the streets daily with a hurried step and anxious heart, gazing at every fair face which passed him, and turning away with a disappointed look, till at last he grew weary, despairing, and sick at heart. Sitting, one day, in a musing mood, near the open door of the statue-room at the Academy of Arts, where several of his own pictures had been brought for exhibition, his notice became attracted by a lady in deep mourning, who stood opposite the door, on the farther side of the picture-gallery, gazing at a landscape he had just completed, and which woke in his own heart busy recollections. It was a view in Ashton, with the pleasant dwelling of his kind friends in the foreground; Lucy leaning over the gate, with her bonnet hanging by the strings upon her arm, just as when they had parted; and the light of the setting sun streaming soft over all. The lady seemed spell-bound for a few moments, then exclaiming, "O my home, my own dear home!" she sobbed audibly, and leaning her head upon the shoulder of an elderly lady, her companion, she gave way to a passionate flood of tears.

Mervyn was by her side in a moment, and they immediately recognized each other; but the joy of their meeting was chastened and subdued by sad recollections. Lucy's father had never

been very careful about money matters. He had lent a large sum to a friend who was unfortunate, and endorsed notes for several who became bankrupt, and was so reduced at his death as to leave his daughter wholly unprovided for. She came to the city with a kind cousin, and was engaged in teaching a small school which procured her a bare support. Several of the last letters Walter had written never reached their destination, and she thought he had forgotten them.

He accompanied her to her new residence, and they parted not till he had told the story of his early love, his long-cherished hopes, and his late despair, and heard from Lucy's lips the confession of an attachment as early felt, as constant, and as true. There was no cause for delay, and they were soon bound by the holiest ties to love and cherish each other for life. Their desires were moderate; they sought not to shine in the world of fashion, and their happiness was such as is only found at home. Walter's profession yielded them more than sufficient to supply all their wants; and in after years, when his works were known and valued, and his name numbered among the gifted, he became the possessor of what was wealth to those who had been satisfied with a much smaller portion; and they

have ever enjoyed that plenty and happiness which is the reward of virtuous industry, and long-tried, true affection.

Howard married a fair, English heiress, and still favors the public with his sweet poetry and racy prose; and the Countess Iole long shone a star at the Italian court. She was with the crowd, but not of them: the avenues to her heart were closed, and she never loved again. She has long been weary of the world, and when Walter last heard of her welfare, through a mutual friend, she had resolved to give away her wealth, and spend the remainder of her days in the solitude and repose of a convent. Mervyn sighed over this resolution; he remembered her kindness, her beauty, and her love, and the thought of her lonely lot was the only drop of bitterness in his cup of enjoyment; and when the gentle Lucy echoed his sigh, he turned to kiss her cheek; and she listened with a pitying heart, while he told her, for the first time, the story of the lovely Countess.

THE UNBIDDEN GUEST.

BY MRS. L. J. B. CASE.

"From couch and joyous board,

Hath the fierce phantom beckoned them to die?"

I COME ! ye have lighted your festal hall,

And music is sounding its joyous call,

And the guests are gathering, the young, the fair,
With the flower-wreathed brow, and the braided hair.
I come! but so noiseless shall be my way

Through the smiling crowds of the young and gay,
Not a thought shall rise in a careless breast
Of me, the unseen, the unbidden guest;

Not an under-tone on the glad ear swell,
That shall bring the sound of a funeral knell.

I come! let the music's echoing note
Still through the air of your ball-room float;
Let the starry lamps soft radiance throw

On the rose-touched cheek, and the brow of snow :
Not a freezing pulse shall the tale declare
That the dreaded one of the grave is there;
Not a pallid face, nor a rayless eye,

Shall whisper of me as I hurry by,
Marking the doomed I shall summon away
To their dark, low cells, in the house of clay.

We have met before, as I wandered here
At the festal scenes of the parted year,
And many a beautiful form hath bowed

To the sleep that dwells in the damp, white shroud.
They died when the first spring blossom was seen,
They faded away when the groves were green,
When the suns of autumn were faint and brief
On the withered grass and the changing leaf:
And here there is many a pulse shall fail
Ere the suns of the coming year grow pale.

Then lift the rich strains of your music high,
As the measured hours of your lives flit by.
Let the foot of the thoughtless dancer be
Fleet as it will, it eludes not me.

I shall come when life's morning ray is bright,
I shall come in the gloom of its waning light,
I shall come when the ties of earth cling fast,
When love's sweet voice is a voice of the past.
Ye are mine, all mine, and but wait your doom,
The coffin, the shroud, and the lonely tomb.

Ye would start, ye tremblers, to see me here,
Yet the mission I hold is of love, not fear.
A healing I bear to the couch of pain;
I fling from the spirit its cumbersome chain,
And weary old age to my rest shall hie,
With a smiling lip, and a beaming eye.
When life, like a sorrowful mourner, weeps
O'er the grave where its early promise sleeps,
O, earth hath no balm like the cup I bring!
Why say ye I come with the dart and sting?