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was to the soldier like a new existence. To exchange the noise and bustle of a camp for the serenity and stillness of the country; to feel his time and his mind occupied without the feverish excitement of contest, was alone delightful.

"What a forlorn creature," said he, "have I hitherto been! I have had nothing to love or to watch over-I can but just remember my mother, and yet, when my head has been throbbing with pain, I have sometimes wished I could lay it in her lap as I used to when I was a child. But this was only the thought of a moment, and I banished it as unmanly, for I only considered myself ennobled by the ferociousness with which I fought for my country."

"Well," said Alice, smiling, "I suppose you would fight again if could find a leader."

"No," he replied, "not if I can find employment any other way. My views are changed; I have a thousand associations which are new to me. I think I am going back to childhood again. The flowers have the same fragrance that they used to have when I was a boy, and the world seems to me to be just created. I desire no greater happiness than to live with you and your father as I do now, and you have only to say the word, and I will turn my sword into a pruningknife."

It was by such language, uttered almost without thought, that the young couple began to promise endless faith to each other, and Fortunatus was now emboldened to allude to the letter which Alice's brothers had given him, and with her consent he repaired to De Castellon with the sealed letter in his hand. He took it and read it through, then turned a steady eye on the soldier.

"Why have you not delivered it before?" said he.

'My motives," replied De Lancey, "may not have justified this delay but I knew the contents of the letter, and I knew also, that I had no right to expect from you the same confidence in a stranger that your sons had felt."

“And what has now altered the case?" said the father.

The soldier blushed deeply: "I don't know why I should hesitate to speak," said he. "It is the confidence your daughter has placed in me. I have something to begin the world with. I have health and activity. I will serve you with the fidelity and affection of a son, and if, as it may be in the common course of nature, Alice should be left alone with me, I will shield her from every evil."

The eagerness with which he spoke had prevented his attending to the emotions that were struggling in the old man's countenance.

At length he exclaimed, “I see it all. I am no longer a dupe. My dear boys were victims to this fatal legacy. Out of my sight! Away, wretch I"

"What does all this mean?" exclaimed the soldier, with astonishment. "It seemed to

"Ask your own vile heart!" replied De Castellon.

me beyond the chances of war that three sons should fall in one battle.

But you could tell us how it was; you could describe their last agonies and have now come to reap the reward of your treachery!"

De Lancey for a moment stood petrified. It was but a moment. “Old man,” said he," were you my equal in age, or were you any other than you are-but I do wrong to reply. Farewell! we meet no more." Alice had repaired to a little arbour, that which De Lancey had reared for her, and that was already covered with the quick springing vines of a luxuriant climate, to await the success of his communication. Many a foreboding doubt assailed her mind when she cast her eye upon his agitated countenance.

"I come," said he, " to take leave of you for ever."

It was in vain that Alice entreated him to delay his departure from the village.

"My father may relent," said she. But he was resolute. "Had it been common reluctance," he replied," I would have borne with it. I would have crouched like a slave for your sake; but to be suspected of the basest of crimes! Alice, I wish not to shock you by repeating what has passed. If your father tells you, I shall be justified in your opinion. Farewell! henceforth this world is a wilderness to me. With anguish I speak it—we can meet no more."

Bitter, indeed, was the parting. For the first time the hitherto happy Fortunatus felt the true pang of sorrow. The tenderness of friendship had refined and softened his heart, and given it an unwonted susceptibility. Till now he had met the evils of life with an unsubdued spirit. He had faced danger and death in every form; but the tears that he drew from Alice, changed the life-current of his heart.

With slow and lingering steps he quitted the village, wholly unlike the being that had entered it three months before and inquired for the house of De Castellon. Where was now this new-born enthusiasm for every object in nature? With a listless step he trod on the scented wild-flowers as if they were the dry and worthless leaves of autumn. He realized, as many have done before, that it is the light of the mind that throws over nature her verdant and prismatic hues; that gives to the music of the birds its sound of gladness; to the lofty cataract its thunder of eloquence, and to the murmuring waterfall its sweet, low notes of sympathy.

It was not, however, in the constitution of the soldier to cherish melancholy. When he first quitted the village, with his heart swelling with anguish, and his head throbbing with indignation, he felt as if all ties were broken with the human race; but, as he walked slowly on, his pulse beat more temperately. By degrees he answered with something like gaiety to the greeting of the peasants, who accosted him as he passed. The feeling of mortification, which the horrible suspicions of De Castellon had engendered, began to dissipate.

For his future lot he had no anxiety. With his sword he knew he could carve out a living, but the same sentiment came over him that had operated with so many of Napoleon's soldiers-"Wherefore should

we fight? We have no Emperor to fight for!" and he resolved to quit France and seek his fortune elsewhere. There is an energy, રી feeling of resource, of mental power, that is invincible. He who is born with the determination to succeed, will realize that "nothing is impossible."

Years had passed away. The head of the old De Castellon was white with time. The youthful and girlish figure of Alice had assumed the serious deportment of maturer life. Yet any one might have seen that the rose on her cheek had withered before its time. A paleness had settled there, but it was the complexion of sentiment and thought; there was nothing of the sickly hue of melancholy. All Alice had asked of her father was to take care of him, to be the comfort of his old age, and when that was passed to lay down beside her mother's grave, and have strewed on her own, as was the custom of the village, a few emblematic flowers as a token that the lowly tenant had died in "single blessedness."

The internal arrangements of the cottage retained all their comfort and neatness; for though Alice had lost something of the superfluous activity of youth, enough remained for all the purposes of life; but the external appearance had gradually changed. The hedges were untrimmed, and implements of agriculture lay unsheltered on the greensward before the door. The hills and pastures were no longer crowned with luxuriance. All looked as if the master's hand was wanting.

It was a cold evening in November that Alice and her father were seated by the fire. There was an air of comfort in the little apartment that female ingenuity knows well how to give. The floor was covered with a carpet of her own manufacture; and her father's arm chair had been stuffed and rendered commodious by her own contrivance. There was the debility of age and sickness in his appearance, and a crutch lay beside him. Alice read aloud or worked, alternately, as best suited her father. She had just taken her book, when the sound of wheels stopping at the door arrested their attention. man hastily entered, and stood for a moment gazing at the inhabitants; -then, rushing forward, he knelt before the old man, exclaiming, "My father! my father!"

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De Castellon was bewildered, but not so Alice. "It is my brother!" she exclaimed, and hung upon his neck. When the father began to comprehend the scene, that it was, indeed, Philip restored to him, he inquired for Conrad and Edward.

The countenance of Philip changed, and he said, "I only am left to tell you." In the same expressive language the father replied, "Now then, let me die, since I have seen the face of my son!"

Providence had wisely decreed that the sensibilities of life should be blunted by age, and the effervesence of feeling pass away. The old man became calm, and at his usual hour desired Alice to read a chapter in the Bible. Amid tears and sobs she read aloud, but every word called forth the bursting emotions of her heart, and her soul was kindled by living fire from the altar. When she ceased,

a low fervent prayer from the lips of the father followed, and then Alice performed her usual office of putting him to bed, and was again at liberty to throw herself into the arms of her brother. Their conversation was long and deeply interesting. He told her that after the the battle of Waterloo he was conveyed among the wounded to a small farm house, and found that his life was considered worth preserving by the English, among whom he now was that when sufficiently recovered he was put on board a small vessel bound for the West Indies; that they were taken by Spanish pirates, and himself, with three others, put on shore on the coast of South America; that he had earned by daily labour a pittance that kept him from starving, but he had still to contend with weakness and depression.

now," continued he, "Alice, comes the best part of my story. I was one day working on the wharf, when a vessel arrived and a young man sprang on shore that I immediately recognized as a fellow soldier at the battle of Waterloo."

He stopped and looked earnestly at her; the blood rushed to her cheeks.

"Yes, sister," said he, fully comprehending her emotion, "it was our friend Fortunatus. I learnt from him all that had passed. From this moment I felt new energy; my whole nature was changed. He loaded me with kindness. You know his happy faculty of making friends. Several of the officers, who had quitted France and repaired to this country, recognised the brave and warm-hearted soldier. Fortune showered her gifts upon him, and at the end of three years after our first meeting we have returned once more; I, with little more than I carried with me; but my companion rich enough to purchase our whole estate, which, as it proved, we unfortunately bequeathed to him."

"Then he is in France?"

"He is," replied Philip, "and his feelings for you are the same as I see yours are for him; but he will not come here. He cannot forgive my father for his horrible suspicion."

"If they were," said Alice, ingenuously, "all would be forgiven. But tell me, dear brother, how could you remain so long in a strange country, away from us, and not send us word you were living?"

"As to remaining there," said Philip, "there was not much choice in the business. I was taken up on suspicion, and had to work with a chain round my leg; and what good would it have done you to know the miserable condition of your brother? After the arrival of De Lancey, his plan was best, that we should return together as soon as he had accomplished the object of his voyage."

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It was not difficult for the young people to persuade the father, humbled as he was by years, infirmities, and sorrows, how much he had mistaken the character of the soldier. An acknowledgment was all De Lancey asked, and it was no sooner sent than he hastened to the spot. There is little more to add. He purchased a neat cottage about half a mile from the family mansion. It was arranged with simplicity and good taste.

Before the doors are often sporting rosy faced children, and Alice has given to her two eldest boys, Conrad and Edward, the names of her Conscript Brothers.

ADDRESS TO SPRING.

OH, Spring! full many a poet's tongue
Thy loveliness hath sweetly sung,
And hearts have hailed thy balmy reign,
That ne'er shall feel its bliss again!
Yet beauteous still, as when the call
Of Heaven first brought thee upon earth;
Thy blest return inspires to all,
The hymn of praise-the song of mirth.
Oh! beautiful is Summer time,
When Nature smiles in golden prime;
Soft are the blending tints that throw,
O'er Autumn's brow a mellow glow:
But thine is Hope's bright beaming ray,
Youth's first and tender bloom,
Whose charmful grace once past away,
Nought can again resume.

Yet in the sky a cloud appears,
And weeps on earth its balmy tears:
But soon is past the fleeting shower,
And sunshine glistens on the flower.
E'en thus from youth's impassioned soul
Flow forth the tears of feeling;
Till joy returns with warm control,
O'er the fond bosom stealing.

The breath of flowers is borne away;
Where mild Favonian breezes stray;
The lilac waves its perfumed bough,
The may displays its wreath of snow.
The ærial laburnum sheds

Its graceful golden tresses round;
Where the deepening foliage spreads
Shadows o'er the mossy ground.

Oh! while this heart with joy can beat,

Dear Spring! 'twill hail thy influence sweet:
And when it slumbers in the tomb,

Then o'er it thou wilt brightly bloom:
While beauteous still, as when the call
Of Heaven first brought thee upon earth;
The blest return will claim from all,
The hymn of praise-the song of mirth.

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