were lingering there, faint and few. The large apartment, strewed as usual with heaps of papers, opened volumes, letters and mss., was perfectly still. I never could conceive of that room being the scene of lifesome gayety, but only of deep thought, and complicated projects of ambition. Lynde, holding a letter which had lately been received, sat half-buried in a large arm-chair, and on my entrance, greeted me with even unusual warmth.

'We had not met for several weeks: circumstances had made me refrain from his house; and in that period, stormy times had passed. There had been several official appointments; one or two foreign ambassadors had been elected; and more than one applicant was vexed and disappointed. Whispers were about, that Lynde had coveted such a distinction; but I had heard them increduously, as a thousand other idle tales.

The politician walked through the apartment for several minutes; not as usual making an effort at casual conversation, but engrossed with his own hurrying reflections. I had never before seen him resign the command of his feelings.

'Egerton, you have known me more privately,' at length he said, still walking rapidly backward and forward, and smoothing the white hair from his forehead, 'than such a difference in years generally warrants. Your intimacy in this family has been very great; God knows, I approve of it, and its consequences!' He paused, seeming to doubt whether he could, even for once, draw thoughts and feelings from the very bottom of a well, deeper than whose surface the light of human sympathy seldom penetrated.

"I am an old man,' he added. 'The world call me eminent, and most men ambitious. But what I had been, had not the substance been transformed to shadow in my grasp, no one has conceived! Do they not mutter some thing about the late embassy to the Court of St. James? Do they say I am disappointed?'

I replied that vague reports had been circulated touching the

matter.

They lie, by the light of heaven!' He paused; and smiling, added, in an under tone, I hope we understand each other?'

If years of intercourse,' said I, 'have not recommended me to your confidence ———— ›

"Ay: whatever I have felt concerning that appointment, is locked up here. I am sinking below the horizon, but he who has gained the distinction, has hardly reached the meridian. The honorable station of foreign secretary at the same court is yet to be filled, and here, and here, and here,' he said, turning over letters and documents, 'are assurances that my interest will weigh much in the choice.'

'He moved closer toward me, and with a searching but half-hesitating glance, discovered the project which had been occupying his mind, adjuring me to avail myself of this opportunity of advancement. I wondered a little at his eagerness, but he hurried on, and taking my hand, exclaimed: 'It may be yours without a struggle! Observe the ambassador; scrutinize every movement every motive; use warily the confidence - he must needs repose and secretly and faithfully report all to me. By aid of a little ingenuity in disposing of a

few late events

by watching the future - I fancy he will not long adorn his coveted station.'

"Become a spy!' said I, with some indignation.

Nay, merely a political opponent; a friend in the smile and courtesies of life in heart only an enemy. You cannot say I often solicit favors. If I fall of a sudden, remember he balked me of the honor, and act as I would act !'

'A hundred emotions rushed across my mind. I thought something about self-respect, and official corruption, and moral independence, and about being hurried away by temptation. But the spark had fallen, and as the train which years had laid, burned and flashed along its way, the last relic of good resolution was consumed. I took his hand, and bound myself to second him. Other matters were then touched upon, which I may be allowed to pass over. 'God be thanked!' said he, as we parted, 'I fancy the girl too will be a rare flower at the Court of St. James.'

'EVERY one is pleased to be thought a rising man; and notwithstanding an occasional sneer at my intimacy with the veteran politician, the terms began to be applied to me pretty frequently. In a few weeks, the appointment from which he promised himself materials for revenge, fell, as he had prayed, upon me. It was my first great step on ambition's ladder, and although after years elevated me more, my head was never again so giddy. Favors greater than the political distinction hung upon the choice, and I entered Lynde's mansion for the first time, the accepted suitor of his beautiful daughter.

'All this now seems like a dream; I can hardly realize how years have gone, and hopes, and good desires, and prospects, have changed.

Solemn fools nodded their heads on learning the result of the intimacy;' several who had hardly known me when business was dull, were especially cordial in their congratulations; and Fleming averred that he had always foreseen that I should meet with good luck. To say the truth, when I looked upon the majestic creature leaning on my arm, and found myself appointed to a responsible office at a foreign court, and yet a young man, I half doubted if all were reality. But the brightest sun casts shadows, and somehow a train of dark recollections would mingle themselves with the splendid images, which used to flit before me, and despite myself, compel me to pay regard to them. I dreamed now and then of standing in my mother's chamber, and in the brightest gayeties of life, a fitful flash of memory would sometimes show me in the past, the happy country girl, poor Anna Carlton. But I threw into my letter to my mother, announcing the state of affairs, all the affectionate warmth for which once, alas! I had no need to strive. I fear to her it was the form, and semblance, and elegance of regard, without the soul. Before she replied, I went to visit her.

THE cottage door was not opened as usual by Anna Carlton, but by a neighbor, whose countenance brightened when we met, in spite of her efforts at a little ceremony. The widow, she said, had been

ill since my last letter; she would apprize her of every arrival. I sat down in the widow's parlor, feeling that it was an altered spot. Yet the old heir-looms were all there, and the family clock clicked quietly in the corner. But no young voice echoed there, and I fancied that the happy hearts which used to beat there, would beat never again so merrily.

By and by my mother entered. She was paler than I had expected, and I saw had delayed, that she might change a ruffle, or add some decoration to her apparel, before she came into the presence of her stranger son, and it grieved me deeply. I thought of the days when I used to leap into her arms; when every hope and fear was nightly divulged to her, and how in after years I took pride in administering to the comforts of that kindest, and humblest, and loveliest of mothers.

'As she advanced toward me, there was a flush upon her cheek, and at first a little formality in her expression; but only for the instant: she clasped her arms around me, and said, with a tenderness I have never forgotten, 'Oh! my son, God bless you!'

The news of my engagement had come upon her as the storm upon the willow; no resistance, no crash, but its victim yielding, and bent to the earth. There was a sadness and humility about her, which no human words, and no human eye but hers could have expressed.

Of Fanny Lynde she spoke with a delicacy which became so humble a being as herself. But when I told her with my own lips that I was going from the country, and must shortly take leave of her, had her tears been drops of molten lead, they could not more have burned me to the soul. With a good deal of doubt, I inquired for Anna Carlton. She was rather unwell, and in her room. I knew well enough the illness which detained her, but not the exertion my mother was making to give me a cheerful welcome. But God forbid I should detail that visit! Like the rest of these events, it has passed behind a veil which is seldom withdrawn. I requested, before I left, to see Miss Carlton, if but for an instant, wishing to gaze on a remembrance of better and happier days.

'Several neighbors came to offer congratulations some in ignorance, and some for form. Several were happy I had been so fortunate in my profession and connexions, and others said, bluntly, there was no predicting what changes years might work; and then shaking their heads, hoped the widow was better, and Anna quite

well.

'Heavy hours rolled away, and the time came for my departure. Of the parting with my mother I shall not speak. It had come to an end, and I was about crossing the threshhold, when I heard a light footstep, and saw Anna Carlton advancing toward us.

There was

not the usual color in her cheek, nor the usual spirit in her eye; but there was the same beaming smile as ever. For a moment I stood perfectly unmoved, and when I approached her, speech seemed to have forgotten its office.

'But I had seen, as I had desired, the relic of earlier days, and her glance seemed to roll back the dark tide of years. Perhaps she found the like satisfaction in the interview. She extended her hand, I

clasped it in mine, and with that most common and coldest of forms, without a single word, Anna Carlton and I, who used to chat together from morning till night, separated for ever. I left the cottage with the wish, that as with me pollution had entered, it might follow me thence again, and reached town, my spirits ill according with the merry and gorgeous preparations for the coming wedding.

'Lynde, a weak man in his devotion to the elegancies of life, would fain show the world that he approved of his daughter's marriage. He was resolved that his fair and favorite child should celebrate her nuptials in all the splendor he could command. Fanny Lynde herself moved through the scene like a queen receiving her dues; her personal beauty and graceful wit had given her a kind of conventional ascendancy; she conversed with all, but, as it were, descended to converse with them. Her father would, time and again, take her hand, and charge her playfully to do him credit at the Court of St. James; to which a glance of her dark eye, or the scornful turn of her lip, was her only and perhaps best reply.

'I joined in the gayety which was going forward, and watched the splendor which was preparing, apparently with considerable interest.

'At last the month was gone, and the festivities were at hand. Congratulations poured in thanks were returned ceremonies were performed; and little was talked of, but the wedding and our departure. The day before the marriage was to be solemnized, Lynde was sitting in my office, explaining for the hundredth time a certain course I was to pursue, after having officially gained the ambassador's confidence, when a man brought me a letter in a familiar hand, with a black seal. The magistrate urged me to thrust it away for the time; but I had involuntarily broken it open, and — oh God! that letter, and its consequences !'

I Do not much regret that my friends record breaks off thus abruptly. Perhaps, unconsciously interested in the circumstances, I have already extracted more than was fitting. But I shall have little to add. The letter commenced with the most affectionate advice from the widow; she commended him to the blessing of Heaven with a mother's fervor, and feeling from her increasing weakness that they should never meet again in this world, she besought him, in memory of younger days, and more boyish pleasures, to be a good

man.

Such a tone of perfect mildness and forgiveness as marked that letter, I never before listened to. It reverted a little to old times and old companions; recalled one or two early adventures, which of a winter's evening at home used to send the laugh round the circle, and besought her son to seek with his best zeal the glory one day to be revealed. From the trembling hand which traced them, these words fell with a burning heat. All at once, the weak hand-writing ended, and, evidently written at a later date, was the following: 'God did not permit your dear mother to transmit to you this last memento of her affection. She sank away calmly and unexpectedly, and expired last evening, with your name upon her lips. ANNA CARLTON.

So suddenly, and from such a source, did poor Egerton learn this sad news. There were many shakings of the head, when it was told through the village that the widow Egerton was dead. Many had said that she was dying of neglect, and many more would not like to charge their consciences with Egerton's coldness to a certain young friend, and prophesied no good of a marriage, which, truth to tell, it were better should not take place.

I have often thought these latter good people spoke with a fair degree of shrewdness. The nuptials were decently delayed, and that delay postponed them for ever. Only a few weeks after the above letter, Fanny Lynde received an injury on an equestrian party of pleasure, and was brought senseless to her father's house. Of Lynde's agony and disappointment, a less haughty man can hardly conceive; so many bright visions, and paternal hopes, dispelled in a moment! He insisted, however, on Egerton's retaining his situation; possibly he could return, and find her improved. Ambition once more conquered; and when in a few months Charles Egerton sailed for England, his bride had scarcely the consciousness to bid him farewell.

We

It is rather fashionable now-a-days to make light of affairs of the heart, and to talk coldly about the nonsense of pining for disappointed love. Perhaps in some cases these notions may be sincere ; but Anna Carlton knew nothing of them. She had loved Egerton with all her affections, and never once thought of concealing it. often see a man, when the regard he has trusted totters to the ground, gather strength from the fall, and again be stern and daring. But the delicate hopes and affections of woman are sadly shattered by the jarring.

When the widow's household was broken up, Anna Carlton found a home with as kind a friend. Perhaps a stranger would have thought her daily duties cheerfully performed; and so they were, but not heartily. She was willing to live for others; but for herself, she prayed every night to meet the widow in heaven for those on earth, whom her prayer might avail.

I will not linger on the remainder of this sketch. Sometimes a neighbor would strive to make the young orphan happy, and when in their simple merry-meetings a smile used to sit on Anna's cheek, they fancied her spirits were returning. But her heart was enshrined within an inner temple, the threshhold of which, joy never passed. Not a word of repining ever escaped her, nor was a moment given to idleness; and thus she gently and hourly declined. A few months of sorrow and solitude, and close beside the spot where the widow Egerton was buried, the sod was composed over the grave of her young friend, Anna Carlton.

When the world dazzles, or interest leads astray, I love to wander to that rural burial-place. The unostentatious record of her purity, who is now beyond the reach of all human disappointment, to me is full of meaning, and I take my place again among men, with a kindlier sympathy for the erring, and better guarded against temptation.