with a singular expression that approached almost to wildness. As far as her black dress permitted her shape to be seen, it was perfect symmetry. Her whole appearance was highly striking, though she was dressed in the simplest style. The only thing approaching to an ornament which she wore was a broad, black band round her neck, clasped by diamonds.

The perplexity now commenced with the student how to dispose of the helpless being thus thrown upon his protection. He thought of abandoning his chamber to her, and seeking shelter for himself elsewhere. Still he was so fascinated by her charms, there seemed to be such a spell upon his thoughts and senses, that he could not tear himself from her presence. Her manner, too, was singular and unaccountable. She spoke no more of the guillotine. Her grief had abated. The attentions of the student had first won her confidence, and then, apparently, her heart. She was evidently an enthusiast like himself, and enthusiasts soon understand each other.

In the infatuation of the moment Wolfgang avowed his passion for her. He told her the story of his mysterious dream, and how she had possessed his heart before he had even seen her. She was strangely affected by his recital, and acknowledged to have felt an impulse toward him equally unaccountable. It was the time for wild theory and wild actions. Old prejudices and superstitions were done away; everything was under the sway of the "Goddess of reason." Among other rubbish of the old times, the forms and cere monies of marriage began to be considered superfluous bonds for honourable minds. Social compacts were the vogue. Wolfgang was too much of a theorist not to be tainted by the liberal doctrines of the day.

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Why should we separate?" said he: "our hearts are united; in the eye of reason and honour we are as one. What need is there of sordid forms to bind high souls together?"

The stranger listened with emotion: she had evidently received illumination at the same school.

"You have no homne nor family," continued he; "let me be every thing to you, or rather let us be everything to one

another. If form is necessary, form shall be observed-there is my hand. I pledge myself to you for ever." "For ever?" said the stranger, solemnly. "For ever?" repeated Wolfgang.

The stranger clasped the hand extended to her: "Then I am yours," murmured she, and sunk upon his bosom.

The next morning the student left his bride sleeping, and sallied forth at an early hour to seek more spacious apartments, suitable to the change in his situation. When he returned, he found the stranger lying with her head hanging over the bed, and one arm thrown over it. He spoke to her, but received no reply. He advanced to awaken her from her uneasy posture. On taking her hand, it was cold there was no pulsation-her face was pallid and ghastly. In a word-she was a corpse.

Horrified and frantic, he alarmed the house. A scene of confusion ensued. The police was summoned. As the officer of police entered the room, he started back on beholding the corpse.

"Great heaven!" cried he, here ?"

"how did this woman come

Do you know any thing about her?" said Wolfgang, eagerly.

"Do I?" exclaimed the police officer: she was guillotined yesterday!"

He stepped forward; undid the black collar round the neck of the corpse, and the head rolled on the floor!

The student burst into a frenzy. "The fiend? the fiend has gained possession of me!" shrieked he: "I am lost for

ever!"

They tried to soothe him, but in vain. He was possessed with the frightful belief that an evil spirit had re-animated the dead body to ensnare him. He went distracted. and died in a madhouse.

FRIENDSHIP.

Friendship is like a debt of honour-the moment it is talked of, it loses its real name, and assumes the more ungrateful form of obligation.

A PICTURE OF FRENCH WOMEN.

BY LADY MORGAN.

"Light, brilliant, and volatile."

There is, perhaps, no country in the world where the social position of woman is so delectable as in France. The darling child of society, indulged, not spoiled, presiding over its pleasures, preserving its refinements, taking nothing from its strength, adding much to its brilliancy-permitted the full exercise of all her faculties, retaining the full endowment of all her graces, she pursues the golden round of her honoured existence, limited only in her course by her feebleness and her taste; by her want of power, and absence of inclination to overstep the modesty of nature," or to infringe upon privi leges exclusively the attributes of the stronger sex.

To paint the character of a woman," says Didoret, "you must use the feather of a butterfly's wing. He must have meant the character of a French woman, who unites to more solid qualities, many of the peculiar attributes of that lively insect. Light, brilliant, and volatile, she seems to flutter on the surface of life, with endless adaptations to its forms: but quick, shrewd, and rapid in her perceptions, she appears to reach by intuition, what intellect vainly toils to obtain by inference and combination. More susceptible than sensible, more awakened through her imagination, than excited through her heart, love is to her almost a jeu d'enfant. The distrust she inspires in her lover acts favorably for her interests on the natural inconstancy of man; and she secures the durability of her chain by the carelessness with which she imposes it.

Sharing largely in the national deference for ties of blood, she is peculiarly adapted to the influence of habitual attach ments; and in whatever other countries friendship may raise her altars, it is in France, and by French women, perhaps, that she will find them best served.

A French woman, like a child, requires a strong rapid series of sensations to make her feel the value of existence. Her prompt susceptibility changes its motion with its object; and that cheek, which is now dimpled with smiles, but a few moments hence will, perhaps, be humid with a tear,

This light, volatile tone of character, this incapacity for durable impression, this sensibility to good, this transient susceptibility to evil, is after all, perhaps, the secret sought by philosophers. The views of the Epicurean and of the sceptic, well understood, seem to meet at that point which nature has made the basis of the French character; arriving by different routes to the same conclusion, that true sensibility is to feel, but not to be overcome.

A French woman has no hesitation in acknowledging, that the "besoin de sentir" is the first want of her existence; that a succession of pursuits is necessary to preserve the current of life from that stagnation, which is the death of all vivid and gracious emotions. It appears, indeed, to be the peculiar endowment of the French temperament to preserve even to the last ebb of life, that unworn sensibility, that vigor, freshness, and facility of sensation which are usually confined to the earliest periods of human existence, and which ordinarily lose their gloss and energy with the first and earliest impressions.

FAREWELL-A SONNET.

Farewell! I leave thee in a happy home,
Girt with bright faces and approving eyes;
While I for many an anxious day must roam,
A stranger in the light of foreign skies.

Some swift hours flown, and wilt thou think again
Of one who loves thee more than words can tell,
And kindly keep the solitary strain,

In which he bids his native land farewell.

While ocean-tossed, thy thoughts my guide shall be,
My star by night, my life and love by day;
And when in distant climes I sadly stray,
My dreams and hopes shall fondly turn to thee.
Peace visit thee and bless thee-may the light
Of a true heart make all th y pathway bright!

THE RIVALS.

Old Ludovic Hartz always regarded his saddle with the deepest veneration; and yet there appeared nothing about it capable of exciting his idolatry. It was a Turkish saddle, old, and deeply stained with blood: yet, to the brave Ludovic, it recalled a tale of other days, when young, ar dent, and enthusiastic, he first drew his sword in defence of his country against its enemies.

He had been opposed in battle to the hostile invaders of bis native Hungary, and many an unbelieving dog had his good sword smitten to the earth. Various had been the fortune of the war, and too often was the glory of the holy cross dimmed by the lustre of the triumphant crescent. Such sad disasters were seldom alluded to by the brave hussar, but he loved to dwell on the successful actions in which he had been engaged.

It was in one of those fierce combats that, suddenly cut off from his party, he found himself surrounded by four infuriated Turks. "But the recollection of you and your angel mother," would Ludovic say to his daughter," nerved my arm. I was assailed by all my opponents. How three fell, I knew not; but severe and long was the conflict with the last of my foes, whose powerful arm was raised against me. Already I saw my wife a mournful widow, and my child fatherless-and these dreadful thoughts infused fresh vigour into my arm: I smote the infidel to death, hurled him from bis steed, and rifled him as he lay. At this moment several of the enemy appeared in sight, but I was too much exhauted to renew the perilous conflict. My gallant horse lay wounded, and in the agonies of death I threw myself on the Turkish courser, and forced him on at his utmost speed, until I regained my squadron. The saddle was steeped in the blood of my foe, and mine mingled with it. When a cessation of hostilites permitted the troops to rest for a space from the horrors of war, I hastened with the treasure which, during the campaign, I had acquired, to my house, purchased these fertile fields around my dwell. ing, and forgot, for a season, the miseries of war.'

The good Ludovic would here pause. He still retained a lively recollection of his lost wife, and he could not bear