been her husband, when he left home and family to volunteer for his country's defence.

Lizzie, as she was familiarly called, the daughter, was about nineteen, and was the unfortunate possessor of two qualities which in all ages have subjected their owners more or less to temptation, and often insult. She was very beautiful and very poor.

Albert, the son, a fine, stalwart youth of twenty-two, who had been brought up to the trade of a cooper, was anxious to avenge his father's death, and with full consent of his truly Spartan mother, had enlisted in Colonel McDougal's regiment, and was assigned to Captain Blanchard's company.

Mrs. Brainard, on the arrival of the troops ordered to the defence of New York, had opened a small shop in what is now known as John street, where she managed, with the aid of Lizzie, to earn a comfortable living by making up linen for the officers of the vari

ous corps who occupied the city. As the daughter was assigned to the charge of the shop, the fame of her beauty and attractions soon spread abroad, and customers flocked thither more to enjoy a few moments converse with her, than from any real need of her services as a seamstress; and many were the fulsome compliments and the broad innuendoes to which she had been compelled to listen, from these roystering young men, more than half of whom had received commissions with the sole view of conciliating their families, or securing

their influence, and not from any military or civic qualifications.

More than once she had, with crimsoned cheeks and flashing eyes, been forced to listen to proposals more dishonorable to those who claimed to be men, than to her, whose necessities compelled her to hear them in silence; but the pure, truthful glance of her clear blue eye, and her firm, though modest demeanor, invariably drove them from her, with a feeling of self-abasement known only to the truly guilty.

At length there came one whose admiration was so truthfully expressed-whose conduct in all things was so irreproachable-who was so polite, so courteous, so attentive, she dared to hope that at length she had found one in whom she might confide, the more so, as he had been brought there by her own and only brother.

Captain Edmund Blanchard had heard much of the beauty and fascinations of Lizzie, and knowing that her brother Albert was one of his company, had incidentally (to all appearance) hinted his desire of having some linen made up, and Albert, anxious at once to propitiate his commanding officer, and to serve his mother and sister, had offered to introduce him to the house.

The reader will please to remember, en parenthèse, that in those days many of the commanding officers were no more than the equals of those under him, and

that such a thing as a strictly military discipline was almost unknown throughout the entire army of nearly thirteen thousand men who garrisoned the city, except when in actual service, and often then it was grievously neglected or not attended to.

Albert Brainard was but too happy to introduce his captain to his beautiful sister, of whom he was justly proud, and whom he loved with more than a brother's devotion.

Captain Blanchard was more than pleased with the beautiful girl-he was fascinated, and he embraced every opportunity, and made many almost impossible ones, for visiting the humble shop over which she presided. The sequel need hardly be told, for every reader can imagine it. He was polite, kind, courteous ; and as he showed in a thousand little ways the feelings with which she had inspired him, she could not, unless she had been less than a woman, fail to perceive the impression she had made on him.

She began to draw comparisons between Captain Blanchard and the other officers who visited the shop; she contrasted his quiet, modest, yet pointedly attentive behavior, with the roystering and often insulting conduct and language of others; and as the comparison always ended in his favor, she gradually began to think him worthy of the feelings he had sought to win, and the result was, she gave them to him, in all the truth, and strength, and purity, of a virtuous woman's first love.

It is a cruel thing to have to narrate, but the truth must be told, and that a sad truth, that Lizzie Brainard, whose whole heart, and soul, and feelings had been won by the handsome and gallant young captain, in an evil hour trusted to his honorable vows of intended marriage, which was only postponed on account of the uncertainty of his future, and gave to him that which, once given, could never be recalled.

To say that Edmund Blanchard did not love Lizzie, would be to tell a foul falsehood, for he did, as much as he then thought he was capable of loving anything, and the poor trusting fool, but too happy in that love, had scarce a regret for that sacrifice which she had made, for every feeling of her heart prompted her to repose the most implicit faith and trust in him, and that he would fulfill his promise was no more a subject of doubt to her, than that she was alive; and in that faith and trust, and in his love daily evinced, and as yet showing no change, she found her happiness.

Each day only seemed to strengthen the ties which bound them together, and Albert, who saw the current of affairs, was but too happy to think he had been the means of introducing to his sister one who was so evidently calculated to make her happy. Captain Blanchard, as an evidence of his love for Lizzie, had promoted her brother to the rank of sergeant, soon after the first introduction to the family, and held out to him the promise of further promotion on the occa

sion of the first vacancy in the company-a promise which he soon afterward succeeded in redeeming, and Albert Brainard received his commission as a lieutenant, in the place of an officer dismissed for insulting and striking a woman. For this kindness, brother and sister were equally grateful, and he was looked upon by either almost as an idol.

Such was the position of matters at the period when Edmund Blanchard was first introduced by his brother to Margaret Moncrieffe. On that occasion he had been completely bewitched by her beauty, by her fascinating manners, and, above all, by the prospect which, with her speaking eyes, she had held out to him of a colonelcy, in reward for his treason. She had, even in that single brief interview, effaced almost completely the image of the injured Lizzie, and when he parted from her, he found his greatest pleasure in dwelling upon her bewitching loveliness, her fascinating smile, and the prospective commission. It was, with every thought thus engrossed, he found himself almost unconsciously at the door of Mrs. Brainard's shop, for it had, of late, been his daily habit to call there on some pretext or other, though pretext was scarcely necessary, for Mrs. Brainard looked upon him as her future son-in-law, and Lizzie felt that he was to be her husband, for had she not his promise?

He was received by Lizzie as he ever had been, from the day when she first acknowledged to her heart her