Oh, Ellen, dearest, what is it?" sobbed the affectionate girl. "While I have been idly dreaming such happy dreams, what dreadful reality has befallen my best friend? Oh! I will die, I will die, to think I was not there to comfort her!"

Ellen sate down by Annie, briefly told the tale of dread and sorrow, and found comfort in the sanguine prophecies of the young prietess of hope.

"Ah! he shall recover-he shall recover !" sobbed Annie; and at this moment De Villeneuve and Mr. Jobb were heard in the hall.

Ellen, hastily kissing Annie's peach-like cheek, said, "I cannot quit the sufferer while I am permitted to remain by him. I can comfort none. Go you, dear Annie, to mamma, and Augusta-to Miss Tibby, and Mr. Grunter."

"Mr. Grunter, what ails him?"

"He has met with a sad accident, but is doing well; go from me, to solace all. I hear the surgeon: if I do not take my place by

Julian's bed, perhaps it will be denied me;" and she hastily glided back to Julian's bed-side.

Jobb stopped for a moment to see if he had any chance of a new patient in Annie, but, finding it a hopeless case, he passed on. De Villeneuve paused. There was something so child-like and naïve in the smile and blush that struggled on Annie's cheek, at his approach, with the tears yet in her eyes, that the poet's mind took a rapid and new sketch of the picture; and, when rushing almost joyfully towards him, she caught his hand in both hers, and said,—“ Dear Alphonse, there is hope and comfort now, for sorrow and danger cannot stay when you are here," the man of pleasure sank on a seat beside her, and, throwing his arm round her waist, tried to rest her head upon his bosom.

"Beautiful Annie!" he said; "does she love him so well? Is it such joy, such comfort, to see her poor Alphonse? What has she thought of, what has she dreamt of, since he left her last night? Has she repented

denying him one kind kiss?-will she atone now?"

Moment of subtle rapture, of rainbow beauty, too delicate in thy loveliness for the softest strain of the poet, the lightest tints of the painter!-moment to which the heart ever looks back with an undefined longing -first moment when the secret, yet pure love of a young girl forgets its incessant struggle with the thousand timidities and superstitions and the pride that hovers round it, when she for one instant forgets that, in her chaste creed, a moment's indulgence of her maiden fondness would make her seem, to her own heart and in her saint-like and dreamy fancy, even to his, unworthy to be loved; when her heart, like a bird bursting a thousand silken meshes, flies to his bosom, and for one brief instant she weeps in his arms! Ah, what smiles can ever again translate such rapture, as that which ebbs from her heart in those balmiest tears!

Poor Annie! all unconsciously she has tasted life's costliest joy! For one moment, which seemed an age of bliss, her burning cheek rested on De Villeneuve's bosom.

"Let us leave this room, dearest," he said. "Come with me into the library-there we shall be alone. Here the nurse, the surgeon may interrupt us; we are not secure, my love. Come! that cheek, in its warm blush, promises me the kiss so long denied...." But his words had broken the spell. nurse, the surgeon......" Ah, had she really known so wild, so all-forgetting a joy as a moment had taught her, when in the next room Julian lay in danger, and Ellen watched by him in tears!

"The

She tore herself from De Villeneuve's arms -she seemed a monster to herself.

Now!" she said, "now! when Julian may be dying, and when Ellen's eyes are dim with

weeping, and her

Oh no, not now!

cheeks livid with terror! Alphonse, you have not seen her, or if you have, you do not love her as I do! She, the calm, the stately, the blooming Ellen, she looks the spectre of herself-her white lips quiver, and large tears roll, unconsciously to herself, down cheeks blanched by a few hours, as others are by

years of suffering. Dearest, she must love him as I love you."

As Annie spoke, De Villeneuve yielded to her wish, and more suddenly than even she expected, withdrew his arm, and rose. The momentary thraldom was at an end. Annie was as nothing to him. What is the brief passion of the senses, compared to the deep love of the heart, the worship of the mind? With most natures the latter feelings ingulf all else; and few men, adoring Ellen as De Villeneuve really did, would have seen a charm in Annie.

But Annie's love flattered the omuiverous vanity of the French poet. Her beauty and innocence fascinated his senses; and her passionate devotion, contrasted with the coldness of Ellen, reconciled him to himself. But, as Annie spoke, all his passion for Ellen returned, fanned by jealousy into a wilder flame. And here we trace the triumph of the ideal over the actual, in a man of powerful imagination. Annie, in her tearful and loving beauty- the breathing, blushing Annie-was unseen beside the faint image of Ellen, which her simple words had conjured up.