It was the dead hour of the night. The room was a high wainscotted apartment, with furniture of a rich but antique pattern. The pale moonlight streaming through a curtained window, and struggling with the subdued light of a candle placed in a corner, disclosed the figure of a sick man extended on a bed, wrapped up in an unquiet slumber. By his side sat a care-worn, though still. beautiful woman, gazing anziously on his face, and breathlessly awaiting the crisis of the fever -for it was now the ninth day since that strong man had been prostrated by the hand of disease, and during all that time he had raved in an incessant delirium. He had at length dropped into an unquiet slumber, broken at first by starts and moans, but during the last hour he had been less restless, and he now lay as still as a sculptured statue. His wife well knew that ere morning the crisis would be past, and she waited, with a woman's affection, breathlessly, for the event. Aye, though few women had been wronged as Emily Walpole had been wronged, she still cherished her husband's image, for he was, despite his errors, the love of her youth. praved morals. Above all, by abandoning his profession, he condemned himself to comparative idleness. He now began to be tortured by ennui, and sought any excitement to pass away time. The harpies who infest society, and with the appearance of gentlemen have the hearts of fiends, now marked him for their prey; and his open and generous nature made him their victim in a comparatively short space of time. We shall not trace his downward progress. It is al ways a melancholy task to mark the lapse from virtue of a noble and generous character, and how much more so when the heart of a wife is to be broken by the dereliction from rectitude. Emily saw the gradual aberration of her husband, and though she mourned the cause, no word of reproach escaped her lips, but by every gentle means she strove to bring back her husband to the paths of virtue. But a fatality seemed to have seized him. He was in a whirlpool from which he could not extricate himself. He still loved his wife, and more than once, when her looks cut him to the heart, he made an effort to break loose from his associates; but they always found means to bring him back ere long. Thus a year passed. His fortune began to give way, Few girls had been more admired than for he had learned to gamble. As his losses Emily Severn. But it was not only the became more frequent, his thirst for cards beauty of her features and the elegance of became greater, until at length he grew sulher form which drew around her a train of len and desperate. He was now a changed worshippers: her mind was one of no ordi- man. He no longer felt compunction at the nary cast, and the sweetness of her temper wrongs he inflicted on his sweet wife, but if lent an ineffable charm to all she did. No her sad looks touched his heart at all, they one was so eagerly sought for at a ball or a only stung him into undeserved reproaches. pic-nic as Emily Severn, and at her parental He was become harsh and violent. Yet his fireside she was the universal favorite. It poor wife endured all in silence. No rewas long before she loved. She was not to crimination passed her lips. But in the solibe misled by glitter or show. She could tude of her chamber she shed many a bitter only bestow her affections where she thought tear, and often at the hour of midnight, when they were deserved, and it was not until she her husband was far away in some riotous met Edward Walpole that she learned to sur-company, her prayers were heard ascending render her heart. for him. Edward Walpole, when he became the husband of Emily Severn, was apparently all that a woman could wish. He was warmhearted, of a noble soul, kind, gentle, and ever ready to waive his own selfish gratification at the call of duty. But, alas! he had|| one weakness, he did not act from principle. His generous deeds were the offspring of a warm heart, rather than of a regulated intellect. As yet he had never been placed in circumstances which severely tried his principles. But, about a year after his marriage, he fell heir to the large property of a maiden aunt, and at once his whole style of life was altered. His accession of wealth brought him in contact with society in which hitherto he had never mingled, where the polish of factitious politeness often hides the most de Two years had now elapsed, and the last one had been a year of bitter sorrow to Emily. At length her husband came home one night an almost ruined man. He had been stripped at the gambling table of every cent of his property, over which he had any control, and he was now in a state almost approaching to madness. Before morning he was in a high fever. For days he raved incessantly of his ruin, cursing the wretches by whom he was plundered. Nine days had passed, and now the crisis was at hand. The clock struck twelve. As sound after sound rung out on the stillness and died a way in echoes, reverberating through the house, the sick man moved in his sleep, until, when the last stroke was given, he opened his eyes and looked languidly and vacantly around. His gaze almost instantly met the face of his wife. For a moment his recollection could be seen struggling in his countenance, and at length an expression of deep mental suffering settled in his face. His wife had by this time risen and was now at his bedside. She saw that the crisis was past, and as she laid her hand on his, and felt the moisture of the skin, she knew that he would recover. Tears of joy gushed from her eyes and dropped on the sick man's face. "Heavenly Father, I thank thee!" she murmured at length, when her emotions suffered her to speak, while the tears streamed faster and faster down her cheek, "he is safe. He will recover," and though she ceased speaking, her lips still moved in silent prayer. The sick man felt the tears on his face, he saw his wife's grateful emotion, he knew that she was even now praying for him, and as he recalled the wrongs which he had inflicted on that uncomplaining woman, his heart was melted within him. There is no chastener like sickness; the most stony bosom softens beneath it. He thought of the long days and nights during which he must have been ill, and when his insulted and abused wife had watched anxiously at his bedside. Oh! how he had crushed that noble heart; and now this was her return! She prayed for him who had wronged her. She shed tears of joy because her erring husband had been restored, as it were, to life. These things rushed through his bosom and the strong man's eyes filled with tears. giveness. But with a glad feeling at heart -a feeling such as she had not had for years she enjoined silence on him, and sat down again by his bedside to watch. At length he fell again into a calm slumber, while the now happy wife watched at his bedside until morning, breathing thanksgivings for her husband's recovery, and shedding tears of joy the while. When the sick man awoke at daybreak, he was a changed being. He was now convalescent; he was more; he was a repentant man. He wept on the bosom of his wife, and made resolutions of reformation which, after his recovery, through the blessings of God, he was enabled to fulfil. The fortune of Walpole was mostly gone, but sufficient remained from its wreck, to allow him the comforts, though not the luxuries of life. He soon settled his affairs and removed from his splendid mansion to a quiet cottage in a neighboring village. The only pang he felt was at leaving the home which, for so many years, had been the dwelling of the head of his family-the home where his uncle had died-and which had been lost only through his own folly. Neither Walpole nor his wife ever regret-' ted their loss of fortune; for both looked upon it as the means used by an over-ruling Providence to bring the husband back to the path of rectitude; and they referred to it therefore rather with feelings of gratitude than of repining. In their quiet cottage, on the wreck of their wealth, they enjoyed a happiness to which they had been strangers in the days of their opulence. A family of lovely children sprung up around them, and it was the daily task of the parents to educate these young minds in the path of duty and rectitude. Oh! the happy hours which they enjoyed in that white, vine-embowered cottage, with their children smiling around them, and the consciousness of a well regu"I know it-I know it," said the repent-lated life, filling their hearts with peace. ent husband, "and to His mercy I look. I-Graham's Mag. cannot pray for myself, but, oh! Emily pray "Emily-dear Emily," he said, "I have been a villain, and can you forgive me? I deserve it not at your hands—but can you, will you forgive a wretch like me?" "Oh! can I forgive you!" sobbed the grateful wife, "yes! yes! but too gladly. But it is not against me you have sinned, it is against a good and righteous God." for me. He has saved me from the jaws of death. Pray for me, dear Emily." The wife knelt at the bedside, and while the husband, exhausted by his agitation, sunk back with closed eyes on the pillow, she read the noble petition for the sick, from the book of Common Prayer. At times the sobs of Emily would almost choke her utterance, but the holy words she read had at length a soothing effect both on her mind and that of her husband. When the prayer was over, she remained for several minutes kneeling while her husband murmured at intervals his heart-felt responses. At length she arose from the bedside. Her husband would again have spoken, to beseech once more her for GOD AND HEAVEN. BY J. BOWRING. The silver chord in twain has snapped; The tears are shed that mourned the dead; The twilight dun hath veiled the sun, WOMEN AND MARRIAGE. BY WASHINGTON IRVING. I have speculated a great deal upon matrimony. I have seen young and beautiful women, the pride of gay circles, married-as the world say-well! Some have moved into costly houses, and their friends have all come and looked at their fine furniture, and their splendid arrangements for happiness, and they have gone away and committed them to their sunny hopes cheerfully and without fear. It is natural to be sanguine for the young, and at such times I am carried away by similar feelings. I love to get unobserved into a corner, and watch the bride in her white attire, and with her smiling face, and her soft eyes moving before me in their pride of life, weave a waking dream of her future happiness, and persuade myself that it will be true. I think how they will sit upon the luxurious sofa as the twilight fails and build gay hopes, and murmur in low tones the now unforbidden tenderness; and how thrillingly the allowed kiss, and the beautiful endearments of wedded life, will make even their parting joyous, and how gladly come back from the crowd and the empty mirth of the gay to each other's quiet company. I picture to myself that young creature, who blushes even now at his hesitating caress, listen eagerly for his footsteps as the night steals on, and wishing that he would come; and when he enters at last, and, with an affection as undying as his pulse, fold her to his bosom, I can feel the very tide that goes flowing through his heart, and gaze with him on her graceful form as she moves about him for the kind offices of affection, soothing all his unquiet cares and making him forget even himself in her young and unshadowing beauty. I go forward for years, and see her luxuriant hair put soberly away from her brow, and her girlish graces ripening into dignity, and her bright loveliness chastened with the gentle meekness of maternal affection. Her husband looks on her with a proud eye, and shows her the same fervent love and the delicate attentions which first won her, and fair children are growing about them, and they go on full of honor and untroubled years, and are remembered when they die! daily move across my path; and I would whisper to them, as they glide by, joyously and confidently, the secret of an unclouded future. The picture I have drawn above is not peculiar. It is colored, like the fancies of the bride; and many, oh! many an hour will she sit, with her rich jewels lying loose in her fingers, and dream such dreams as these. She believes them too-and she goes on for a while undeceived. The evening is not too long while they talk of plans for happiness, and the quiet meal is still a pleasant and delightful novelty of mutual reliance and attention. There comes soon, however, a time when personal topics become bare and wearisome, and slight attentions will not alone keep up the social excitement. There are long intervals of silence,and detected symptoms of weariness, and the husband, first, in his manhood breaks in upon the hours they were wont to spend together. I cannot follow it circumstantially. There comes long hours of unhappy restlessness, and terrible misgivings of each other's worth and affection, till, by-and-by they can conceal their uneasiness no longer, and go out separately to seek relief, and lean upon the hollow world for the support which one who was their lover and friend could not give them! Heed this, ye who are winning, by your innocent beauty, the affections of high minded and thinking beings. Remember that he will give up the brother of his heart, with whom he has had even a fellowship of mind; the society of his cotemporary runners in the race of fame, who have held with him a stern companionship; and frequently, in his passionate love, he will break away from the arena of his burning ambition, to come and listen to the "voice of the charmer." It will bewilder him at first; but it will not long. And then, think you that an idle blandishment will chain the mind that has been used, for years, to an equal communion? Think you he will give up, for a weak dalliance, the animating themes of men, and the search into the mysteries of knowledge? Oh, no, lady! believe me, no! Trust not your influence to such light fetters. Credit not the old fashioned absurdity that woman is a secondary lot, ministering to the necessities of her lord and master. It is a higher destiny I would award you. If your immortality is as complete, and your gift of mind as capable as ours, I would put no wisdom of mine against God's allotment. I would charge you to water the undying bud, and give it a healthy culture, and open its beauty to the sun; and then you may hope that, when your life is bound with another, you will go on equally, and in a fellowship that shall pervade every earthly in I say I love to dream thus when I go to give the young bride joy. It is the natural tendency of feeling touched by loveliness, that fears nothing for itself; and if ever I yield to darker feelings, it is because the light of the picture is changed. I am not fond of dwelling upon such changes, and I will not minutely now. I allude to it only because I trust that my simple page will be read by some of the young and beautiful beings who "terest. |