Everybody else in the room was too much occupied in their pursuits to have leisure for observations on those of others.

Leslie and Agnes were silent; but it was the silence of thought and feeling. Her hand mechanically turned over the plates in the folio, and that of Leslie as mechanically assisted her. Her eye was averted-his fixed upon her countenance with an earnestness that would have perused her soul. Suddenly she started; she saw a letter lie on the print before her. She cast one hasty glance of indignation at Leslie, and saw him standing, pale and silent, with his hands clasped, in an attitude of respectful supplication. His position was such, that none could see the letter besides himself. A moment might bring some one else to join them in looking over the portfolio. Her dread of the letter's being seen, was quite as great as any other by which she was assailed. It was impossible, she saw, for Leslie to resume it unperceived, and quite as impossible to leave it there. Leslie lifted up the next print so as to preclude the possibility of observation, and, by slanting its position, he contrived to place the letter near her handkerchief and gloves, which lay at the edge of the portfolio. Agnes covered the letter with her handkerchief, and took them both up, while her whole neck and countenance were suffused with a burning blush. Leslie's heart beat audibly, and an expression of triumph stole into his dark eye in spite of his caution and his self-command; but it was unperceived by Agnes.

When the agitation of the moment had a little subsided, Leslie whispered in her ear: "Read it quickly; its perusal is absolutely necessary. It will set your mind at ease; it will restore the tranquillity I have so wantonly destroyed. Grant the request it contains, and whatever your commands are they shall be obeyed." So saying, he left the room, as though unable longer to control his own feelings, and apparently out of respect to hers.

He had said this lest it should be her intention to return his letter unopened.

What female is there that has not experienced the agitation arisng from the receipt of the first billet-doux from tha man whom the heart is secretly inclined to favour, although she is yet unwilling to acknowledge such a feeling even to herself? Who does not remember the hesitation whether it shall be opened and read, or returned with the seal unbroken? And when curiosity, or some nobler and stronger passion,

has at length induced the determination to peruse it, what female mind can forget the palpitation of the heart, the dizziness of the eyes as they run rapidly over its contents, and the almost painful stoppage of breath by which the perusal of it is accompanied? The agitation of the moment renders the first rapid and agitated glance at its contents almost useless. Her eyes and heart have but half drunk of the delicious poison it contains; but, convinced of the affection of the favoured object, she breathes more freely-more calmly, and sits down to a second perusal, when every sentence-nay, every word -tells to her affections and to her senses. It is then that, in the solitude of her own chamber or boudoir, surrounded by those silent witnesses of a woman's privacy which never betray her secret, that she makes that confession to her own heart, which months will not encourage her modesty to make to her lover.

If a letter, then, whose purport is perfect innocence, should create such a sensation in the female bosom—if a letter, the contents of which might perhaps be her glory if the writer be an object worthy of her affection, create such an agitation --what must be the effect of the first guilty billet-doux that she receives? What must be the tumult of her mind when she knows and feels that the paper she holds in her hands is a violation of the best laws of society--of the sacred oath which she has sworn at the altar of her God--of all the ties that bind society together--and that its discovery must tumble her headlong from the pinnacle of reputation, as those whom she has hitherto despised? Imagine the hurried and breathless agitation with which it is received--the furtive and fearful glance cast round lest its delivery should have been seen -the quick caution with which it is concealed, and not unfrequently, next that very heart which is beating with the consciousness of the guilt with which such a letter is pregnant!

Conscious as Agnes was of the innocence of her own intentions, and of the peculiarity of the circumstances that rendered her reception of the letter necessary, she yet experienced all the agitations of guilt, and kept her glance riveted on the engraving before her, afraid lest, in looking up, she should encounter some eye fixed upon her with suspicion, or with scorn.

Nothing, however, had been observed; and in a short. time she sought the solitude of her own apartment, to deliberate whether the letter should be perused or returned unopened.

Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coûte-' When a woman hesitates, she's lost.'Oh, Villars, Villars! how am I trying at this moment to argue myself into a thorough belief of the truth of these aphorisms! for if they are true, then is the most lovely she that nature ever formed-then is the woman who has excited this volcano in my mind, and has made my heart overflow with a passion hot as the burning lava of Vesuvius--mine. Yes, Villars, mine!--mine!--mine! three times mine; and yet not once! But I must be cool-I must not lose my generalship: keep down, thou beating rebel, heart, to the principles of that sang-froid which can take advantage of the passions of others to gratify one's own. But where the devil am I wandering? This must be Greek to you, Villars; and yet it is no dead language, but the living language of a living, beating, thrice-alive heart.

Thus wrote Leslie, and thus he proceeded :

--:

Would you believe it, Villars? this woman, this paragon of beauty and virtue, this creature of flesh and blood, and warmth and life, has consented to give me an interview.

And yet why should you not believe it? are not all the sex the same? is there not a way to every woman's heart? and the only difficulty is to know how to pave it properly. Yes, yes,

Experience finds

That sundry women are of sundry minds,
With various crotchets fill'd, and hard to please,
They therefore must be caught by various ways:

J

and I have found the way at last to this most impregnable of female hearts.

An interview, Villars, at night--in a grove-amidst trees that whisper only to the zephyrs, and zephyrs tell no tales-not far from the ocean, whose gentle murmurs are the best accompaniments for lovers' vows, because they come sweeping over the sands, washing out the traces of all things there, and sink back into the fathomless ocean that produced them. There is a cascade too that comes tumbling from one of the neighbouring heights till it reaches the sea. A cascade! emblematical of a fall. 'Tis the sixth day of the month, too, and you recollect the Roman proverb

Sub sextis semper perdita Roma fuit.

How I catch at every thing that affords a hope! Be still, my heart. But Villars, isn't this a premier pas? Is not this hesitation? Do you think, Fred, these blessed aphorisms are true?

sun.

What a tumult am I in! one would suppose that this was the first passion I had ever felt; the first woman I had ever met. Then time too-my watch stands still; I hate the Joshua seems to have revisited the earth, and again to have exerted his power over its great luminary. And I have to go through the fatigue of a damned dinner, too; the parade of folly; the cant of society; the nothingness of ceremony and politeness: my watch does stand still; and night will never come.

Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds,

Towards Phoebus' mansion; such a wagoner
As Phaeton would whip you to the west,
And bring in cloudy night immediately.

And a very wagoner he seems; for he moves no faster than those cumbersome overloaded vehicles y'clept Birmingham flies.

Spread thy close curtain, love performing night!
That runaway's eyes may wink; and Agnes
Leap to these arms, untalked of, and unseen!,
Lovers can see to do their amorous rites
By their own beauties.

My groye will be illuminated

or if love be blind,

It best agrees with night. Come, civil night.

We have found her civil, havn't we, Fred? and have found those who were very willing to follow her example, and be civil too.

Was not this a pretty speech to put into the lips of a tender maiden of sixteen? But it is said that Shakspeare knew the sex, and so do we, Fred; yet I do not imagine that any of them wished for the hour of their assignation with us quite so warmly as Juliet did with hers for Romeo. They might perhaps have thought

the day tedious,
As is the night before some festival

To an impatient child, that hath new robes,
And may not wear them.

They might perchance have felt thus much; and here again the "master-mind," by the mention of "new robes," showed his accurate insight into the sex.

But I cannot argue: it is like playing at marbles while the house is on fire, or at pushpin in a charge of cavalry, to attempt to sport while my heart is thus set upon one object so intently and so intensely, that I can direct the current of my thoughts and feelings no other way.

And yet if I do not give them vent, they will consume me before the wished-for hour arrives, and leave me nothing but the flame, while the stamina that feeds it will be reduced to a cinder.

What is she doing now? I would give worlds, if I had the invisible powers of the fairy ring, to see her in her boudoir. Imagination paints her still trembling and hesitating, half repenting, yet still determined. Perhaps, too, she has some of the burning anticipations which consume me; the same eager impatience for the coming hour. Her hour, perhaps, must come! and if hers, mine! Dost think, Villars, that our thoughts are really meeting in the grove, where she has promised our persons shall meet so soon. Soon did I call it? it is an age, twenty ages till then.

Dost think that she paints to her mind's-eye the shady cypress? for there is a cypress-that is, a funeral tree, is it not? emblematical of something that must die and be buried. Can this be ominous? Can its omen have any re ference to her virtue and repentance? We shall see.