cing at her reflected form. She heeded not the lustre of her jewels, or the folds of her drapery; her heart was full of Julian's sorrow, though that sorrow sprang from his love for another.

Poor Ellen! All was gaiety around, and this brilliant crowd was met to celebrate her birthday! As this recollection occurred to her, she felt a choking sensation in her throat, and a wild wish, (she, the calm and self-possessed) to throw herself on the ground, and weep. But Ellen seldom yielded to her emotions; and, pressing her hands upon her bosom, she resolved not to weep, and she wept not.

Yet Memory retraced her last birthday, with its careless joy, and boundless hope, and Reason asked what had made a desert of that smiling region-her young heart. Although alone, she blushed as Conscience whispered"Love. Yes, hopeless, unrequited love!" She hurried on, as if to escape from that degrading conviction. Wreaths and chaplets of flowers, and silken draperies, and the word

"Ellen" formed in variegated lamps, met her view; and laughs, and music, and "light echoes of feet" stole on her ear. And Moore's wild and touching lament on his own birthday, the melancholy truth of which must have wakened the echoes of all hearts, seemed to set itself to the distant music, as she murmured :—

"My birthday! what a different sound
That word had in my youthful ears;
And how, each time the day comes round,
Less and less white its mark appears!
When first our scanty years are told,
It seems like pastime to grow old;
And, as we count each shining link,
That Time around us binds so fast,
We little think

How hard that chain will press at last!"

Poor Ellen! already these links were galling and heavy. She passed through all the lighted and decorated rooms; Julian was not to be found. She took up a small lamp, and glided down stairs. She opened the door of the library; she was about to retreat, for the room was wrapt in darkness, when the light of her lamp was reflected back, from the bright fancy armour Ivanhoe wore. She saw

him leaning against a window, apparently buried in sad thought.

The darkness in which she found him, and his complete abstraction, spoke to her kind heart of so much misery, that tears rose to her eyes. She put down her lamp, drew near him, gently took his hand, and said, "What ails you, Julian ?"

Julian tried to speak calmly, but his voice betrayed him. Finding the effort vain, he turned round; the rays of the lamp fell on his face, which was so deadly pale, and his eyes so full of fierce fire, that Ellen uttered a cry.

"What is it? tell me, Julian."

"I have nothing to tell, Ellen; only I am miserable."

"Why?"

"You know, you must know how I love Augusta!"

Ellen's heart sank; she had suspected it, but he had never spoken to her before in this strain.

"She has slighted, insulted me; she hates, she despises me!"

"What have you done?"

66

Nothing, Ellen, nothing, by Heaven!" Ellen smiled; it was a faint smile, and it played over her pale Madonna face, like moonlight over that of some enshrined virgin. "What have you left undone, then ?"

"Nothing: I thought, of course, she would dance the first set with me, and, therefore, I did not formally ask her ......"

66

Why did you think it of course she would dance with you?"

...

"Why ... why because I thought she preferred dancing with me......."

66

And, therefore, you took no trouble about

her?"

66

Oh, Ellen! how strangely you misconstrue! I felt sure she meant to dance with me."

"Then let this be a lesson to you, Julian, never to feel sure of any favour from her, till you have taken all proper trouble to secure it. Few women like such certainty, and Augusta least of all."

"Oh, but she has been so heartless, so cruel, so slighting!"

"She considers that you slighted her; however, I am come from her."

"From her! Ellen, dearest, did you say from her! I fancied it was only your own kind thought."

Ellen grew paler, but replied:

'I come from her; she bids me say she forgives you, and she invites you for the next quadrille."

66

Oh, what a darling girl! What a generous forgiving angel she is! How I love you, for your kind office, sweet sister Ellen!" and he threw his arms round her, and embraced her fondly. "Go, dear Ellen, tell her I will come directly. Bless her, thank her!"

Was this the exquisite, the indifferent, fault-finding Julian, of a few months past? He who had scarcely betrayed a preference through half a season? The same; but Love and Jealousy, (Love's prime minister) have made many such changes. They have made the timid brave, the flirt faithful, the dull bright, the bright dull, and the self-admiring coxcomb a self-forgetting worshipper; and,