other people's misfortunes, the fit held her pretty long.

So Rosamund that very afternoon began another piece of the same size and subject; and Margaret, to her dying day, never dreamed of the mischief she had unconsciously done..

CHAPTER III.

ROSAMUND GRAY was the most beautiful young creature that eyes ever beheld. Her face had the sweetest expression in it-a gentleness -a modesty—a timidity-a certain charm-a grace without a name.

There was a sort of melancholy mingled in her smile. It was not the thoughtless levity of a girl-it was not the restrained simper of premature womanhood-it was something which the poet Young might have remembered, when he composed that perfect line,

"Soft, modest, melancholy, female, fair."

She was a mild-eyed maid, and every body loved her. Young Allan Clare, when but a boy, sighed for her.

Her yellow hair fell in bright and curling clusters, like

"Those hanging locks

Of young Apollo."

Her voice was trembling and musical. A graceful diffidence pleaded for her whenever she

spake-and, if she said but little, that little found its way to the heart.

Young, and artless, and innocent, meaning no harm, and thinking none; affectionate as a smiling infant-playful, yet inobtrusive, as a weaned lamb-every body loved her. Young Allan Clare, when but a boy, sighed for her.

The moon is shining in so brightly at my window, where I write, that I feel it a crime not to suspend my employment awhile to gaze at her.

See how she glideth, in maiden honor, through the clouds, who divide on either side to do her homage.

Beautiful vision!-as I contemplate thee, an internal harmony is communicated to my mind, a moral brightness, a tacit analogy of mental purity; a calm like that we ascribe in fancy to the favored inhabitants of thy fairy regions, argent fields."

I marvel not, O moon, that heathen people, in the "olden times," did worship thy deityCynthia, Diana, Hecate. Christian Europe invokes thee not by these names now-her idola

try is of a blacker stain: Belial is her Godshe worships Mammon.

False things are told concerning thee, fair planet-for I will ne'er believe, that thou canst take a perverse pleasure in distorting the brains of us poor mortals. Lunatics! moonstruck! Calumny invented, and folly took up, these names. I would hope better things from thy mild aspect and benign influences.

Lady of Heaven, thou lendest thy pure lamp to light the way to the virgin mourner, when she goes to seek the tomb where her warrior lover lies.

Friend of the distressed, thou speakest only peace to the lonely sufferer, who walks forth in the placid evening, beneath thy gentle light, to chide at fortune, or to complain of changed friends, or unhappy loves.

Do I dream, or doth not even now a heavenly calm descend from thee into my bosom, as I meditate on the chaste loves of Rosamund and her Clare ?

CHAPTER IV.

ALLAN CLARE was just two years elder than Rosamund. He was a boy of fourteen, when he first became acquainted with her—it was soon after she had come to reside with her grandmother at Widford.

He met her by chance one day, carrying a pitcher in her hand, which she had been filling from a neighbouring well-the pitcher was heavy, and she seemed to be bending with its weight.

Allan insisted on carrying it for her for he thought it a sin, that a delicate young maid, like her, should be so employed, and he stand idle by.

Allan had a propensity to do little kind offices for every body-but at the sight of Rosamund Gray his first fire was kindled -his young mind seemed to have found an object, and his enthusiasm was from that time forth awakened. His visits, from that day, were pretty frequent at the cottage.