There was a solemnity in the fond mother's appeal, that threw a damp over my joy; but, when I saw the bright rose blooming on the cheek of my betrothed, and marked the lustre of her beautiful eyes, I attributed Lady Sydney's warning to the anxiety of maternal affection, and almost smiled at her thinking Louisa a sickly plant. The natural docility of this lovely girl, operated upon by her strong affection for my unworthy self, gave me a most despotic empire over her; and I had the weakness of being proud of displaying it even to her mother. How often have I seen the cheek flush, and a tear start into the eye of Lady Sydney, when, to gratify some caprice of mine, her too gentle daughter has neglected some wise precaution relative to her health, which I deemed superfluous, though it was urged with anxiety by the alarmed parent.

Louisa had reproached me for this conduct, saying, "How can you, Harry, make me act, even in trifles, contrary to mamma's advice? I cannot bear to see her look distressed or apprehensive; though I believe there is no cause, for I feel well, quite well, and so happy!"

How her soft lustrous eyes beamed on me with increased tenderness, as she referred to her happiness, implying that I was its source.

continually proposing plans of amusement, in opposition to the watchful care of Lady Sydney. It appeared to me that Louisa's affection for me was most strongly displayed, when it led her to thwart the counsel of one, whose slightest wish she had hitherto joyfully obeyed; consequently, my vanity and selfishness (and I had an undue portion of both,) led me to indulge in this puerile, this unworthy gratification, even at the expense of the feelings of the creature dearest to me on earth.

Lady Sydney, however, bore all my guilty perversity with exemplary patience. It was plain, that seeing the extent of her daughter's attachment to me, she stifled her own sentiments, rather than risk becoming a subject of contention between us; and frequently yielded her better-wiser judgment, in preference to wounding Louisa's feelings, by disputing mine.

Yet, notwithstanding little altercations, or rather a forced submission to my will, how happy was the period that followed the acceptance of my proffered hand! Though we met every day, and passed nearly the whole of it together, still I insisted on Louisa's writing to me; and now, that our engagement was ratified by her mother, she poured forth, with the artless warmth of youthful innocence, the expression of her sentiments. Ay, those were happy days, yet I thought not so then, for I was anticipating the still happier period when I should call this lovely creature mine. How often have I since reproached myself for not having sufficiently prized them? How often have I recalled each word and look of her, whose every word and look gave me rapture. But such is man, never content with the present, always looking to the future, that mysterious future, whose secrets, could he but divine them, would make the present appear blissful.

"It is my dear mother's excessive love for me, that makes her see danger where none exists; yet it is cruel, it is ungrateful of me, not to avoid exciting her apprehensions. I imagine myself in her place and well can I I had no father to consult, a large fortune fancy how I should feel at seeing a stranger at my own disposal, and, as parsimony was come and usurp the authority, the love, all not then among my faults, I gave Lady Sydthat had previously been exclusively mine. ney carte blanche for the marriage settleTo resign this empire over the heart and con- ments. Title deeds were placed in the hands duct of an only child, must be a bitter feeling, of the lawyers, those gentlemen so blamed until time has softened it. Why, then, take by impatient lovers, and commended by pruthis ungenerous pleasure, dear Harry, in put-dent parents, whose disagreeable duty appating your wishes in competition with her's; knowing, as you too well do, that I cannot resist following your's, though I am not ungrateful enough not to suffer a painful sense of remorse while disobeying her's."

When Louisa has thus spoken to me, I have tried to laugh her out of her scruples, calling her mother's precautions absurd, and her remedies the quackeries of an old woman. Many were the stupid pleasantries, and bad jokes, which I lavished on the subject; and derived an idle and a guilty gratification from

rently consists, not only in seeing that no error be committed by contracting parties, but in discovering that some oversight has taken place in the lives of their defunct progenitors,

Jewels and carriages were ordered, our portraits were exchanged, by which I became possessed of the beautiful miniature now before me; all (except the long ringlet of fair hair, and her letters,) that remains to remind me of as lovely and pure a creature, as ever returned to that heaven from which, while

on earth, she seemed an exile. The days of courtship are proverbial for their brevity and sweetness; mine passed with a velocity that now appears like the quick fleeting visions of sleep, though I then often murmured at their slowness. "The twelfth of next month," have I often exclaimed, "oh! would it were arrived, (it was the period fixed on for our marriage ;) how intolerably slow appears the progress of time!" When I thus vented my impatience, Louisa would rebuke me, and say it was wicked, it was ungrateful to Providence, as every hour seemed marked with happiness. Even now, I seem to see her angel face, and to hear the low sweet voice, whose tones were music to my ear, though forty long and dreary years have passed over my head since she was laid in the grave.

We had agreed one evening to go on the water the following day, and to dine at Richmond. Louisa looked forward with almost childish pleasure to this excursion, as she longed to be in the country again, even for a few hours. I despatched my groom with a letter to order dinner to be prepared for us, and we talked over our party with anticipations of delight.

The next morning, the weather was sultry and oppressive, quick shifting and opaque clouds threatened rain, and Lady Sydney proposed the postponement of our excursion to a more favorable day. I fancied I saw disappointment in Louisa's sweet face, and this but why try to evade the avowal ? With the wilfulness that had so frequently led me to oppose the prudent precautions of Lady Sydney, I was now induced to overrule her objections, and to insist on our going. Louisa joined her entreaties, seeing the obstinacy with which I urged my wishes; and we embarked at Whitehall stairs, in high spirits, notwithstanding the alarmed glances with which, from time to time, Lady Sydney regarded the overcast sky.

We passed a delightful day, rambling in the beautiful environs of Richmond; Louisa leaning on my arm, and her dove-like eyes seeking sympathy in mine, at every new feature of the enchanting landscape.

Who that has ever enjoyed the pure hap piness of a walk, in a beautiful country, with the woman he loves, can forget it in after years? Every word she uttered, every change of her lovely face is remembered by me, more freshly, oh! how much more freshly, than any circumstance of my later life. How often have they been recalled, and dwelt on, as only the words and looks of her we have first loved ever are.

a sort of superstitious dread, a shrinking presentiment, that such happiness is too exquisite for this world, and that it cannot endure. My very soul seems to imbibe rapture from the glories of the sky and earth, and to expand in love to the Creator, for endowing me with this extatic feeling for his works. My eyes are gladdened with the all-enchanting scene around us; and you, dearest, are near me to share this happiness! Oh! who can regard that blue sky, and the soft, yet vivid tints, of the many-colored foliage, the verdant lawns, whence spring a thousand odorous flowers, and that limpid river, whose glassy water seems formed to mirror the lovely scenes on its margin, without feeling an adoration for the Power that created them? Yet, in the midst of the tender, overflowing sense of gratitude with which such objects inspire me, is mingled a sadness, as I reflect on the uncertainty of life; and that, in a few hours' notice, we may be summoned to quit this beauteous, joyous earth, the blue and smiling skies, and those dearer to us-oh! how much dearer than earth or sky. Before I knew you, Harry, I often contemplated death, and never with dread; but, now, I shrink from it in dismay; for to leave you would be worse than death."

I chided her for these gloomy forebodings, but she returned to them.

"I have frequently thought," continued she, "that we do not talk of death sufficiently often. What would be said of the unkind friend, who, knowing that a long and inevitable journey must part him for years from some dear, dear object, should neglect to speak of it to her; or to leave her the memory that they had together made preparations for it. It is thus, Harry, that I would wish for us to think of that longer journey, that bitter and fearful separation, death, that the survivor may have the consolation, and a blessed one it is, of knowing that the departed went not forth, without having often thought of, mourned, and prepared for, the inevitable parting. Yet, though I have dreaded death since I have known you, I still think, that has lost any of its charms, or that the eye has blessed are they who die young, ere yet life learned to look on nature without delight, or the heart to kindle at its beauties without gratitude. I met these lines the other day—

Who dies in youth 'scapes many wretched hours,
And goes unschooled in truths long life must learn;
Truths that once known, each fair illusion flies,
Never again to cheat us into joy.

The early dead know not that love can die,
And yet the hearts that cherished it, survive;
They think not smiling friendship can deceive,
Nor that the ties of blood by nature wrought,
Are weak as cords made of the ocean's foam,
Which e'en the first rude fitful blast can break;
Or like snow wreaths that melt before the sun,

"When I feel as now, dear Harry," said Louisa, laying her small white hand on my arm, "the vast goodness of Providence in not! leaving me a single wish unsatisfied, I have Dissolving till no trace is left behind.

which memory brought back old thoughts
and feelings, that I forget I am an old man.
Nevertheless, there is a pleasure, though
it is a very melancholy one, in remembering
the days of our youth, those days when we
could feel-mentally, I mean; for, most as-
suredly, senility is not devoid of its physical
sensations, however its intellectual ones may
be blunted. Let me, then, prolong this lux-awoke me to the dreadful truth.
ury of wo, by recurring again to my poor
lost Louisa. I could not bear that she should
be consigned to "the narrow house" without
my once more looking at that angel face. I
watched an opportunity when her heart-bro-
ken mother had been removed, in a state of
exhaustion, from the chamber of death, for I
dared not meet her there. I entered it with
a heart bowed down by sorrow, and trem-
bling limbs that almost refused to bear their
wretched master.

chimney-piece commenced playing her fa-
vorite air, an air to which we had both often
listened in happy hours. I almost expected
it would awake her, so powerfully did its
sound bring back the past; and for the mo-
ment drive away the fearful reality of the
present. As I gazed on her face, a fly-a
large blue fly-fixed on her pale lip, and this

"What, is she already, even in my presence, to become the prey of such as thou?" cried I, approaching to drive away the odious insect. But it retained its place until my hand came almost in contact with it; and only fled when that hand fell on the lip it would have saved from profanation. Its icy, rigid touch seemed to freeze my blood; and she I loved-yes, loved to adoration-became -oh, God! that I should have felt it-an object of fear.

I rushed from the room in a state of distraction: and a violent brain fever released me, for some weeks, from the consciousness of suffering.

It was early morn, a soft balmy summer's morn, when all nature seemed to awaken with renovated charms, while she, the fairest || of nature's works, was faded forever. Though in London, the little garden into which the windows of the room opened, seemed as vernal and retired as if it belonged to the country. This garden had been the favorite retreat of Louisa; it was filled with plants and rare flowers, the greater part of which had been raised by her own fair hands. They were now in all their blooin, and redolent with fragrance, the dew-drops sparkling on their leaves, while she-oh, God! how fear-ever wrote. ful was the contrast! I drew near the bier,

I never again saw Lady Sydney, for she left England in a short time after her daughter's death: and died at Nice, within six months of the period that consigned Louisa to the grave. Before she quitted London, she addressed to me a mournful, but a kind letter, in which she inclosed the following stanzas, which was found in the desk of my lost and sainted love, and were the last she

and looked on that still lovely face. How THE DYING GIRL TO HER MOTHER.

cold, how marble-like, was its repose; yet
so exquisitely soft was the character of her
beauty, that it more resembled sleep than
death. While I gazed on that countenance,
which the cold, dark grave was so soon to
hide from me for ever, the birds which she
had been accustomed to feed, came gaily
chirping to the window; and even ventured
to pass the sill, chirping still more loudly, as
if to claim their wonted repast. The gaiety
of their notes almost maddened me; and I
rose, like a maniac, to chase them, and close
the windows, which had been opened when
Lady Sydney had withdrawn. Again I turned
to gaze on that cold, pale face, which seemed
to exert a magical power over my senses.
"No, she cannot be gone from me for
ever," said I. "How could I bear existence
without her? How think that hours, days,
weeks, months, years, are to pass away, and
I never more to see her, who was the light
of my eyes, the joy of my heart! Oh! speak
to me, angel of my life! give me some sign
that I am not all, all forgotten!"

Oh! lay me not in the dark vault,
But let me rest my weary head

In some sequester'd verdant spot,
Where the pale moon her beams can shed.

I love to think 'twill shine upon

The turf that soon will hide this breast,
When I, within the silent grave,
Have found forgetfulness and rest.
And let the flowers I loved so much
Be placed around my humble grave,
For, ah! in quitting this fair earth,
What pleased in life I still would crave.
And yet one other boon I'd ask,
Dear mother; when He comes, oh! tell
I dying bless'd him-now is past
The bitterness of death-farewell!

Heigh-ho! how melancholy I am—I did not think I had so much feeling left in my heart; I thought it had all centered in my toe, which has lately been the most sensitive part about me. Bless me! what a rueful figure the too faithful mirror opposite to me reflects! the eyes nearly as red as the cheeks, and the nose redder than either. And this is the face that poor, dear Louisa delighted to look on! She was right; it is better to While I apostrophized the beautiful statue die young than to outlive all one loved, and before me, whose Promethean spark was ex-all that rendered one loveable. She went tinguished for ever, a musical clock on the down to her grave in the bloom of youth and