equal duties, will not only be acknowledged in our prayers and churchyards, but will be the basis of government, and of public as well as of private intercourse."

"When the sky falls'-these are odd speculations for a young lady."

"Speculations they are not. The hardest metals are melted in the furnace, to be recast in new forms; and old opinions and prejudices, harder, Jasper, than any metal, may be subdued and remoulded in these fiery times."

"And does our aunt Archer furnish the mould in which they are recast?—if she talks to you as she has to me of the redoubtable knight-errantry of the indomitable deliverer of her captive child, I do not wonder at this sudden inspiration of republicanism. It is rather a feminine mode, though, of arriving at political abstractions through their incarnation in a favourite hero."

A deep glow, partly hurt pride, partly consciousness, suffused Isabella's cheek. Her aunt's was the only mind whose direct influence she felt.

"You are displeased," he continued; "but you must forgive me, for I am in that state when 'trifles, light as air,' disturb me. My destiny, or rather, I should say, those hopes that shape destiny, seem to be under the control of some strange fatality, that I can neither evade nor understand. If I dared retrace to you the history of these hopes, from our childhood to this day, you would see how many times, when they have been most assu

red, you have dashed them by some evident and inexplicable alienation from me. At our last interview-"

"When was it-when was it?" asked Isabella, in her nervousness and confusion, forgetting they had not met since the day of the dinner at Sir Henry Clinton's.

"When-have you forgotten our last meeting?" "Oh, no-no; but ages have passed since-ages of anxiety and painful reflection."

"And have these ages, compressed as they have been into five days, changed your heart, Isabella? -or was it folly and presumption to hope-I will confess the whole extent of my presumption-to believe, that that heart, the object of all my hopesthat for which I only care to live, was-mine?" It was well that Isabella covered her face, for it expressed what she forbade her lips to speak.

"Any thing but this mysterious silence," continued Meredith, aware how near a suppressed agitation was to the confession he expected. "Let me, I beseech you, know my fate at once. It is more important to us both that it should now be decided than you can imagine."

"Oh, not now--not now, Jasper !"

Meredith was too acute not to perceive how near to a favourable decision was this" not now."

"And why not now, Isabella? Surely I have not seriously offended you. Think, for a moment, that after passing the last five days between the most anxious waiting at your door, and continued

efforts for Herbert, when I at last get access to you, you receive my plans for your brother coldly and doubtingly; and I find that while I was burning with impatience to see you, you had been occupied with abstruse meditations upon the rights of man! I was galled, I confess, Isabella; and if I seemed merely to treat them with levity, I deserve credit for mastery over stronger feelings." Isabella was half convinced that she had been unjust and almost silly. "You have it in your power," continued Meredith, " to infuse what opinions you will into my mind-to inspire my purpose -to govern my affections-to fix my destiny for time and eternity. Oh, Isabella! do not put me off with this silence. Let this blessed moment decide our fate. Speak but one word, and I am bound to you for ever!"

That word of doom hovered on Isabella's lips; her hand, which he had taken, was no longer cold and passive, but returned the grasp of his ;-doubt and resolution were vanishing together; and the balance that had been wavering for years was rapidly descending in Meredith's favour, when the door opened and Mrs. Linwood appeared. At first starting back with delighted surprise, and then receiving a fresh impulse from her husband's impatient voice calling from his room, she said, "You must come to your father, instantly, Isabella." Isabella gave one glance to Meredith and obeyed the summons. Meredith felt as if some fiend had dashed from his hand the sparkling cup just raised

to his lips. His face, that expressed the conflict of hope just assured, and of sudden disappointment, was a curious contrast to Mrs. Linwood's, smiling all over. She believed she at last saw the happy issue of her long-indulged expectations. She waited in vain for Meredith to speak; and finally came to the conclusion, that there were occasions in life when the best bred people forgot propriety. "I am quite mortified that I intruded," she said; "but you know Mr. Linwood-he is so impatient, and the gout you know is so teasing, and he never can bear Isabella out of his sight, and he is just on the sofa for the first time since this attack, and I unluckily hurt his foot. You know the gout has left his stomach and gone into his foot. It is much less dangerous there, but I don't think he is any more patient with it; and I happened just to touch the tip end of his toe in putting under the cushion, and he screamed out so for Isabella. thinks she can do every thing so much better than anybody else. Indeed, she is a first-rate nurse-so devoted, too--she has not left her father's bedside till now for five days and nights; she seemed to forget herself a little now (spoken in parenthesis and significantly). Whatever man may think before marriage, Mr. Meredith, he finds afterward, especially if he is subject to the gout, good nursing is every thing. I often say, All a woman need know is how to take good care of her family and of the sick. However, that and something more Isabella knows."

He

"Madam ?" said Meredith, waked from his revery by Isabella's name, the only word of this long speech, meant to be so effective and appropriate, that he had heard. He slightly bowed and left the house.

"How odd !-how very odd!" thought Mrs. Linwood. "When Mr. Linwood declared himself, he directly told my father and mother, and the wedding-day and all was settled before he went out of the house. I wish I knew just how matters stand. Belle will not say a word to me unless it's a fixed thing: so I shall find out one way or the other. I am sure I used to tell my mother every thing; but Belle don't take after me: however, she is a dear girl, and I am sure I ought to be satisfied with her. If she should refuse Jasper Meredith!!"

This last supposition of a tremendous possibility was quite too much for a solitary meditation; and the good lady started from her position at the window, where she had stood gazing after Meredith, and returned to her customary avocations.