ness of another;-the first and last who would ever inspire him with a desire of perpetual female companionship,-as the congenial wife,the faithful housemate, -the indulgent mother of children resembling her benignant self! Compared with such a woman, what were the frivolous girls competing for his notice at Kermisse or carnival ball?— mere empty futile things,-enraptured by a new trinket, or beguiled by a showy riband!

No

That, whatever might have been the evil fortunes of Netja, (consequent upon the bitter harshness which had exiled a child of sixteen from her father's house,) she was pure in heart as the angels of heaven, Emmanuel was as sure as of his existence. But that she was conscious of innocence, she would not have voluntarily returned to the humble and dreary household of the old chorister, the moment her sister needed a mother, and her father a house-drudge. sooner was her enemy laid in the grave, than Netja had reappeared as from her own; and at an age, and endowed with a degree of beauty which would have procured to a worldly-minded woman worldly admirers and an independent fortune in life, she preferred the desolate dulness of her old home,-the laborious life of a lace-maker, earning her livre of tenpence a day,-and mothership,-tenderest mothership over the fair thoughtless girl whose cradle she had rocked in infancy, and whom she now loved to fold to her bosom as a daughter. Impossible to impute a shadow of blame to one whose tastes were so simple, whose affections so tender as Netja Van Foere!

But how was all this to be made manifest to his father,—even if the old gentleman could be prevailed to overlook the want of fortune and breeding of his neighbour's daughter? How was Gabriel Zoon, so learned in the tincture of a flower and delicacy of a blossom, to admit the charms of the time-touched face of the woman of thirty, who, from circumstances, had been as a mother to his son ? Would the eyes, accustomed to dwell upon the fairness of Blanche Fleur, and stately port of the Duchess of Brabant, ever reconcile themselves to the saddened and tarnished depression of one who, albeit she had never been a wife, had the air of being "a widow indeed ?"

"Had one look, one word,-one smile of hers encouraged me to the attempt," mused Emmanuel, -as he pursued his wayward course along the ramparts,—“ I would have hazarded the trial; and failing success, have waited for her till my father shall have accomplished his destined years, even though they extended to a period doubling the span of life he sometimes claims as his own. Faded and wan,

nay, even old and infirm, I would still have made her my wife,reconciled to the loss of all I was renouncing, by the consciousness of fidelity to the first holy impulses of affection implanted by nature in my breast. But the case is hopeless! Either she has too much heart, or none. Either she has loved, and is constant as myself to a first impression; or her cold unsympathetic bosom is incapable of the feelings that distract my own! Ah! who, who will lighten the perplexities of the path before me, by revealing the mysteries which envelope the history of NETJA?"

THE CONVALESCENT.

BY MRS. ABDY.

THOU hast quitted the feverish couch of pain,
Thou art breathing the fresh free air again,
Thou hast bent thy way through the primrose glade
To the wildwood's deep and leafy shade,
Where, beneath thy slow and lingering tread,
The clustering cool green moss is spread,
Where the song-birds pour their tuneful lay,
And the silvery fountains softly play.

Dost thou not joy to exchange the gloom
Of the shaded blinds, and the curtained room
For the gladdening breezes, the sun's bright beams,
The waving blossoms, and glittering streams?
Dost thou not joy, in reviving health,
To gaze upon Nature's lavish wealth,
The rushing waters, and flowery land,
Decked for thy sake by thy Maker's hand?

And does not thy heart at this moment thrill
With thoughts more tender, more grateful still?
Dost thou not yet on the chamber dwell,
Where awhile Death's darkening shadows fell,
When thy manly strength was quelled and fled,
And friends stood mournfully round thy bed,
Wailing that thou, in thy youthful bloom,
Must be gathered soon to the dreary tomb?

Then did not a secret voice within
Tell thee to weep o'er each former sin?
And did'st thou not wish thy days renewed,
To walk henceforth with the wise and good?
Oh! now, while within thy languid veins
Some trace of the suffering past remains,
Think of the world, and its pomp and power,
As thou didst in that sad and trying hour.

The woods and the fields that meet thy gaze
Thou deem'st more bright than in former days;
So may earth's course appear to thee
More fair than it seemed in thy frolic glee;
Shun its broad highways-in peace pursue
The narrow path that is sought by few,
And give to the Lord, in faith and prayer,
The life that he graciously deigned to spare.

THE HYPOCHONDRIAC'S DAUGHTER.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "EVELYN HOWARD, OR MISTAKEN POLICY."

ABOUT forty miles west of London, is a village which it will suit this narrative to designate Manvering. Now, the dwelling of the artisan and the cottage of the mechanic have sprung up with such mushroom growth, and the small though neat domiciles are so numerous, that the expressions Front Street and Middle Street, are used to distinguish one situation from another; but in 177—, the period of which we are treating, the rustic way-side house, the blacksmith's forge, and here and there a knoll on which were grouped a few huts belonging to the labourers who worked on the adjoining farms, and two or three houses, rather remote from each other, was all of which Manvering then could boast. Much has been said, perhaps still more written, upon the beauty of village scenery, and a very pretty topic it is; but as Manvering cannot with any propriety be made a subject of panegyric on that head, a description of "verdant meads and purling streams" can be dispensed with. Its principal feature was the old gray church, standing on a high ground in the middle of a large and not unpicturesque churchyard, which was skirted by a few tall elms and pines, among the dark foliage of which the moss-grown steeple presented a pleasing object to the reflecting eye, tapering as it does to that abode where the weary and worn are for ever at rest.

Behind the church, and bounded at the back and on one side by all that is left of a moat, which once surrounded the old castle, stood a low, long, rambling building, denominated the Old Bury, which had been so long untenanted that it presented a desolate, not to say ruined, appearance. What had once been a garden was overrun with weeds, and the flower and the thistle were now growing side by side in the little plots of ground, which, by their formal cut and neat arrangement, may be supposed to have once been objects of care to somebody. Joining the churchyard, and close to the Bury, stretched a large piece of uneven pasture land, bearing the name of the Dane, or Dam-Field, according to the opinion which prevailed of the derivation of the name. Some called it the Dam-Field, because its high though unfenced banks, as far as the field extends, serve to confine the river which flows by to its bed; and others, the Dane-Field, because tradition claims the spot as the place where the Dane and Saxon tugged for mastery, and points out the hillocks scattered so thickly around as the burial-places of the slain. No bones, however, bleach in the sun to confirm the tale, and the remains of the Saxon and Danish warriors (if there they sleep) rest decently interred, wrapped round by the evergreen turf, but their cemetery is now profaned by the horned and not always peaceful oxen who graze above them.

Further on, about three quarters of a mile by the winding road, and scarcely half that distance across the fields, was a residence totally different in character and appearance. Though not small, an air of loveliness rather than affluence pervaded the whole; whatever art had

done, it was evident that nature had been a bountiful handmaid. Roses and honeysuckles, with the elegant leaves of the jasmine, hung thickly on the walls, and struggled which should most contribute to clothe the trellised porch with their fragrant beauty. The neat white paling, by which a portion of the garden was bounded, might have given somewhat of an air of precision to the whole, but for the wild luxuriance of the flowers, which were so abundant, and placed so exactly where they should be to produce the most pleasing effect, that the eye had nothing further to desire. Something lovely and sylphlike could alone be the fitting inhabitant of this faëry bower. Let us enter, and see how far the hypothesis is good.

Before a table whereon lay several books of finance, philosophy, and agriculture, and half recumbent in his arm-chair, sat the proprietor of this charming spot; while opposite, with mittened arms and spectacled nose, and in a position of scarcely a hair's breadth variation from the true perpendicular, an elderly female industriously plied her needle.

Captain Pevensey was in appearance a very old man, but upon closer observation it became evident that this was less the natural effect of the years that had passed over his head, than of some care or sickness which had stunted and prematurely withered the spirit within him; and whether he had outlived "the threescore years and ten" or not, his strength was certainly labour and misery to himself. He was a confirmed valetudinarian. In forming him, Nature could not have been decided in her mould. The outline of his face was handsome, but the expression of the whole was not prepossessing. The features did not harmonize; his noble and expansive forehead was spoiled by the sharp, deep-set grey eyes, which seemed for ever restless and inquiring; his nose and chin looked pinched and prominent; and his well-formed mouth distorted into an expression of discontent and querulousness.

"Where is Eden ?" asked Captain Pevensey, when he had fairly roused himself from the slumber, or rather the succession of dozes, in which he was accustomed to indulge after his early dinner.

"Gone to Elmden."

"How long as she been away?"

"Two hours five minutes and two seconds," replied the lady, looking at a watch of somewhat colossal dimensions.

It was then late in the afternoon of one of the early days of May; but it being very showery, the invalid imputed his child's unwonted. absence at that hour to her having been detained by rain, and for another quarter of an hour he was tolerably tranquil; but as the sun tipped the trees with its parting rays, and the shadows deepened on the ground, and still she came not, he grew uneasy.

"Had you not better send Falkland to look for her?" he asked, at length.

"Presently," returned Miss Pevensey; and then carefully laying down her work, crossing her arms with great precision, and assuming the air of one who is resolved to say a great deal, she continued "Do you know that Eden is now seventeen ?"

"I am not likely to forget a circumstance which I hear you repeat so many times a day."

"It is more than time that she left off riding about the country in this untamed way, and that instead of following the bent of her own wild will, she settled down into something less idle than she is at present. She will some day come to harm, and then you will believe that I am right. You suffer her to know no restraint, and the consequence is that she is unlike any other girl of her age."

66

Very unlike, indeed," replied the hypochondriac, with more animation than any other topic could have drawn from him.

"Precisely so. A more ignorant girl I have never seen; she scarcely knows the use of her needle. Digby Pevensey will soon return from Scotland, and I ask you, how will he like to find her the same giddy, thoughtless girl she was a year ago

?"

"If Digby finds fault with my Eden, he mayWhatever the privilege Captain Pevensey was about to permit his nephew, it was not uttered; he stopped abruptly, and then continued-" Eden is but a child; we must not expect too much from her, or overshadow her bright joyous spirit by keeping her with two such grumpy people as ourselves. I would sooner lose the light of heaven than see her sweet face subdued to thoughtfulness, or her smile grow less warm, or her clear ringing laugh less frequent than it is now."

"Grumpy are we? Keep that epithet for yourself, if you please," said Miss Pevensey, in no very feminine tone. "Add useless, also, if you please. What would become of you if it were not for me, I should like to know ?"

"Eden is very kind to me," said the invalid piteously, mentally contrasting the gentleness of his child with the asperity of his sister.

"Kind! yes, she fondles and amuses you as a spaniel could do as well. But otherwise of what use is she? It is not owing to her superintendence that we drink the best cream, eat the best bread, and churn the best butter, for miles around, and save money out of a small income also."

"Well, Ann, you are a good housekeeper; you know I often tell Without you I should have been a poor man; indeed I am

you so.

one now."

"No; you are not. People know better; and saying you are poor answers no other purpose than to make them suspect your wealth to be greater than it is. When Digby was robbed on the road some months ago, one of the party wished aloud that they had caught old Pevensey instead of the young one, since they might have got more than double the gold from the former."

"It would be a strange thing if I who have smarted so severely for poverty, should at last be hurried to the worms before my time for gold," returned Captain Pevensey.

The tramp of a horse was then heard in the lane, and as the road before Captain Pevensey's house, owing to its leading only to some fields, was rarely used by any traveller, a circumstance so unusual attracted Miss Pevensey to the window; for it was clear that the sounds in question could not proceed from the gentle paces of Eden's pony. Instead of Eden, a stranger, mounted on a powerful welllimbed black horse of singular beauty, entered the yard, and was presently ushered into Captain Pevensey's presence.