rive from his society that she watched for D'Aubrey's coming, and so sweetly smiled his welcome when he arrived. But Captain Pevensey could not always read, or talk either; there were hours when he chose repose; and then it was that Eden learned that the pleasure of those walks and rides in which she had found so much enjoyment could be greatly enhanced by participation. It was so new to her to be the recipient instead of the bestower of courtesies; to receive herself the same tender cares she was wont to lavish upon her father. A thousand sensations of happiness unknown before sprang up within her, and, too young in thought and feeling to inquire whence they came or whither they tended, she yielded heart and spirit to their influence. It never occurred to her to reflect who or what was Mr. D'Aubrey; she found him polished in conversation, courteous in manner, gentle in temper, and that was sufficient. But the good folks of Manvering and its neighbourhood were not so wanting in curiosity; they talked, inquired, thought and supposed, and before Mr. D'Aubrey had resided long among them, whispers were circulated that all was not as it should be. Captain Pevensey was not one to give credence to a charge vague as this, but he saw an attachment rising between his daughter and his tenant which the other views he entertained for her induced him to check, and therefore arose Mr. D'Aubrey's exclusion from a continuation of the acquaintance upon the arrival of Digby Pevensey, though it must be owned that Digby's representations of the unfitness of admitting a stranger to such intimacy were the primary cause of Captain Pevensey's sharp-sightedness.

The gifts of autumn had been reaped, the blessings of harvest gathered; stern Winter and his blustering winds had passed away, and the groves and fields, awaking to happiness, smiled again under the genial warmth of spring. The flowers again bloomed, the birds cast forth their melodies, and heaven poured down its glorious gladdening beams upon the green mantled earth below. It was one of those fine summer-like days at the end of April which so cheeringly bid us look forward to the brighter season at hand, that Eden slowly sauntered down the plantation before described. But her young heart could not vibrate to the joyous tone of Nature. The light which had gleamed in her eye was quenched, the pallid hue hung upon her cheek, and her step was listless and heavy. She saw no beauty in the glowing colours which decked the fields and prairies, no brightness in the deep blue sky which beamed above, nor heard melody in the varied notes of the feathered harmonists. Hers was not the frame of mind to be acted upon by influences from without. Her spirit rather longed to flee away and be at rest, and in her secret soul she had already marked the spot where she desired to sleep the sleep that knows no waking to scrrow. Poor Eden! It was not till the blossom was blighted and withered that she knew how sweet had been its promise; it was not till she had to tear the fibres from her heart that she discovered how deeply they had taken root.

Captain Pevensey, anxious to complete his favourite scheme, pressed it upon her so frequently and so earnestly, that Eden, wearied with importunity, too gentle to withstand her father's grief, and sufficiently

broken-spirited to care not much about a future she expected not to see, yielded to his entreaty, and consented to receive Digby as her husband. A few weeks, and she was to seal her fate at the altar, and in that short interval she had to pluck away remembrances which to her were life and vigour, and to implant a fresh attachment among the shattered débris of her heart.

As Eden turned from her accustomed glades into the less frequented wood, she knew not that her path had been watched and her steps closely though cautiously followed; till, when advanced some hundred yards from the entrance, a slight noise behind her made her turn round, and she beheld Mr. D'Aubrey. Surprise at his presence there, after so many months of estrangement, held her transfixed, and made her forget that her present path ought to have been retreat. Had volition been in her power, Mr. D'Aubrey's action and manner removed the exercise of her free choice. He held out his hand, and addressed her in the wonted words of friendship, but presently dropped the tones of greeting, and in a few minutes, with all the eloquence of passion, poured forth the tale of vehement love. Eden, carried away by his impetuosity-for his words, like a torrent that had broken bounds, came with a rush of passionate earnestness which left her no time to reflect-forgot that they were words she might not now hear from his lips, and listened with a fulness of joy she had never thought to know again. Her first reply was a gentle reproach that he had left her so long, and then her mind naturally reverted to their last interview. His language, his manner, his melancholy, all singular and inexplicable, flashed back upon her memory, waking a secret presentiment of evil; and when she alluded to the dark gloomy spirit which had then appeared to possess him, and asked whence it arose, she waited for the answer with an intensity of impatience.

D'Aubrey looked grave, the hue of his cheek deepened, and he paused as one might pause who had such a tale to tell; next he bent his head over the thin small hand he held for a moment, then quietly relinquished it and spoke.

"Eden, when first I came hither, it was was with no thought of seeking woman's love, and that is the only extenuation I can offer for myself. You rose upon me in the grace and beauty of innocence, I should have shunned you; but I did not. I would not break from the spell of moral loveliness I saw shadowed out in you; and I, who have, who can have, no companionship with virtue, dared to love you. I knew that my love must be pernicious as the simoon blast, desolating wherever it goes; and I left you, hoping-yes, I did then hope -that I should be forgotten, and that the blight of your youth would not be upon my head. Now I am more selfish. I have heard of embodied spirits of goodness ministering to minds diseased, wooing back to peace on earth the outcast and reckless; and I have wished that lot were mine. Eden, you could not do that for me?"

"I could not leave my father," murmured Eden.
"But that father in the course of nature-and then

"I could watch over you as I had done over him,” replied Eden. "In sickness, in sorrow, in misfortune, you would be faithful; but here is another case-suppose I were stained with crime ?”

There was a pause. Crime. The very word made Eden thrill with pain and horror. She looked into his face, as if hoping to find there that D'Aubrey was sporting with her feelings. The hope was annihilated. He wore an expression of stern, deep desperate reality, from which she turned with heart-sinking; and it was herself rather than him she addressed, saying

"Crime? What can you have done to deserve the name of crime? Theft is crime, murder is crime; but I have seen you turn out of your path to avoid crushing a crawling worm."

"I have trampled upon all laws; I have set at nought my Maker, injured my fellows, derided all restraints. I have not trafficked in blood-I am no murderer-I have shed no life. I have been a

. D'Aubrey little anticipated the effect produced by the whispering of that one word. Eden did not faint, nor scream, but she gave a fearful proof of the severity of the shock she had received. She fixed her eyes wildly on the speaker, and they were full and lustrous, glaring more like those of a maniac than of any other living thing.

"Eden, look not thus ; as you would hope for mercy in a conflict of agony, spare me. You cannot pardon; but give me one word that is not hatred-one syllable that is not loathing."

In vain he conjured; she did not even try to speak. Not a tear, of either anger or sorrow, moistened her eye. In vain he talked of repentance of other lands-of future days of virtue, she evidently comprehended not. She cast several hurried glances at D'Aubrey, then quickly turned away her head, as if afraid of being detected; then looked up into his face and—laughed.

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It was a bright, beautiful afternoon in the middle of summer, and many were assembled round the Saxon-arched porch of the church, their eyes ever and anon turning in the direction of the gate leading to the high road. The voices of those who spoke were too low to disturb the stillness, broken only by the dull, heavy sound of the bell, which by its solemn tone declared that they were met to see the dust of a fellow-being returned to its kindred clay. Presently the coffin arrived. Slowly and mournfully the melancholy work was done-all was over-the clergyman had left the grave; and one by one the spectators began to disperse. But over that new-made grave, which contained all that had rescued his decline of life from absolute gloom, lingered an old man, watching by his lost treasure, and thinking of the early blight that had fallen upon her and of his desolate home, until thought was almost madness, and the bitterness of his spirit overmastered him. He knelt down on the trampled, clay-soiled grass, and raised his feeble hands-not in supplication that the radiance once cast around him by the presence of his child might be replaced by a holy, blessed light within,-not in prayer, that (his own dark pilgrimage accomplished) he might join his beautiful child in a sinless sorrowless land-but, from the depths of an anguished heart, to curse her destroyer.

He had seen his darling's mirthful spirit hopelessly overcast-her pulse of joy stilled, and the warm sympathies of youth, with its hopes and its voice of promise, silenced for ever; he had watched her from

day to day linger on in cureless insanity, and now he stood alone-a wreck-scathed in heart, as the withered trunk blasted by the lightning's flash. He had loved nothing but his child, and he was childless now!

Like most other places, Manvering has its hereditary gossip. There is not a lonely road within ten miles around, which it does not point out as the scene of some one or other of the exploits ascribed to the highwayman; and at the Old Bury is now shown a deep-covered well, down which, when closely pursued after one of his nights abroad, he is said to have backed his horse, and by that means baffled suspicion, and escaped conviction. Yet Mr. St. Aubrey died, and was buried like other men. The village chronicles record only the misfortunes which befel his family. In the course of time the voice of their evil report grew fainter and fainter; a branch of them resided for many years in the neighbourhood of Manvering; but if the peasant's tale be true, they all died unnatural deaths. The two last survivors were lunatics-a circumstance still regarded as the fulfilment of the father's curse. The gentle Eden !-however bitter the sorrow that survived her, her end was peace.

SONNET.

BY AGATHA STOLTERFOTH.

THE spirit's first awakening to a sense
Of its own power, and the new-born delight

Of pouring forth in glowing eloquence

Thoughts, which Imagination clothes in light,
What is so beautiful?-The dawning day,
When from the cold grey clouds breaks forth the morn,
Chasing with light the adverse night away,
Sky, earth, and sea, from its dominion borne,
Is but a shadowy type of that which gives
Light, warmth, and vigour, to the happy soul,
Which feels that for no sordid fate it lives,
And presses onward to the glorious goal-
Spurning each baser thought and low desire,
Firm in resolve to dare and to aspire!

TABLEAUX VIVANTS.1

BY FRANCES ELIZABETH DAVIES.

TABLEAUX V. continued.-AUTHORS.

THE life of an author is in the abstract beautiful. To the aspiring child of genius how precious seem its golden promises!-how invaluable its hoped reward!-how intoxicatingly comes over his senses the distant voice of popular applause !-What a charming ideal lies mapped out before the enthusiastic tyro! Yet scarcely does he advance a single step, ere the bright perspective begins to fade, grim spectres rise in mockery around him, darkness falls upon the splendid vision, and he finds himself pursuing an ignis fatuus. Yet, if he be animated by the true spirit,-startled, disappointed though he be, he will not be dismayed. One by one he beats back the irritating legion that beset him, and though he may turn and turn, to break down obstacles, to avoid impediments,-nay, though he may have to grapple his foes, still, the true-born son of a heavenly parent presses onward-onwarduntil pantingly he seizes the laurel crown,-or-Perishes before the altar of his worship.

But however terrible may be the opponents that spread the author's path, none are so galling to the self-esteem, to the pride, or, to the poetry of intellect, as those that beset a dramatic author. To him, indeed, unless supported by individual wealth, or protected by distinguished patronage, success is more than doubtful—I had nearly said it is impossible. I remember, however, there is yet another way to dramatic distinction, but it is one repugnant to proud and noble minds; it is connected with theatrical cabals-it leads through byways, and the green-room.

Our young aspirant, now some months a resident in town, was fast learning those sad lessons in common with many other brethren of his order. He had seen one after another his pet essays returned by fashionable publishers, he had been coldly bowed out by literary men ; and, worse than all, he had been hustled by stage doorkeepers, stared down by stage ladies, quizzed by stage gentlemen, and all but insulted by the petty monarchs of those gypsy communities;-and all for no other crime than for having been convicted of that heinous delinquency, the having presented a play. It was not that his pieces lacked merit; for then, however good breeding might have been outraged, justice might have been appeased. But, in truth, their writer might have been an incipient Shakspeare for aught his assailants knew, most of them being acquainted only with the envelopes of the manuscripts. It was then simply the single fact, the sole misdemeanour, of an attempt to enter the dramatic walk, that provoked this unmitigated scorn.

Surely the appreciation of dramatic talent must be sadly deteriorated since Elizabeth, the proud and peerless, in learning, as in sovereignty,

1 Continued from vol. xxxvi. p. 279.