledge of a future exist

ence.

When I was a little child I lived with my parents in a small town in the north of Ireland; it was shortly after the fearful struggle of an oppressed people against the oppressors, in '98. There was still a strong underworking of party feeling-an occasional sparkle of the embers that showed where the fire was smouldering, but not quenched; and in all classes there was an evidence of partizanship, which often gave an unpleasant character to general society. The upper people of the town were decidedly loyal; some of the middle rank doubtful or neutral, and the lower, of all parties, though unheeded, unless some uncommon demonstration of feeling was made for either one side or the other among them.

We were new comers, and had of course little interest in the feuds and factions of the place; but we soon found acquaintances, and among the most attentive of these was a family called Williams, consisting of the father, a jocular easy-going man, enjoying some trifling place in the revenue, and the distinction of being lieutenant of the M-Yeomanry; the mother, a proud, flighty, nervous, melancholy woman, of uncertain temper; a grown-up daughter, sensible, but rather disposed to toadyism of the Rector's sister-in-laws, widow ladies (being the great people of our vicinity), and two or three wild, halfeducated, good-humored boys, between fourteen and twenty.

My mother often visited Mrs. Williams; more, I believe, from compassionating her ill health, and pity for the many privations endured in a situation beneath her original standing, than from any pleasure she could take in the querulous gossip, or tedious details of the poor woman's daily life, and nervous conceits, and fancies. They lived in a long, rambling, old-fashioned house, one of a row all similar, facing the principal street, and not very distant from ours;

and frequently during the tiresome morning and evening visits in which I accompanied my mother, as there were no young children to play with, they used to send me to sit on a stone bench by the front door, that I might while away the time by looking at the passersby in the street, knowing, according to the strict rules of those days, there was no fear of my stepping beyond the prescribed boundaries, or disobeying orders.

There was another stone bench just adjoining Mr. Williams', belonging to the house next door; and there sometimes came a little girl, two or three years older than I; and there our short acquaintance commenced, with the unceremonious confidence of childhood, requiring no artificial mode of bringing our young friendship to ripen in its happy simplicity.

From talking of our toys and plays, after a few meetings, it was natural to speak of ourselves; we were each only children,with this distinction, that she had but a mother, while I was blessed with both my parents. She spoke of this mother with a tender and serious love, remarkable in a child of her age, and also with a sort of mystery that made me, young as I was, curious to see one regarded with so grave and melancholy an affection. At length one late summer afternoon, little Jane proposed to me to go in with her to look at her garden; at first I declined doing so, more from shyness than thinking it wrong to accept her invitation; but as she pressed me very much, I yielded not unwillingly, and leaving our stone seats I followed her through a narrow, damp, brick-paved passage, to a back room, where she stopped and said, opening the door, "But you must first come in to see my mother."

We went into the parlor; it was a dark low-ceiled room, wainscotted with oak, the floor of oak, black and uncovered, but in one place beside a small table, where lay a coarse rug; the table was opposite a wide, very old casement window, the panes in leaden lattice work being of the very smallest diamond-shaped pattern. It was partly open; a pale white rose-bush had grown above the ledge, and a few of its fragrant flowers were visible touched by the golden rays of the setting sun gleaming softly through, and falling on the widowed mother, who sat in a large, old, carved

chair beside the table, whereon she leaned, reading in a black-covered yellow-leafed Bible.

She was an undersized woman, dressed decently but humbly in a rusty black gown and apron; a white handkerchief seen partly under a larger black one that covered her shoulders, and a close widow's cap of thick white linen bound round her head with a very broad black ribbon, scarce relieved the sombre dreariness of her appearance. Contrasting her in my own mind with my own fresh, handsome, blooming mother, I said, this surely cannot be Jane's mother!" for so wan, so corpse-like, so dim-eyed, so fallen in the cheeks, and the single tress of hair visible on the forehead, so silvery white, she seemed to me older than my grandmother; and her broken hollow voice, as if of one ever shedding tears, gave me a cold shuddering sensation which I could not overcome, and from which I felt glad to escape, when, after a short salutation, saying, "I am pleased to see you, dear; I knew your father well," she dismissed us into the garden.

Jane's garden was not much more cheerful looking than her house or mother; it was but a narrow border at the end of a small stone-paved yard; in one corner near the wall grew a pear tree, from which the fruit had been gathered; a bush of southernwood, some rue, mint, balm, a clump of ribbon-grass, and some stiff, primitive sweet-william, completed its floral treasures. The rose-bush by the window was like a remnant of happier times and brighter days, but evidently decaying with other things that told a master's careful hand was missing among them. Of course these thoughts were not suggested at that time; I only felt a generally sad, uneasy lonesomeness-it was in years after, when looking back to what had been so vividly impressed on my memory, I moralized over the sad and simple lesson learned in little Jane's garden.

We soon returned to our seat on the stone bench; I was not called by my mother, she staying later than usual, and Jane and I, wearying even of our childish prattle, gradually became silent, and gazed earnestly together up to the dark blue summer sky, through which a few bright stars were glimmering.

"I often think," said the little girl after a long deep sigh," how happy my

father will be when my mother and I go to heaven."

I gazed at her with a sort of aweher fair pale face, and sad blue eyes, and light hair falling back, uncurled and long, from her upraised head, gave so unearthly an expression to the child, that it was fearful even to me.

"How long since your father, Jane?

"I asked, and stopped short. She turned to me without a tear. "How long since my father went to Heaven? Three years; and mother says we shall soon follow him. My mother will never go out of this door until she is carried to the grave-yard, she says," continued the child solemnly.

"Why, Jane ?" I asked.

"Do you see there?" said she, pointing to a large dark building in the middle of the street, to the left as we sat, but not far from the house, "Do you see the market house?"

"Yes."

"And do you see there on that gable end facing this, a point of stone and something like a ball upon it?" "Yes."

"That is my father's head," said Jane in a low whisper. "You might have seen the evening sun shine on his thin grey hair a little while before you came to live here, but there is nothing but the bones now-my mother will never come out of this door for fear of looking at my father's head."

Oh, how I shivered and trembled, young as I was, and held Jane's hand fast in mine, and stared up at the black old Market House, unable in the darkness to distinguish the object of my terror!-I asked no more questions; and I felt relieved as if taken from the depths of a dungeon, when I heard my mother's voice calling me, and as I grasped her hand in safety, and hastened with her home.

Our sitting room was an upper chamber: how cheerful it seemed as I looked around after tea!-a little fire burning in the grate, for it was late in summer, and rather chilly; my father a most pleasant and sweet-tempered man, sitting at one side of the fire, my mother sewing by a table opposite, and I with my low chair between them-my pet dog a pretty terrier, lying at my feet. How comfortable we were! I felt it without knowing why, as I glanced at the ruddy glow of light on