lar-but the combination du bon sens et de l'âme I never saw equally combined in any face before, and I had no conception of what that combination could produce, till now. Her countenance, in repose, has a mixture of strong mind and placid thought with a general benevolent meaning, and unbounded goodness of heart. But to see it brighten with the arousing of her intellect on some subject in which she takes warm interest, or kindle with intense affection, or soften with sweet tenderness, towards those on whom her feelings are really fixed-this, indeed, must excite any one with admiration who has either head or heart sufficient to deserve to class among human beings.

"Helas! and it is I who am writing thus!—I whom you recollect so giddy a girl! Yes, but it is impossible to live a year with such persons as Henry and his sister, without imbibing higher thoughts and stronger and more amiable feelings. Of him I need not say more. But I could not have believed it possible that any one could replace him during the few and short absences he has been compelled to make, as she has done. I never met a woman who had such information without having the very slightest tinge of a précieuse :-she never produces anything, all comes so naturally, so much of course, that it would seem almost to be affected that she should withhold it. In our evenings, when Henry and I returned from wandering along the sweet gardens together, and pausing on the banks of the stream, and silently enjoying the mere consciousness of being together, we used to find Eveline just come in from some errand of her charity in the villageand the hours have passed with such an exquisite charm till bed-time, that, even in my bridal year, I have never once wished her away. It is true, indeed, that she takes care that we often shall be alone ;—but this is never done as though it were contrived, but seems as if it naturally sprang from her being engaged in her own pursuits.

"I have used the phrase her charity. And well I may! It is indeed no common alms-giving. She knows the history of the wants, the struggles, and the merits of every family in the village. Oh! how I bless her for having shewn me, by her practice-scarcely at all by direct precept-what heavenly effects a dame de paroisse may produce in this country, if she know the proper means, and is willing to exert herself ever so little. I trust, if she should form a connection such as alone she would form-and I doubt, from certain indications, whether she ever will-that my watching and studying her admirable conduct on this point may in some degree soften her loss to the poor. That it will fully supply it I never can hope-for they have known kind Mistress Eveline' from her childhood upwards. They have seen her goodness from its earliest bud of promise to its present full bearing of fruit.

"Oh! how my admiration and love of my noble and affectionate husband, and of his imcomparable sister urge me on to warmth of expression. You will scarcely believe this letter to have been written by your light-hearted giddy play-fellow Adelaïde. The giddiness is gone, but the lightness of heart is not-or rather it is raised to a sensation of happiness of a degree of delicate and exquisite enjoyment such as I did not then know existed. And this I owe to both my husband and his sister;-for, if my love for him be an affection far superior to any

of which I had conceived the existence,-so is my friendship for her, which ranks second only to that, a feeling such as I had no idea that Friendship ever could be."

Brave! I exclaimed, as I finished this singular letter-this speaks well for more women than one. Here is a girl, bred in Paris-if not, from the peculiarity of her position arising from religion, in its worstnamely, its courtly-circles, certainly in its worst times;-a beautynor that only, but distinguished for her liveliness, I might say brilliancy, in society-here is one thus circumstanced unconsciously becoming of strong and finely fervent feelings, and of sound and reliable judgment, from her union with a man of sense and of virtue-and from continued intercourse with such a woman as Eveline Meynell. The progress of this heightening of character was, as I have said, imperceptible to her in its progress-but such changes can never long continue to exist unknown to those who have undergone them.

A fourth letter, dated nearly eighteen years afterwards, written by the daughter of this Lady Meynell, who herself died when this young person was only about nine years old, will complete the portrait of kind Mistress Eveline. The writer herself seems to have profited by the rare qualities of all of those among whom she was bred. The letter is addressed to her betrothed :

"You remind me that the period is nearly approaching at which a year will be completed since my poor father died. I know well that it is only the strong impulse of your fondness for me that can have led you to hint at this-for, to do you justice, you do no more than hintfor you, of all the world, must feel that, neither as to retrospect nor prospect, can I need reminding. The loss of such a father as mine must leave painful sensations of sorrow long after the early violence of grief has passed away-and I feel it would be affectation, and not delicacy, to deny that the hope of being united to one between whom and myself such attachment exists, and has so long existed, as our's, produces to me a full assurance of a life of happiness.

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But the particular object of this letter, dearest Edward, is to give you all the information within my recollection,-both personal, and of what I have heard my father say, sometimes to me, and now and then to others, when my early age prevented his thinking of my presence,concerning my aunt Eveline. Nothing I have heard said of that beloved being ever escaped my memory. I could not apply all of it then-but the words have remained in my remembrance, and their meaning is clear to me now.

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'You say that, of course, she will come and live with us; and that, therefore, you should like to know her character thoroughly. I do not wonder that you should desire to be enlightened on some few points of that character, notwithstanding your strong admiration of the whole. If you had seen more of Aunt Eveline than chance circumstances have allowed you to do, you would need no information at all. I have seen this often, and longed to speak to you about her, as you now own you wished to do to me. Thus has fastidious nicety restrained us both from conversing on a subject upon which we both desired to come to a

thorough understanding. As it is, I will give you all that I know concerning her.

“You first ask how it is she has never married—with all her talents and information, and with her very peculiar but still admirable beauty, and her warm and affectionate character of heart? I think I know-for I remember what my father thought on the subject- and he was likely to be right.

"I recollect hearing him say, that he thought her ideas were pitched so high, as to what men ought to be, that she had never seen one who had in the slightest degree touched her feelings; while, on the other hand, most men found out, in any duration of intercourse with her, that she was far beyond them in both power and cultivation of mind, and therefore shrank back, all of them in fear, and many in irritation and annoyance. 'Poor Eveline!' I recollect his adding how little does she believe she ever annoyed or irritated any body!-how totally her conduct has ever been the reverse of what ought, in justice, to have done either!'-This exclamation is undoubtedly true;-and from all I have ever seen I fully coincide with my father's belief. I heard him once say 'I do believe that there never were but two men whom Eveline would have thought worthy of being loved;-one still lives, it is Franklin-and the other was Milton'-I agree with him that she might have become attached to such a man as Franklin-Milton strikes me as wanting blandness of disposition-but (you will think me very fantastic, dear Edward, but recollect, you begged me to be most minute) I think such a being as, it might be supposed, could be compounded of the best qualities of Franklin and Las Casas, would be nearer the mark than all*.

"My mother died, as you know, while I was still quite young-and all the recollections of iny mental cultivation apply to Aunt Eveline. Slight, indeed, and smattering is the all I know when I look at her stores of knowledge, which I have had the opportunities of years to contemplate. She avoided, indeed, purposely, many of the stronger and more abstruse studies, for me, which she had herself pursued. Still, even in what she did lead me to, I had ample means of seeing the qualities of clearness, strength, delicacy, and rapidity by which her mind is distinguished;-yet all these powers, and the acquisitions they had gained for her, were wholly untinged with the slightest touch of pedantry or display.

"But what I value far more than all this is the active excellence of her warm and admirable heart. Oh Edward, if ever you find one trace of sympathy with suffering, or of desire to relieve it, in me, you will owe it to that invaluable woman. I will not speak of the manner in which she devoted her whole life to my parents and myself-or of the love she bore them, and still, thank Heaven, bears to me. I allude now to her kindness, active and real, to the poor. Many and many is the bitter day in winter that I have known this model of practical good feeling walk out through the snow, and go to the cottage of some sick or suffering villager, who was poor. There have I seen her administer the relief and comforts of medicine, food, religious advice and prayer, or kind and cheerful conversation, as the occasion · * She need not fear being thought fantastic-I am certain she is quite right.

required. Nothing, indeed, could be more beautiful, or tend more-I feel it now-to teach us what real charity is, than to hear Aunt Eveline talk with the poor. She did not assume interest in their humble matters, as many do,-she felt it ;-she listened to obtain the information she needed with the utmost patience; she questioned them with clearness, brevity, and kindness mingled; she gave them her advice in a manner which almost made the people believe the ideas she suggested had originally arisen in their own minds.

"I recollect a remarkable instance of all these qualities. We were caught in a snow-storm one very severe January-we took shelter in a hovel which stood in the corner of a field, close to the road. There we found an old carpenter of the village, who said he was delighted to meet kind Mistress Eveline,' as the elder people always called her, as he had hit, he thought, on a mechanical improvement in one of the tools of his trade, which he longed to explain to her. Off he set into a long explanation, of which I understood not one word, but which aunt Eveline went along with perfectly. When the old man had been in the full swing of his discourse about a quarter of an hour, the carriage arrived to bring us home, as it had been known which way we had gone. I knew my aunt had a severe cold, and I pressed her to go at once. No, she said, she must hear out old Christopher's plan, which seemed to her very ingenious. The conversation lasted half an hour more, about the last three minutes of which she occupied in giving her opinion of the invention. My father afterwards got her to confess that she had given Christopher the one idea which had made all the rest of avail, and without which they would all have been useless; his suspicions having been roused by hearing the old man say several times- It's very odd, but I thought of the best bit of the whole plan while I was talking to kind Mistress Eveline in the snowstorm.' Mistress Eveline herself was laid up for a fortnight; but she cared not-for Christopher gained a round sum for the patent he got for the invention.

"I am sure, dear, dear Edward, you are not one to think these details childish, or too minute. You will see at once that I could in no other way so well shew you what she really is. You may have heard some few sneers at her talents and their cultivation among coldblooded, 'fine' people; but I have heard thousands of blessings bursting from the hearts of the poor, for the goodness of her heart.

And these inward qualities have produced one outward characteristic which will make her a blessing, instead of an incumbrance, to that home of which, for my sake, my own love, you have so kindly determined to make her an inmate. You will soon rejoice for your own. I allude to that delightful constancy of cheerfulness of manner, which might be called gaiety had it not a beautiful dash of tenderness which renders that too light a word. A good heart, actively employed, always produces this, which your own heart will at once set before your imagination. Oh! Edward, you do not even conceive how I bless you for adding to my new home the only thing that could increase the happiness I know will reign there-the society of my dear, dear aunt Eveline! There is but one feeling in the world which exceeds my unspeakable affection for her-Edward, can you guess what that is?"

I was turning round to St. John, with a very sighing smile upon my lips-when he forestalled my speaking, by saying " You shall now see what that monument is, from which the boards have been removed only to-day, and which I never would let you get a glimpse at. Its completion caused me to speak to you about this portrait.'

As we entered the church, St. John said, "Sir Edward lately read the letters you have just gone through-there is the result." He pointed to a very slightly, but beautifully, ornamented marble slab, of some dimensions, which bore the following inscription:

Sacred to the Memory of Eveline Meynell, grand-aunt of Sir Edward Meynell, Bart., present owner of Arlescot Hall, in this parish. He raises this monument to her as to The Second Best; the origin of that appellation, current in the family, having proved her to have been The Best of all. For, the universal object of affection must be the most good. And, when the husband of a long and happy marriage was asked, whom he loved the best, second only to his wife?—when the affianced, who was second to his betrothed ?—the wife of the first year, who second to her newly-married husband ?—nay, when the bride, on the ́ebe of so becoming, was asked who was second in her love to him she was about to wed?—each and all have answered

Eveline Meynell.

POPULAR EDUCATION.

IN witnessing the operation of a steam-engine, as it sets and sustains in motion, by its wonderful piston, it may be, a whole tenement of machinery, or, in opposition to wind and tide, carries forward the ponderous ship on its easy and majestic way, we behold the most stupendous effects produced merely by the scientific employment of an element which, for nearly six thousand years, during which it was in our possession, had been allowed to run universally to waste. It is an instance of the way in which man manufactures power. We can create nothing; we need to create nothing. Our most bountiful Maker has given us all things richly; and it is for us only to find out their uses, and enjoy them wisely. The best of his gifts is the power he has bestowed upon us of doing this. All civilization is nothing more than the advancing conquests made by this power-from the hour when an accidental spark lighted the first fire of dry leaves by which man warmed and comforted himself, to that in which, in our own day, smoke was converted into light, and impalpable vapour into the mightiest of all of our ministers of strength. The fusibility and malleability of the iron existed before it had been turned either into swords or pruning-hooks, or the ore had been made to give up its treasure; and the vibratory air was full of unawakened music ere

"Jubal struck the chorded shell."

And in like manner might it be said of every new invention, that it is, as the word implies, not merely a finding out-but a revealing of something that has at all times been in nature-or an arousing of some power