"It was in ignorance of I sometimes caught his eye fixed upon me with a savage and suspicious glance, which in its turn awoke suspicion. He had been acquainted with my cousin, it seemed, before she came to London; and I understood that a day or two after my first meeting her, he had offered himself to her, and been resolutely rejected. This circumstance made of course no difference in our external behavior to each other, but I saw that it rankled deeply in his heart; for neither affected to conceal from himself that I was the cause of his refusal.

with many threats, by one of the servants, and the connected with that name. I wish you good-morncarriage drove on, I following closely.

As we set forward, Lord D. put his head out of the window: "I say, Pulteney!" called the good-natured nobleman, quite too indolent to be at all excited by the adventure, “when we get to town, I'll have you made a Bow-street officer. Your manner of taking thieves is really beautiful. Have a pinch of snuff?" "Your lordship," said I, as I took his box," evinces such a charming coolness on the occasion, that I will allow you the pleasure of catching your own thieves for the future."

My affair with the foot-pad gave me quite a renown in London. My courage and ingenuity were talked of every where, and there happening to be at that time no three-head savages in town, I was a decided lion for a day and a half.

I called some time after to pay a visit to Rafe. He received me with a painful embarrassment, which I attributed to our relation in the matter of my cousin. While I was sitting with him, a servant came in with a letter in his hand: "Here is a letter, sir, addressed to Mr. Harford, which was directed to be left at this house."

Rafe colored deeply, but took the letter, and said quietly" Yes, I will give it to him." Affecting not to observe his disordered looks, I rose and took my leave.

ing."

MEANWHILE my sweet cousin and myself continued to meet daily, and my affection for her grew stronger and purer as our intimacy increased; for the unsullied virtues of her character fempered passion with a kind of veneration. In her behavior to me, there was none of that capriciousness or affectation with which most ladies think it discreet to treat their lovers, but a perfect trustingness of love-a confidence which reposed all upon my sincerity, without a doubt that any could be abused. In company I was always by her side, and when she chose to decline society, my even

In due time, I was summoned to the Old Bailey at the trial of the foot-pad for felony. I had finished my evidence, and was leaving the bar, when I saw a man standing near one of the pillars, enveloped in a large cloak, with heavy hair, manifestly false, over his forehead, and the lower part of his face concealed by his hat. His eyes were fixed upon me with a ferocious glare, and I knew in a moment that I had encountered that glance before. I paused involuntarily: “Can that be Rafe?" thought I," that look belongs to no one else; but what can he be doing here?" I walked toward him to ascertain if my suspicions were cor-ings were constantly passed at her house. I shared rect, when he turned quickly round and presented his back to me. I left the court-room immediately, but that circumstance suggested a clue explanatory of the difficulties which had puzzled me before.

the envy of all my acquaintance, and was glad to find that the prospect of our alliance was agreeable to all her friends; every visit that I made, her mother observed with increased perspicuity the singular resem

As I was going through the outer hall of the ses-blance between the cousins, and the Viscount, her sions-room, I was joined by Lord Wilford, who, having been in the carriage of Lord D. on the night that it was stopped, had been requested to attend as a wit

ness.

"Unless my memory is singularly deceptive," said his lordship," that man resided some years ago near my estates in Lancashire. And if that opinion be correct, he is now being tried under an assumed

name."

"Would you," said I, "be likely to remember the name which he formerly bore, if it were mentioned ?" "I am certain that I should." "Was it any thing like Harford."

"The same, beyound a doubt. I am sure of it, on account of its resemblance to Hertford, for I recollect having noticed formerly the similarity of the two names. But, have you known him before?"

"I have not," said I; "but I had some suspicions

father, begged it to be clearly understood how entirely he approved of my whole conduct on the day that I first met my cousin; and seven times a week, when the cloth was removed after dinner, demonstrated in the most satisfactory manner, precisely how it was that he became separated from his daughter, pulling out his repeater every time at the same point in the story, and tracing the localities on the table with his finger moistened with wine.

For my part I was as happy as the craving fancy could have pictured. My life was a dream of joy; there was nothing in the present to detract from my delight, and nothing in the future to cast a shade over my enjoyment, and I gave myself up with a delightful intoxication to the

"Sensations sweet Tingling the blood, and felt along the heart,"

which awaited me wherever I turned. It is in love only that man rests in the present; under all other conditions of his being, he looks forward or looks back. That heaven is love, explains therefore the meaning of an "eternal now;" for endless time would be to the heart a changeless eternity.

Two or three weeks had thus past on when I called one morning upon my cousin, and was struck by the unusual agitation and restraint of her manner. I asked immediately the cause of her discomposure, and begged that if there was any thing which it was in my power to remove, she would suffer me to know it.

Nothing," said she, with a sadness of voice, and fixedness of look, which convinced me that there was a great deal.

"Are you going to Lady Belford's to-night?"

"I am not ;" and there was a dead pause. I thought, too, that I saw a slight tear in her eye.

"What is the matter, my dear cousin? Have I of fended you? Have I done any thing wrong? Tell me, for heaven's sake, the cause of your extraordinary manner. I am miserable in this horrid doubt."

"It is nothing ;" and her eye had a reproaching sorrow which convinced me that I was the cause of her sadness. "Had we not better join my mother, up stairs?"

"Sir:-Of the circumstances as to which inquiry is made in the note with which I am this moment honored, your memory must be capable of supplying you with a more detailed account than I am able to afford. It is sufficient for me to say that intelligence of certain recent events, of which the actor cannot easily be conceived to be ignorant, having reached the ears of my family and myself, renders it impossible that your visits to any member of my family should be longer continued. Any doubt which might have remained in my mind as to the certainty of my supposition, is dispelled by your note.

I have the honor to be, &c.

SIDNEY.

P. S. It may be proper to say that Miss Sidney suggested, and approves, the determination which is now communicated."

I read this enigmatical letter again and again without being able to devise what "events" it could possibly allude to. The last sentence, especially, baffled my imagination to explain. I addressed another note to my uncle, assuring him of the total error under which I was convinced that he labored, and earnestly desiring a more explicit understanding before a course of conduct was adopted which might be fatal in its results. The letter came back unopened.

My pride was now irritated. Conscious of the innocence and propriety of my entire conduct, and feel

There, too, I met from both parties with the same silence and coldness. I endured it for a few moments, and then left the house, overwhelmed with perplexity and distress. I could not form the faintest conjecture as to the reason of this strange reception. I calleding the deep injustice which was done me by accrethe next day, and was told that the ladies were not at home; as I had seen them in the drawing-room, from the opposite side of the street, my surprise and anxiety were doubly increased. On both the following mornings the reply was the same. I could sustain it no longer. I sat down and addressed a note to Lord Sid-room, I strolled out to Lady B.'s, where there was a

ney.

diting suspicions of baseness before an opportunity of confuting them had been permitted, I armed myself with resentment to sustain the distress which the disrupture of affection occasioned. About a week after this, during which time I had scarcely once left my

small party. I had a faint hope that I might at least see my cousin there, or perhaps hear from some one an explanation of the mysterious conduct of my uncle's family. No one who seemed likely to give me any satisfaction was present. I walked through the rooms which had so lately been made bright by her presence, and the gay sounds of merriment which smote my ears, jarred upon my feelings with a distressing contrast. I stood upon the very spot which we had oe

"My Lord:-Three times on as many successive days have I called at your house, and three times have I been repulsed from the door. I pretend not to conceive that these denials have been accidental. If any change has taken place in the inclinations of Miss Sidney since that time in which I presumed that my visits were not wholly disagreeable, or if for any reason your Lordship has ceased to approve of the foot-cupied together on that night when all had been joy

ing on which I have hitherto been allowed to stand in your family, I beg that I may be informed of what resolution has been taken, and I shall submit to itwith what feelings, it becomes me not to say. Whether it be fact or suspicion, I think that I am entitled to request that your Lordship will let me know to what cause I am to attribute the very marked alteration in the feelings with which my visits are regarded, that I may at least be relieved from the painful ignorance in which I now find myself.

I have the honor to be,

Your Lordship's obedient servant,

HENRY PULTENEY."

and the ignorance which I had of the circumstances ous and glad. How changed was our relation now! which caused the change, left me the prey of harrowing conjecture.

I was roused from the reverie into which I had fallen, by the voice of Lady B. at my side. She said in a whisper-"Your cousin is very ill."

"Ill!" said. I. Good God! what can the matter be?"

"Hush! There is some dreadful mistake I am afraid; but what it is, I cannot imagine. You have done nothing?"

"Oh! nothing. I love my cousin with a devotion which no language can express. Every thought of my heart is her's. I could not do any thing to offend In a few minutes, I received the following answer: her. Do try, my dear lady, to find out this distressing

"Ah! I see how it will end; what a madman is complaining grief, and her silent anguish ; I beheld, my uncle!" and I walked out of the house.

I sent one of my servants the next day to Westmoreland, to gather all the information which he could as to the changes in my cousin's health, and to send me daily accounts; I chose to remain in town myself, to pursue some investigations which I had on foot for discovering what occurrences those were which my uncle alluded to in his note to me. It was manifest that the mistake into which he had been led, was the result of a deep plot on the part of some one; but by whom it had been laid, and how it had been conducted, was more than I was yet able to understand.

pale and sad, that face which had so often been turned to me in perfect happiness and love; I remembered that a word might have prevented this. It was now too late.

As I looked towards the castle, I presently saw the shutters of a room drawn to, and the flag which had floated on the tower, taken down. I knew that all was over, and that the glory of the house of Sidney was no more. I sank upon a chair, in agony unutterable. I thought that my frame would be rent asunder by the violence of my emotion.

It is a wise provision of our nature, that some of Meanwhile the accounts from Westmoreland be- those mighty sorrows which fall upon us in life, excame daily more and more gloomy. My cousin was ceed the strength of the sensibilities to grapple with worse-much worse-at length, not expected to live. them. Great griefs lie like sluggish loads upon the I could not endure this horrid distance from the only mind, oppressing but not torturing it; it is only when object of interest in the world to me, which falsified they have become familiarized to the feelings, that we every message long before it reached me. I set off at are able to measure their extent, and taste their full once for the country, leaving every thing in care of a bitterness; it is only when remembrance at her leisure confidential servant, with orders to bring me instant flashes darts from what before has been one globe of intelligence of any thing which he could discover-suffering, that the racking of a loss is commensurate If I could approach Lord Sidney with proofs, it might with its magnitude. There are many misfortunes of not yet be too late to reverse misfortune.

I reached the house where my servant had taken lodgings for me, within sight of my uncle's residence. "Where is John ?" said I.

"Gone up to the castle," said the woman, in a sorrowful whisper, as if her voice at that distance could disturb the sick.

which it may be safely affirmed, that they can never be adequately felt. It was in a dark bewilderment that I existed at this time—a maze of dull despair, through which no clear reality was seen. As I now look back upon it, I wonder that I lived.

On the following day, the servant whom I had left in London, came down. He had detected the mys I walked into the room and threw myself on a chair tery of the iniquity by which such ruin had been in a sort of stupefaction. The servant returned in a wrought. Some one whose presence he had confew moments, and came into the chamber where I stantly traced, but whose name and person he could was. I looked at him in silence. Without appearing not identify, had determined to destroy my character to notice me, he walked nervously round the room in the estimation of my cousin and my uncle, and had once or twice, affected to arrange some articles of fur-arranged a wide and intricate scheme for the purpose. niture, and walked back to the door; as his hand was I listened to the account of my servant with perfect on the knob, his face being turned from me, he stood still for a moment, and then muttered in a hoarse voice "Miss Sidney is dying," and left me.

I arose and approached an open window, which commanded a view of my uncle's residence, and the beautiful landscape around it. The air was mild and silent, the sky clear, and all looked peaceful and pure. And in a scene like this, was my cousin dying! I looked upon the grounds through which she must so often have walked, and upon the house where she now lay breathing her faint and fleeting breath. A visible sadness seemed to hang upon the motionless trees, and float above the silent castle. In a thousand various attitudes and expressions, each distinctly fixed as in marble, the face and figure of my cousin rose upon my mind. And she was dying! She upon whom my every hope was placed;

amazement; it seemed that nothing but a demon's depravity could have suggested such enormous villany, and nothing but an arch-demon's ingenuity have directed its execution. It is not my intention here to unfold this scheme; but it is such, that from the circumstantial evidence which reached my uncle, I could not but allow that he was reasonably justified in concluding my infamy. Yet a single question to me would have dissipated all his convictions.

"Was not your green carriage at my door on the convict's cell, and I swore that while you lived, the evening before Lady Belford's ball?"

RHYMES,

SENT TO A YOUNG LADY WITH A SMELLING BOTTLE, WHICH SHE HAD BORROWED OF THE WRITER.