FRAGMENT VI.

"I HAD hoped to have passed my days with Mary, in the back-settlements of America; that this now desolate breast should have pillowed her dear head. How would I have devoted myself to her happiness, soothed her sorrows, and clasped her to my ardent heart! How many tender scenes did a delusive imagination delineate ! I had hoped that she would have been mine, and mine only; that none beside should have tasted of her lip's sweetness; that on me only would she have smiled. But, now, alas! a long farewell to all my dreams.

"They tell me he is cold, cold as the polar regions. Youth, with all its characteristic warmth and enthusiasm, its noble and generous disinterestedness, is with him past. Ah! if this be true, can Mary love him, or rather can one of his mould excite love in a bosom like hers? Can he who speaks not above his

breath on the most spirit-stirring subjectswhose heart is insensible to the miseries of this world-to whom sensibility is unknown,

can he be beloved by a temperament like Mary's? And, ah! can gold be any adequate compensation for the absence of the heart's finest feelings? Can it alone prevent the ebullition of angry and bitter words which must necessarily result from uncongenial dispositions, and mitigate their stinging and corroding power? Will gold alone soothe the heart in the gloomy hour of sickness, when the soul throws to the wind such a comforter, and requires the consoling sympathy of love?"

FRAGMENT VII.·

"WELL I remember that incident-too well ; would I could forget it! Would that memory would lose her power of retaining scenes gone by, or rather that my existence on this earth, this cold earth, would terminate! I had paid my fare for a seat on the E————— coach. "Be here ten minutes before five, young man," said the clerk.

"It was my last evening at L———, and with whom could I spend that evening save Mary? I hurried to her parents' house—they loved me, and with them I was always a welcome visitor. The old man was not so well in health as he had been, and Mary was busily employed in administering every necessary comfort to her parent. No trait of her character ever interested me so much as the kind and affectionate anxiety she always evinced in every thing connected with the happiness of her parents. Though of a very delicate frame

of body, yet she was ever employed in arranging the domestic affairs of the little family. Every thing in the house was clean, neat, and tastefully arranged. Gentleness

of demeanour, and weakness of constitution, were not with her an excuse for slovenliness and idleness.

"We sat down to partake of tea, prepared by Mary's hands. I sat near her, for how could I bear to be far from the spot where her beautiful form rested? How kindly did she press me to eat, while her blue eyes emitted rays of the purest affection! Their lustre was fled, for she had been weeping; but their expression of genuine mildness and deep feeling remained. We said little, but sighed often. Her mother only spoke. She hoped I would not feel so acutely the bitterness of parting, as it was not for ever. Ah, little did she or I think it would be so. The hour of midnight came, and Mary expressed a wish that I should retire to rest. Remember,' she said, you have a long journey before you, and by losing your rest you may bring something serious upon you;

for my sake, I trust that you will not persist in your determination to remain out of bed.' Her tears flowed, she attempted to take off my boots, and imprinted a fervent kiss upon my cheek. Oh, in the name of every thing called truth, could that kiss be false? that kiss which caused her heart to heave, ay, as if it would have heaved its last. She could not prevail, and we sat up that night. The fire burned brightly. Her mother was reading the Dairyman's Daughter;' Mary and 1 were locked in each other's arms. She rested her soft cheek on mine, and her tears fell on my breast. Oh, it was maddening ecstasy! My brain quivers as I think of it. And then, the tones of her voice !-such tones, that, compared with them, music's power was lost on me-they breathed such exquisite tenderness. I will not believe that tones so different from those we hear in the ordinary intercourse of society could ever have been produced by art, by any thing save pure feeling. No; love alone could have tuned the voice to such unearthly sweetness. Ay, even now, when her kindness soothes another, when her arms