There was no man more liked in the regiment than Charlie Grafton, of the th Light Infantry. All the fairies had smiled on his birth, for Charlie was a tall, good-looking fellow, with a soft, fair moustache, and merry, honest blue eyes; he was none of your ordinary subalterns forced to live on his pay, and finding his mess bills more than his income. The only child of a widowed mother, Charlie Grafton had a liberal allowance and a large property in prospectu. Then he was by no means an insipid, half-taught dandy: he had been well educated before a freak of fancy made him enter the army, and he could hold his own in most conversations, even though the discussion strayed beyond regimental chat, or the theory of billiards. To sum up all, he had seen just enough service to establish his character for undoubted pluck, without any of the annoyances of a long campaign, as Grafton's regiment was ordered home just after he had drawn his "first blood" in India. For all these reasons Charlie Grafton was considered a very fortunate man, and, as is often the case with such men, was universally liked by all who knew him. It would have been difficult to find a more goodtempered fellow, always ready to make or take a joke, equally ready to help a friend out of a scrape. Good-tempered people are generally happy, and Grafton formed no exception to the rule; but the real secret of his happiness lay in the fact that he was engaged to Nellie Vernon, and was to be married in a few months' time. Marriage is, I suppose, a pleasant thing, at least at the first blush; and when parents are willing as well as the bride, and when there is gold, gold, nothing but gold" to add a sparkle to the affair, a man may be excused for feeling rather romantically happy. Besides all this, in Charley Grafton's case there was the knowledge of possessing the love of as pretty, gentle, and winning a girl as ever destroyed the hearts of half the Household Brigade, or made a dean inclined to break the tenth commandment. In one point alone Fortune had lately been unkind to Charlie Grafton, for instead of being quartered at some convenient distance from home, or even from London, he found himself at the close of the autumn with a detachment in one of the most remote of the Channel Isles, where communications with the outer world, and therefore those peculiar "angels' visits" represented by Nellie Vernon's letters, were "few and far between." Charlie Grafton was a man of resources, as well as a man deeply in love can be; and so, while his brother officers-from the gruff old major down to the most callow of ensignsoccupied themselves studiously in doing no thing, and varying this task by abusing the place and bemoaning their ill-fortune, Grafton found plenty to do-in sketching the wild scenery of the island, in shooting sea-fowl, fishing, and, above all, in writing long letters to Nellie Vernon. There he had a great advantage over the other fellows of the regiment; they not being in love, except for a week or so, could not see any pleasure in filling four sheets of largesized note-paper with accounts of their personal doings, their thoughts and feelings; but Charlie Grafton could and did. Then, too, Charlie did not neglect the few opportunities for enjoying himself which the place of his banishment afforded; it was of no use to sigh for Nellie Vernon's presence, or to dream of the Row and Pall Mall; so Charlie made a virtue of necessity; and walked, talked, and flirted (though very decorously) with the few island belles about him. Every man has something pleasant to look forward to: Charlie Grafton's happiness depended on his leave, which he hoped would enable him to spend Christmas time at his mother's house, where Nellie would be a constant visitor. Anxiously did Charlie look out for letters as December arrived with abundance of rough weather, which delayed the mails, and almost made the young soldier lose his temper. The time went on, and Charlie got no leave: it was clear that he must eat his Christmas dinner at mess instead of at Ashton Court, and listen to the Major's recollections of Burmah instead of hearing Nellie Vernon sing in the old drawing-room at the Court. It was too provoking; and now the weather had become so stormy that there was no knowing when he could get away even if his leave arrived. At last the mail brought him the wished-for letter, and, at the same time, a letter from his mother and Nellie Vernon, regretting his absence, and begging him to be at Ashton Court in time for a ball on New Year's Night. Charlie wrote at once to say that if there was a possibility of reaching Ashton in time he would be there; he could not leave till the next steamer went, and her movements were uncertain; still they were to expect him till eleven o'clock at night, a little before which time the last train reached Ashton. To Nellie Vernon he wrote more passionately. She had reproached him with neglect in not coming sooner, and Charlie wrote in his excitement, scarcely knowing what he said, "If I do not dance the first dance with you on New Year's Night then believe that I do not love you; give me till eleven to fulfil my pledge." There was much rejoicing at Ashton Court when these letters arrived. "He is coming, Nellie," said Mrs. Grafton, with a happy look. "So he tells me," answered Nellie. "How long these letters have been travelling to-day is the last of the year, and Charlie will be here to-morrow." The ball at Ashton Court was to be a grand affair, and carriages arrived from far and near on New Year's Night. Some officers came over in a drag from the nearest town to meet Grafton, whom they had known when he was at Ashton, and to strive for one dance with the belle of the county, Nellie Vernon. Nellie, however, was resolute in her refusal of all offers to dance: she had seen, perhaps, a deeper meaning in Charlie Grafton's letter than he had intended; but, at all events, she was pledged to him for the first dance, and would not even join a quadrille. She was nervous and uneasy: the mere longing and expectation for his arrival was added to a strange, shuddering anticipation of evil which she could not account for; she sought out Mrs. Grafton, who was herself anxious and excited, but who assured Nellie that she was very foolish, and that if it were possible Charlie would come. "I know he will come," murmured Nellie, as she returned to her seat, and the thought made her shudder instead of radiant with pleasure. Half-past ten had struck, and the hands of the drawing-room clock, from which Nellie scarcely moved her eyes, were going steadily on. Some late arrivals had come (the invitations had been issued for nine o'clock), and now many of the guests began speculating as to whether Grafton would come or not. The crash of the band and the whirl of dancers, however, engrossed most people's attention; Mrs. Grafton had left the room for a moment, and Nellie Vernon still sat and watched the clock. The little bell of the time-piece sounded eleven; Nellie turned instinctively towards the door of the ante-room, in which she was sitting; and as she did so, the door opened, and Charlie Grafton entered. He was in evening dress, and looked paler and graver than usual. Nellie rose eagerly to meet him, exclaiming "You are most punctual this time: you have come at the very right moment to" "To redeem my pledge," he answered, with something of sadness in his tone. "You are tired with your long journey, my poor Charlie," said Nellie; "do not dance yet." "Come, dearest, now is the time," he said, in the same grave tone; and the next moment they were among the dancers. In the delightful excitement of once more feeling Charles Grafton's strong arm supporting her, Nellie scarcely noticed the extreme paleness of his face and the deathly coldness of his hands. The dance was a brief one. Then her companion led her back to her seat, and said, in a low, sad voice, "I have fulfilled my pledge, Nellie; are you satisfied ?" "In one moment I will rejoin you," she said, and left him; when she returned he had gone. "Where is Charlie? have you seen him?" she asked of Mrs. Grafton, the next moment. "Seen him, no! Has he arrived? Where is he?" were the hurried questions of the mother. Two or three guests now came up, and asked if Grafton had arrived. "Of course he has; did you not see him dancing with me ten minutes ago?" answered Nellie." No one had noticed him: several persons had seen Miss Vernon dancing, but no one had recognized her partner. Then, for the first time since she had seen Charlie enter that room, a horror came over her-a sinking at the heart seized her, and taking Mrs. Grafton's arm she hurried to her room; declaring, in spite of all that argument or raillery could do, "that something had happened to Charlie." * Next day a special messenger arrived with news at Ashton Court. Charles Grafton had been drowned by the capsizing of a boat as he attempted to reach the steamer in a heavy sea on the last day of the Old Year. ABSENCE. BY ADA TREVANION. From my dwelling I stray forth to gaze on the night, Stars stealing from darkness, like sweet thoughts of home; And beneath the broad sea, with one distant sail white, A solemn monotony, billows and gloom. Looking back, I behold, as if but half awake, The bay-windowed house 'mid its garden-walks damp. No voice on the threshold the silence will break; A shudder comes o'er me, and chills my warm blood, As I view the dim alley, and dark-boding yew: And yet it was there that, entranced, I once stood, While my love from his finger the token-ring drew. The treasures he gave can no joy now impart— Such gifts are too costly for sorrow and meThe wealth I require is that of the heart: The smiles of affection I languish to see. "Yes, yes, you foolish boy! why do you But the late moon is rising; the eve-hour has fled; look at me in that way?" He smiled without speaking, and pointed towards a lady who was beckoning to Nellie from the adjoining room, In the silence so sad, that it hints of no dawn, I am free to lament o'er the unheeding dead, MY HOUSE IN CECIL BY MRS. WHITE. STREET. husband of my youth, the father of my children, in the grave. Roused, at length, from the lethargy of grief by the voice of two-fold duty, I turned over in my mind the several means of establishing a home for my children, with a prospect of maintaining it, that the sale of such supernumerary articles as remained from the days of our affluence would effect, and finding it the only business to be undertaken without capital, and anxi When lamented but irremediable events are concerned, I have always found it the wisest and best plan to bury them as we do the loved we have lost, and ever after be as careful of disturbing them. Otherwise I might, by contrasting my former circumstances with those in which I have since figured, as the keeper of a lodging-house, produce what painters call a very effective bit of colouring, but this is not my object; I shall, therefore, briefly state, (in order to introduce myself to my readers,) that, pos-ous, under any circumstances, to keep myself sessed of a handsome fortune, I had early in life married a young man of moderate independence, with whom I continued to share as complete happiness as can possibly fall to the lot of human nature. We had children, and our affairs in other respects went on prosperously; our plantations flourished, our flocks increased, and as we always lived within our income, there appeared little risk of our ever knowing want. In a few years, however, a mania arose for speculating, and, among the rest, my husband was seized with the prevailing fureur-heavy losses were incurred, and thousand after thousand of our principal withdrawn from the funds to meet fresh demands, and ensure a return for the capital already sunk in the undertaking. Like an alchymist in his search for gold, or a gambler who believes ill luck has lasted so long that the next throw must certainly recover it, he seemed determined to make new trials, till, at length, all was lost; our wealth had vanished in the attempt at transmutation, and we were left utterly ruined. From this time my husband's health declined; the loss of his property, and the alteration it entailed in the circumstances and expectations of his little household, preyed upon his spirit with a bitterness little short of remorse for some actual crime; and gradually I perceived his mind yielding to a weight that I had not the power to alleviate, till at length he was totally incapacitated from taking any share in the concerns of business, or the interests of his family. So unnaturally had mental disease warped his understanding, that the very affection of his children added to his sufferings, and even I could not persuade him that my cheerfulness was sincere, and that I did not in my heart curse him, for the want in which he had involved us. In fact, in the noon of manhood, he bade fair to become that sad, sad thing, a nervous hypochondriac; but consumption, of the most rapid description, stepped between him and semi-idiocy, and in less than twelvemonths from the failure of our prosperity, I laid the free from pecuniary obligations, I stifled my natural prejudices in maternal anxieties, and from having played the hostess in my husband's elegant and hospitable home, sank into a lower caste of the character, as proprietress of a lodging-house. I did not, however, have recourse to that interesting form of advertisement which tells you, that " a widow lady, whose daughters are musical, or who is herself of an agreeable disposition, having a larger house than her present circumstances require, (of course in a genteel neighbourhood,) is desirous of adding to her family circle, (felicitous phrase,) by the accession of one or two gentlemen, or ladies, who are anxious to ensure the comforts of society, and a delightful home, to the convenience of a town residence." My establishment was situated in one of the private streets off the Strand, which, lying in the very heart of gaiety and business, midway between the courts of law, and close to the theatres, was a favourite locality with East and West Indian merchants, army and navy men on leave, persons engaged in law suits, and provincial families visiting town during the season; and as the wreck of my worldly goods enabled me to furnish it in a style superior to the generality of such places, a very few days after the exhibition of the printed card, (which proclaims, as plainly as words can speak, that either poverty, or lucre, induces you to desecrate the sanctity of your home,) I stood blushing to the very weepers of my mourning habit at having to arrange terms &c. with my first lodger. these feelings, at first painful, even to awkwardness, by degrees wore off, and I soon became accustomed to the routine expected of me-the trades-craft, if I may so express it, of the business. I made certain regulations, from which I rarely deviated, and methodized the necessary details so as to insure comfort for the inmates, and something of the dignity of a private home to myself. And though a young, and not unhandsome woman, the presence of my children, and the sacred garb of my widowhood, preserved for me a tone of deferential respect and delicacy as I had been accustomed to as wife, But In this position I continued several years, I winning the esteem (I am glad to say) of many who came to my house as lodgers, but who left it my friends; and from the incidents thus deposited with me, without the aid of duplicate keys, or the intervention of eaves-dropping, I am enabled to offer many illustrations of traits and trials of lodging-house keeping; and should the accompanying specimen-a mere "taste of our quality"-be favourably received, I have only to add, that, "for a consideration,' the public may have the key of my Bramahlocked portfolio, and pick and choose through a series of my experiences. وو To those who may be kind enough to feel an interest in the after-fate of the widow and her children, (for it is as well to be done with the old subject before we begin with the new,) I have only to add, that an East Indian invalid, while receiving as a stranger those services that his state of health required-and which it is woman's province to supply-discovered, in his accidental nurse, the widow of his brother; and with a generosity princely as his fortune, adopted us as the inmates of his home and heart. It is unnecessary to say, that the house in Cecilstreet was given up, but not so the recollections connected with it. THE LATE REPRIEVE. Àt rather an unusually late hour one evening, while sitting with my family, I was disturbed by the sound of a vehicle at the door, followed by the impatient rap of the driver, and immediately afterwards a servant entered, and announced a lady "who would not be denied." Now, one of my rules was to receive no applications for my apartments after a certain hour, in order that the time devoted to my children might be entirely their own; and as, in general, the same persons returned to me during their annual séjour in the metropolis, it was accident alone that brought unexpected inmates to my house, except from the dog-days to December, (and this well remember was in the early spring of '96.) A lady, however, alone, and at that late hour, I had nothing for it but to receive her-for there is something unpardonable in the uncharitableness of one woman to another : and I can fancy nothing more cruel to the individual, or humiliating to the sex, than the mistrust that denies the shelter of a roof, merely because accident or misfortune has obliged the applicant to seek it under unconventional circumstances. Putting down my youngest girl from my lap, and disengaging my waist and shoulder from the circling arms of the other two, I composed my dress and countenance to their accustomed quietude, and passed on to the apartment into which the servant had shown her. A travelling trunk was already in the hall, and as I opened the opposite door, the vehicle drove off. Now there is in the human heart such a love of vainglory, that though it may have made itself up to the commission of a kind action, it likes the choice of doing it to rest with itself, and at this aspect of things, I confess I felt a great inclination to revoke my decision in the lady's favour, and to show myself supreme in my own house. But it was only a momentary thought; the next I was smiling at my own impotence, for it was such a night of rain and storm, that I could not have found it in my heart to have put a worm out of doors that had managed to wriggle its poor, naked, unsheltered head within the sill. So I entered the apartment, making up my mind to concede gracefully what I could not comfortably withhold. The stranger, who stood with her back towards me, was about my own height (which is of a stature that is called commanding), but a certain exility in her form gave you an idea of extreme delicacy and youth; she was dressed with a rich plainness, that bespoke her of a class of life far removed from its ordinary exigencies, but her countenance, when she turned on my approach, and put back the thick veil that shaded it, bore melancholy evidence that circumstances, however advantageous, cannot raise us above the level of humanity, and that whatever the rank, the barbed shafts of misfortune can find us out. So moving an expression of dejected anguish, upon features in their noon of youth (and otherwise beautiful), it has never been again my fate to see-fear, perturbation, agony, were stamped in rigid characters upon lip, and brow, and cheek, and I felt awed by the presence of grief that completely baffled my knowledge of the heart's sad secrets to imagine. I was pained out of my natural collectedness, and could only look the sympathy with which she inspired me. "I have no apology to offer," she said, in a low, sweet voice, but with the languor of fatigue and depression-"no apology to offer you, Mrs. Maxwell, for the time, the way, in which I come to you. When I tell you I am the daughter of Colonel Singleton, you will not be surprised that I should so unceremoniously make your house my home. I have often heard of you, and I feel I have only to tell you that my coming is in consequence of a great and sudden affliction, to ensure your thinking lightly of any inconvenience I may possibly occasion you." I assured her, "that the name of her father (an old friend and benefactor in the early days of my own tribulation) gave her a weighty claim to my attentions; but that wanting this, the knowledge of her being in affliction was an allsufficient motive for my exerting myself for her temporary comfort." She thanked me with a sweet smile of habitual courtesy, though her lips trembled, and her large eyes filled with the emotion she struggled to subdue. business in town," she said--and a sort of spasm shook her as she spoke-"would be very briefly ended; it might detain her only till the following noon, at all events not longer than the evening; but she would consider the apartments hers, for any period that would compensate for the probable loss of a more certain tenant." "Her I begged of her not to annoy herself on that score, for, as my readers know, there is a rule, that it conjured up. All at once, in one of the in these cases. I pressed her, however, with real anxiety, to let me send her such refreshments as I felt she stood in need of; for it was very evident she was travel-tired and weak, and I afterwards learned (for the ball, and staircase of a lodginghouse, like the ear of Dionysius, conveys even whispers to one common tympanum, and that the principal's) that she had travelled, poor lady, night and day, from Edinburgh, without resting! But she felt no want of food; "rest," she said, "was all that she required." Yet when I pressed her, and talked of its giving her strength for whatever she might have to undertake on the morrow, she permitted, with the graceful docility of a child, my arrangements for her temporal necessities, and forced herself to taste the food that grief had left her no appetite for. How I wished for the privilege of folding her swelling heart to my own, and bidding her pour out, as on a sister's, the full tide of her hidden sorrow! but this our relative positions forbade, and I could only by a silent language inform her of my commiseration. The house I tenanted, originally the habitation of a nobleman, contained on each floor a suite of three rooms, opening one into another, and forming (for those studious of such arrangement) dressingroom, chamber, and drawing-room; but it so happened that at this time I myself occupied the bed-room on the only floor disengaged, so that nothing remained for me but to give up my apartment to the lady, and pro tempore become locum tenens of the adjoining ante-room. This arrangement was easily managed, and the lady retired to her room within my own, apparently anxious for repose. By and by, when the many little matters that a mother sits up to regulate, were all disposed of, and my whole household in bed, I too stole lightly up to the apartment my children occupied, and with the image of that grief-worn lady in my thoughts, I bent over the brows of my sleeping girls, and while my lips lingered on each slumbering cheek, my heart lifted itself up in those orisons that only a mother's heart can utter; then I crept softly to my own room, and very noiselessly (for fear of disturbing my poor guest) laid myself down to sleep. It was about the season of the spring equinox, and, as I before said, a violent night; every now and then, as if driven from the turbid river, the wind came rushing up the street, staggering against the houses like a drunken giant, and shaking and rattling the sashes as if trying for admission; one moment howling like a living thing in its extremity, under the eaves and down the trembling chimneys, and the next sinking into half-extinguished sobs, like a child dreaming of sorrow. It was impossible to sleep-though I heaped the pillows on both sides of my head, and drew the coverlet quite over it-I could not close out the din of the midnight tempest, nor shut from my imagination the thoughts of houseless creatures, shipwreck, and devastation, pauses of the storm, I became conscious of the sounds of living, actual anguish-sobs more bitter and thrilling than those of the mocking winds, and groans that I could only imagine were extorted by some severe physical suffering. It struck me that fatigue, added to her state of mind, had induced some sudden illness in my fellow-sleeper; and I rose, threw on my dressing-gown, and seeing, by the glimmering through the doorway, that the light was not extinguished in her room, I was about to enter, when I perceived the unhappy lady kneeling at the bed's feet, not undressed, but with her hair dishevelled, her hands clasped, and her lips, finding no language forcible enough to express the deep prayer of her spirit, moving with wordless sounds of indescribable anguish. I was awed-astonished, and shrunk back from beholding a conflict that was for the eye of God alone! Oh, the heart-quake of mortal agony, that shook the breast of that miserable woman! the struggle between the strong heart of human love, and its omnipotent but all-just Maker! And these are the scenes that pass between Earth and Night, and the Power that made them! Hour after hour wore on, and still the same suffocating sobs-the same bitter cries broke from the chamber beside me. What would I not have given for the means of comforting her unhappy spirit? but unconscious of the cause of her mental suffering, I knew not what anodyne to apply. One moment, the recollection of her father's friendship, of her own youth, and my maternity, seemed to give me a right to share with her such consolation as one heart (that has itself passed through the fiery furnace of inany-shaped affliction) can offer to another; but there was such a mystery in her distressa beloved daughter-an adored wife-(for I had heard from her father that she was happily and unexceptionably married)—I knew not what to think, and dreaded something wrong - some story of woman's frailness, and inconsistency, and late remorse. Oh, how I wronged her! Little did I surmise that the high and holy purpose of her mission-the secret of her urgent agony at the footstool of her God, was the forfeit life of her husband! Oh, Earth-Earth! which of thy children can count on the seeming fairness of his destiny? But I anticipate. These fears prevented my obtruding my sympathy; but I prayed heartily for her; and then again endeavoured to obtain the rest that my daily duties rendered necessary for me; but my state of mind made it impossible for me to sleep, though I occasionally fell into perturbed snatches of repose, as people in fever do; and as often as I woke up from these confused and unrefreshing slumbers, though I could not hear her footstep, I could tell by the recurring shadow that kept darkening the glimpse of light through the door, in her passage to and fro the room, that the poor young creature did not even endeavour at obtaining rest. No, all night long all night long-she kept her melancholy vigil; |