vanced. Youth in distress cannot feel so intensely as age; to the first, it is a gloomy, cheerless kind of novelty without its charm-to the latter it is the worm that gnaws the heart, and tortures as it feeds.

"True, I was then but a child, but I have not forgotten that scene, and amid all the various changes since, it has ever been uppermost; although fortune has smiled upon me, it never could erase the remembrance of that night, and your subsequent kindness."

"And yet, Agnes-for so I must still call you-did you but know how I have treasured some wild thoughts, and dwelt upon the image of a child, and followed it in imagination to womanhood. How, when in a foreign land, I panted for the hour of my return, with the wild hope of meeting one so dear to me; and when I did return to meet poverty, to find the friends I valued distant and heartless, and the one I most loved gone, no one knew whither."

"And did you love, Alfred? I-I never suspected you loved ?"

"It was adoration, Agnes-the being I worshipped was ever worthy of my affection-but she is lost to me forever." “Where is she, Alfred?”

"It matters not—I am poor now-houseless-penniless!" "You are not penniless, no! Tell me, Alfred, did the object of your love return your affection? If she still lives, and loves, half my fortune is yours, you shall be my brother-your wife my sister-for your happiness, Alfred, I will yield up all I possess, and go now to assist in the search of one so dear to you." As she spoke her voice faltered, her eyes filled with tears, and as Alfred caught her hand and pressed it once more in his, she smiled as one in grief smiles.

Why should I withhold the name of her I love-I will

not; look up, beloved one!-it is not that I was once richam poor-it is not that; but still misfortune has soured my temper, disappointment chilled my heart-incessant labour paled my cheek, yet that is nothing-time will change all things but why disguise it, Agnes-here-aye here in your splendid mansion, surrounded as you are with wealth, friends, and influence, the poor youth, who indites a story for a morsel of bread, whose whole fortune is in his brains, dares to tell you, though you spurn him, that he loved you as a child in poverty, and intended to have offered you his hand, and fortune, on his return from Europe. There is my father's letter, giving his sanction to my marriage-written, Agnes-look at the date-written when you were poor, and I accounted rich; the reverse is now the case."

"Alfred-Alfred, I never knew this."

"You know it now; spurn me if you like; call up your servants, bid them turn the beggar out, let the imprudent lover, the poor suitor feel the last pang misfortune has to inflict." Alfred, dear Alfred, I do not deserve this!"

66

"Dear Alfred-and this to me?"

"Yes, and from this moment, and forever, the only object dear to my heart!"

"Agnes my beloved, and is there such happiness in store for me? The wild dreams in my dark hours of poverty are realized. Come to my arms, and let this our first kiss, seal the bond that makes you mine for life."

Considerable excitement was occasioned by the announcement of the marriage of the rich heiress Miss St. Clairville, with a poor writer for a literary paper, and it is said, the learned editor of a certain periodical, was heard to declare that he would willingly give the fortunate husband one hundred dollars if he would only write a tale for his maga zine. So goes the world-and so ends our story.

LEAF TWENTIETH.

A mother's love, what on earth is stronger than a mother's love? what compare with that affection which clings to the object through years, and follows it through good and evil report, nor ever forsakes it, until the grave shuts it out, even then the parental tear is shed on the cold clods, and gives life to the wild flower that blooms and lives, the emblem of the dead. A mother's love::

"The feeling of a parent never dies

But with our moral nature; all is vain,

The wretch, by cold and cruel spurning, tries
To change that love to hate: the sense of pain
Shoots keenly through a mother's heart; the chain
Wound through life's tender years, twines closer; so
Feelings, that in our better hours had lain

Silent, are often wak'd by some deep throe;

And as the torture racks, our loves intenser grow."

How truthfully has our own charming poet Percival described a mother's love; but in the annexed extract from the Missionary's report of Cases, we have in the plain simple language of prose-a picture drawn from life. Read, reflect, moralize.

"Still another case is that of a poor woman with several children, whom the Missionary, directed by some benevolent persons, found in a suffering condition, in an humble dwelling in Kensington. The woman was without friends or relations able or willing to relieve her wants, and she gained a scanty subsistence for her family, by vending a small lot of fruit through the streets. With a basket thus filled, she traversed the city, with tottering footsteps, in sunshine and storm, from early morning until night, and on

many an evening has returned to her famished children with a few pennies only, as the meagre gains of her wearisome labor. Dividing a morsel of coarse food among her children, she has wrapped them up'in pieces of old carpet, to keep off the biting cold, and thus they have passed the gloomy night. Time and again has this lonely woman been compelled thus to dispose of her shivering and half famished children, while she herself sat, almost wild with anguish, to brood over the grinding poverty which had made her hearth desolate."

THERE'S MUSIC IN A MOTHER'S VOICE.

There's music in a mother's voice,

More sweet than breezes sighing;
There's kindness in a mother's glance
Too pure for ever dying..

There's love within a mother's breast,
So deep 'tis still o'erflowing,
And care for those she calls her own,
That's ever, ever growing.

There's anguish in a mother's tear,
When farewell fondly taking,
That so the heart of pity moves,
It scarcely keeps from breaking.

And when a mother kneels to heaven,
And for her child is praying,
O! who can half the fervor tell
That burns in all she's saying.

A mother! how her tender arts

Can soothe the breast of sadness,
And through the gloom of life once more,
Bid shine the sun of gladness.

A mother! when like evening's star,

Her course hath ceased before us,
From brighter worlds regards us still,
And watches fondly o'er us.

LEAF TWENTY-FIRST.

THE HOUR OF TEMPTATION.

"When by human weakness and the arts of the tempter you are led to temptation, prayer is the thread to bring you out of the labyrinth.” -DUPPA.

"See a deep glass of Rhenish wine on the contrary casket, for if the devil be within, and that temptation without, he will chose it.”— SHAKSPEARE.

IT is with no blush of shame that I confess there was a period of my life, a page of my history, blackened and besmeared with the foul stain of dissipation. I look back to it with abhorrence; but my resolution to reform, and seventeen years of strictly temperate habits, are in themselves virtue enough to counteract all the vice the indulgence engendered. Why then should I blush for having conquered the hydra-headed monster, Intemperance?

That I was no common toper, a mere tavern sot, but a downright roystering fellow, there are many of my good friends ready to bear witness, and they will do it most willingly, for it is a rule established by universal custom, that to tell the errors of poor human nature is the duty of every man, woman and child who may be so fortunate as to possess the knowledge. But, thank heaven, my good resolves shook them off, and I became a steady, sober man of business. Seventeen years! How time passes; my new existence seems but as a day-yet has it been a pleasant one. But what have I not seen in these seventeen years? I have witnessed the villany of man in every grade of society. I