to myself. The bright empyrean of hope is for youth to soar in, and your element shall not be invaded by croakings from the bogs of experience.

The same conveyance that transported this letter, so full of resolution and trust, to Isabella,

carried her information of the events related in

the next chapter.

CHAPTER XVII.

We are men, my liege.

Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men.

SURPRISE has sometimes been expressed by our English friends who have travelled among us, that the Americans should cherish such lively recollections of the war that achieved their independence, when their countrymen had almost forgotten that such a contest ever existed. They seem to have forgotten, too, that while their part was enacted by soldiers by

profession and foreign mercenaries, our battle was fought by our fathers, sons, and brothers; that while the scene of action was three thousand miles from them, it was in our home-lots and at our fire-sides; and above all, that while they fought for the preservation of colonial possession, at best a doubtful good, we were contending for national independence—for the right and power to make the last and best experiment of popular government.

Such circumstances as it falls to our lot now to relate are not easily forgotten; and such, or similar, occurred in some of the happiest homes of our land.

Mrs. Archer was quietly sleeping with her children, when she was awakened by unusual sounds in the room below her; and immediately her maid, who slept in the adjoining apartment, rushed in, crying out, "that the house was full

of men-she heard them on the stairs, in the

parlour, hall, everywhere!

Mrs. Archer sprang from the bed, threw on her dressing gown, bade the girl be quiet, and beware of frightening the children; and then, as they, startled by the noise, raised their heads from their pillows, she told them in a calm and decidedly cheerful voice, that there were men in the house, who she believed had come to rob it: but that they would neither do harm to them, nor to her. She then ordered her maid to light the candles on the dressing-table, and again reassuring her trembling children, who had meanwhile crept to her side, she awaited the fearful visiters, whose footsteps she heard on the staircase.

A fierce-looking wretch burst into the apartment. The spectacle of the mother and her children arrested him, and he involuntarily doffed

his cap. It was a moment for a painter, if he could calmly have surveyed the scene. The maid had shrunk behind her mistress's chair, and kneeling there, had grasped her gown with both hands, as if there were safety in the touch. Poor little Lizzy's face was hidden in her mother's bosom, and her fair silken curls hung over her mother's dark dressing-gown. Ned, at the sound of the opening door, turned his sightless eyeballs towards the villain. There was something manly and defying in his air and erect attitude, something protecting in the expression of his arm as he laid it over his sister, while the clinging of his other arm around his mother's neck, indicated the defencelessness of childhood, and his utter helplessness. Mrs. Archer had thrown aside her nightcap; her hair was twisted up in a sort of Madonna style; but not of the tame Madonna cast was her fine, spirited countenance,