you, Mrs. Jarvis-and I have done so; and if I am beat again I'll tell everybody!" Here she suddenly cast her eyes round the room, and continued: "Look at them! all talking among themselves; why I might have been in this corner all the evening, if you had'nt come over to me; your wooden-nosed minister told me I had no business in the drawing-room at all! Aha! but uncle said I wasn't to be kept out, and I won't!"

As she uttered this, her eyes sparkled, her peach-like cheeks crimsoned; and then, as if seized by some sudden impulse, she bounded from her seat, and, rushing to the piano, speedily filled the room with such a volume of sound, that all conversation was totally suspended. Mrs. Blackstone leaned back in her chair, horror-struck. Maria clasped her fat hands in mute despair: while Julia, making talons of her fingers, seemed inclined for a pouncing movement.

"Audacious!" said the minister, rising with clerical dignity and, striding measuredly to the instrument, he tapped the animated player on the shoulder.

"Nina! what extraordinary-Nina!" But the more he cried, and the faster he tapped, the louder and the faster Nina played, until at length the scene became so ridiculous, that the six elderly merchants' wives exploded in a fit of ungovernable laughter-Julia and Maria shrieked their mama became furious-and even the minister felt inclined to dash the mad girl to the floor.

"Nina!" said Mrs. Jarvis, beseechingly. Nina turned round, and catching the old lady's imploring look, instantly ceased playing; then bounding from her seat, ran out of the apartment.

When Mrs. Jarvis and her son arrived at home, they could talk of nothing but the singular behaviour of Nina.

"What a wild, ungovernable thing she must be !" remarked Jarvis. "Poor girl!" sighed his mother; "I am sadly afraid her lot has been cast upon troubled waters! So beautiful, and yet so vehement ! What will her fate be in the cold society into which she has been been thrown? Robert, you promised to tell me something of her history."

The junior partner gladly complied with the request: but it will be more explanative to give his statement in plainer language than that which he poured into the attentive ear of his idolized mother.

Mr. Blackstone had a brother, who, tired of the plodding perseverance of a mercantile life in England, had twenty years before, emigrated to New Orleans, where he had established an agency, and also betaken himself to the lucrative business of growing cotton on his own account-in other words, became a planter and slave-owner; from which pursuits, as he wrote to his brother-which was only at long intervals -he was deriving large profits.

Five years had elapsed without the slightest news of him being received, when one morning a negress, accompanied by a swarthy little girl, entered his office, and handed him a letter; it was from his brother, who had consigned to his paternal care his only child.

"I love her so well, Sam -so the letter ran-" that I will not trust her to the fiendish mercy of yellow fever, or the still more fiendish chance of her becoming a slave, in the event of my early deathwhich in this climate is by no means uncertain, considering I am what you call in England a 'fast man.' Her mother was as beautiful-but I forgot, you hate sentiment; so, although my heart throbs with anguish, I will merely prosily say, her mother is dead, and as I have some old English notions of propriety left in me, I wish my child to be brought up religiously, in the Protestant faith; to receive the edu cation and accomplishments of a lady of fortune-in fact, to be treated like one of your own, Sam."

A large remittance came along with this, in those days, not unusual consignment; and little Nina, with her sable nurse, were forthwith inducted as permanent guests in the dwelling of the great Liverpool merchant. At that time the prejudice against colour ran quite as high in certain circles in Liverpool as it does now in certain transAtlantic cities, and poor Nina never became a favourite with Mr. Blackstone's family. The merchant himself had a rigid sense of justice, and insisted upon the child being treated with affection; but his good lady never could conquer her antipathy to-as she coarsely expressed herself "the offspring of a nigger;" and the children, sharing in her ill-nature, heaped all kinds of indignities on the unoffending head of their little American cousin. The child, being naturally spirited and vivacious, fiercely retorted; and the household, overlooking the wanton aggravation, attributed to her all the broils that disturbed the domestic harmony of the establishment. As long as the nurse lived, Nina was spared the brutality of personal chastisement; but after the small-pox had carried off that faithful creature, she fell an easy victim to the spite of her two feminine cousins, and had to submit to the pompous harangues of her divinity-booby of a cousin, Henry. In addition—notwithstanding the remonstrances of Mr. Blackstone-her education was neglected; and as time advanced, and nothing for five years had been heard of her father, she gradually sank into the humble companion of her plain cousins, who found in her a convenient object on which to vent the ill-humour provoked by their numerous failures to captivate the opposite sex. Nina, however, was anything but patient under these afflictions. As she grew up, she offered a vigorous resistance, and, to use a kitchen phrase, "kept the house continually in hot water." She terrified the servants by her elfish tricks, took an especial delight in tumbling the things about in her cousins' rooms, and, one day at dinner, drove her aunt from the table in convulsions, by making an abrupt revelation relative to a clandestine flirtation between Mary, the pretty housemaid, and the saintly Henry. The only person to whom she would lend a willing ear was Mrs. Jarvis, who sincerely pitied her. The junior partner was an especial favourite with her he used to speak to her so gently, so winningly but as she expanded from the child into the mature girl, she

grew shy of him; and, to all appearance, placed him in the same category as the others of the sex with whom she was acquainted.

Thus was Nina situated, when her uncle was in the whirl of the excitement of a general election. Her adventure with the piano led to her banishment from the drawing-room, and she would have received some rough treatment at the hands of her two cousins, had she not sprung upon them like a tigress, and driven them panic-stricken into the arms of their mother.

A family council was held, and Mr. Blackstone in due form was appealed to, but he would promise nothing until the termination of the election. Nina, therefore, as a temporary measure, was ordered to be confined to her room; but after a few days, the command was forgotten in the excitement which reigned in the house, and Nina sought refuge in the kitchen, where, by showing some docility, and singing some old Scotch ballads, she quite won upon the heart of its presiding genius.

The election-the most memorable in the annals of English abuse of the franchise-terminated at last, and to the discomfiture of the candidate whom Mr. Blackstone and his friends had so lavishly supported. During its continuance, Mr. Blackstone had certainly attended to business, but with a mind unstrung for the sober calculations of commerce. To keep up his dignity, he had made large purchases of cotton-rash speculations, his partner termed them-and when he somewhat recovered from his delirium, he endeavoured to retrieve his error by boldly buying up all the cotton in warehouse, in expectation of a rise in prices. He was foiled: after some late advices from America had arrived, cotton fell alarmingly, and the firm of Messrs. Blackstone, Jarvis, and Co., being unable to meet their engagements, became bankrupt. The old merchant was literally ruined, and, being unable to bear up against the dreadful blow, sickened and died. His wife had previously retired to a suburban cottage, on the five hundred a year which had been secured to her by her marriage

settlement.

The Rev. Henry Blackstone clung with pious tenacity to his church -he had his ferret eyes fixed on a rich and plump childless widow; and Nina-poor Nina! what was her fate?

As for the junior partner, Mr. Robert Jarvis, being of a very energetic turn of mind, he did not sit down to sigh over the ten thousand pounds he had invested in the late firm; but, being comforted by the assurance that his mother was amply provided for, as far as her moderate style of living went, resolutely applied his energies to recover his lost position. Being a favourite among his friends, and highly respected in the town for his business habits and unblemished probity, he soon acquired sufficient capital and credit to start afresh on his own account. In six months he was fairly launched on the tide of traffic, with, as he jocosely said, a fair wind, and as much canvass as he wanted. But what of Nina all this while?

"Mother, have you seen the Blackstones lately?" he inquired

one evening, as, bachelor like, he sat sipping his tea with easy negligence.

"I called upon them this morning," was the reply," and found them in a sad state indeed. Their disappointments have preyed on their tempers very much. The girls were quarrelling over a dress, and their mama-Robert, what do you think?"

"I don't know."

Why I declare-I trust I am wrong-but I declare my impression was that she had been drinking-yes, positively drinking!"

Robert said nothing to this: he had been aware of his old partner's widow's dereliction in this respect long ago, and even suspected her daughters of being addicted to the same horrible propensity.

"Did you see Nina?" he inquired.

"Poor girl!" sighed his mother, as she let her needlework fall into her lap; "I do pity her. What do you think, Robert?"

"I don't know, mother; what have you learned?”

The old lady's voice sank almost to a whisper, as she tremblingly said:

"I do believe, Robert, that Nina is nothing better than a servant-yes, Robert, a servant! isn't it dreadful for the poor child?"

Robert's brow flushed as much with anger as indignation when he heard this; for, low as his opinion of the family had been, he never had imagined that a widowed mother and fatherless children would have degraded a stranger, and in every practical sense an orphan, of their own blood, thrown upon their affection by circumstances of an unusually distressing kind.

While brooding painfully over the disclosure, something struck him which caused a nervous twitching about the corners of his mouth, and a rather violent pang in the region of his heart. His mother, whose sight was quite unimpaired, noticed his agitation, and inquired the cause. He told her: and, after a long consultation, tears sprang to her aged eyes, as she breathed a prayer to heaven for having given her such a son.

On the following morning, mother and son were to have been seen approaching the cottage inhabited by the Blackstones.

As they came close to it, they beheld the figure of a young girl on her knees, engaged in the menial office of cleaning the door-steps. "Is Mrs. Blackstone at home?" inquired Jarvis in a gentle tonehe always was gentle to the lowly.

At the sound of his voice the girl sprang to her feet and confronted him. Imagine his surprise, his terror, when, in the slim, slip-shod girl before him, he recognized Nina-the rustic, but always brilliantlooking Nina.

She was so thin that she looked taller than she really was, and her slatternly dress-a cast-off of the dumpy Maria-only reached a little below her knees, revealing a leg and foot clad in a coarse gray stocking, but of such exquisite proportions than even in such an emblem of poverty it could not but be admired. Her hair was uncombed and

matted, and her features so pinched, that her large, dark eyes seemed starting from their sockets.

"Nina-dear Nina!" uttered Jarvis, as, struggling with indignation, or some more powerful emotion, he held out his hand to her. "The poor dear child! What a shame!" ejaculated his mother, taking both her hands, and shaking them warmly.

Nina at first stared at them, quite stupified; but when she had fully comprehended their looks of compassion, she burst into tears, and piteously exclaimed

"They made me do it!"

Jarvis, losing command over himself, raised his foot and sent the pail several yards down the road.

"Robert!” cried his mother, mildly.

"Yes, mother!"

"Be calm-let me beg of you to be calm!"

And he was calm, but his eyes were very bright, and his voice remarkably hoarse, as he bade Nina be sure never to do such a thing again" in fact, he would not allow it."

A smart, decently-clad girl-a hired one, of course-at this moment appeared on the scene; and Mrs. Jarvis, putting a coin in her hand, desired her to complete the task in which Nina had been interrupted. The latter, yielding to her impulsive nature, kissed the old lady's hand, and then ran away to sob, as if she could sob her young heart away.

(To be continued.)

THINK OF ME.

THINK of me, my ever dearest,

Forget me not, my much loved friend;
Years may pass, and them the weariest,
Still my proud heart shall not bend-

Will not listen to the noblest,

Though with gold their palace shine;
'Midst scenes lightest-'midst scenes brightest,
Thou may'st ever call me thine.
In the throng of courtly maidens,
Though it be my lot to dwell,
None shall tempt me for to listen
To the false enchanting spell.
Never shall a smile be gathered

Round the lips that once pressed thine,

To deceive with false pretences,
Or defile the vows of mine.