in

up the point; and Annie, after having been summoned, scolded, and made to cry, was left peace if it were peace to roam away to weep over a recollection of one loved being, to recal every word, look, and tone, and to try to build a Future out of the fragments of the Past.

She had loved Alphonse De Villeneuve, with the wild aimless love of a very young and very inexperienced girl. She had formed no plan, she had never calculated how it was to terminate, or that it must terminate at all. Love threw its golden mist over the landscape of life, and she sought not to look beyond it.

In older or more experienced hearts love seems only a guide to Hymen's temple, and the thought of love and marriage are very properly simultaneous, with the cautious daughters of cautious mammas. There is the virtue of Innocence, and the virtue of Experience. The former loves, and thinks of nothing beyond the all-sufficient delight of loving -young Eden of the heart! - the Eden before sin had glided beneath the dewy flowers;

and this Love is pure, pure as Eve, bending over her first mirror, and enamoured of her own loveliness. To such, Love, in its first pure worship, the thought of houses and settlements, and wedlock, never comes; and yet this first offering of the heart is pure as the first snowdrop that heralds in the spring. In her early and almost child-like ignorance, the young girl loves him, who never hints at marriage, but what is extreme innocence in the dawn of life, would cease to be so when the rosy veil is withdrawn, and she looks at life, knowing what life is.

As yet Annie was guiltless of such bitter knowledge. De Villeneuve had half promised to contrive to write to her, and on that hope (languidly dropped by him, to quiet her dangerous anxiety) her poor heart had anchored, and her time was spent in the feverish expectation, and the wearing disappointment. Then, too, the secrecy she had vowed preyed upon her in her solitude. She roamed about to while away the time after the post had come in, (in vain for her!) and while roaming she

would fancy that perhaps during her absence a letter might come by some private channel, arrive in her absence, and De Villeneuve's secret be betrayed. Then, wild with fear, she would rush back to the house, to weep over her causeless alarm.

Another time she would feel sure he would come; some dream (false prophet) would tantalize her with an assurance that he would come; and she would dress with all the care of a fond girl, and sit down to watch, (weariest of weary tasks!); then every distant sound of wheels or horses' feet would make her temples throb, her colour change, her heart beat, and the large tears would fill her eyes, and she would wish to die!

Oh, vain and guilty men of the cold world! for the brief amusement of your callous hearts and empty heads, what long, long anguish do you doom to your poor victims !

There was some similarity in the fate of Ellen and Annie, both disappointed in the brightest of hopes, both bankrupts in the richest of treasures- the heart's first Love. But Ellen was strong in principle, and Annie,

alas, only so in impulse. Annie hoped, and wept, and watched, and would not yield, would not believe she could have loved in vain. Ellen wiped away some natural tears, she prayed for strength, and it was given; she rent her thoughts from Julian, to force them into the channels of duty, charity, and other affections. Ellen was calm, meek, and, if possible, more sweetly kind to all around her; Annie grew fitful, peevish, and idle.

Mr. Lindsay's country neighbours flocked to visit him. There were long morning visits to be paid and received, and long drives to be taken to tedious dinner-parties, or similar entertainments to be given at the Hall.

Ellen forced herself to bear her part in these fatiguing ceremonies with quiet cheerfulness, and redoubled her meek and affectionate attentions to her uncle and all his household.

Julian and Augusta were engrossed by each other, Annie by herself, Miss Tibby by the Past, Mr. Grunter by his literary fame, Mrs. Lindsay by turning her "holiday," as she

called any time spent away from home, to account. That is, as at the Rectory household, arrangements chiefly engrossed her; away from it, she turned, mended, and remade all her old things, and knitted new stockings for herself and the rector.

Quite satisfied now that Augusta's destiny was decided, she sensibly dwelt only on the real and great advantages of the match. She resolved, with regard to Ellen, to leave it to Time, and the pride and sense which she knew she possessed, to cure the wound she had concealed from others, but, as the French song says, "On ne trompe ni les yeux ni le cœur d'une mère." Augusta, settled, she meant to commence her manœuvres for making Ellen Lady Riskwell, and she had already begun to turn over in her own mind a match between Annie and Mr. Grunter! Then, too, her last accounts from Eugenia, (her daughter in India) were, that her husband, the Judge, was in wretched health; the matchmaker already anticipated her widowhood, and began to think who, among her many London acquaintances,

would suit the widow.