a child; her eyes, full of poetry and of light, gazing upwards on a star, which seemed mirrored in their depths, with that earnest and melancholy expression so touching in childhood-perhaps because our heart gives a tone of phrophecy to its sadness. The hair hung in dark, clustering ringlets, parted on a forehead,

"So like the moonlight, fair and melancholy."

"Do you not observe in this picture a likeness to Miss Arundel?" said Lorraine.

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Nay," replied Emily, "do not at once put a stop to the admiration I was going to express. What I was about to say of the portrait, I must now say of the painting, with which I am enchanted."

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"And you think very rightly," returned Mr. Morland: 'M'Clise is an exquisite painter: he has a fine perception of the beautiful, and a natural delicacy of feeling, which always communicates itself to the taste. I could wish him to illustrate the poetry of actual life-the grace, the beauty, which is seen so often-and with just one touch of the imaginative given it, from passing through the coloring of his own mind."

"I was very much struck," said Edward, "when Spenser was sitting to him, to mark his devotion to his art. Enthusiasm is the royal road to success. Now, call it fame, vanity-what you will-how strange and how strong is the feeling which urges on the painter or the author! We, who are neither, ought to marvel less at the works produced than at the efforts made. Their youth given to hopes, or rather fears—now brightening and now darkening, on equally slight grounds—

'A breath can mar them, as a breath has made :'

hours of ceaseless exertion in solitude, of feverish solicitude in society; doomed to censure, which is always in earnest, and to praise, which is not. Alas! we talk of their vanity; we forget that, in doling forth the careless commendation, or as careless sneer, we are bestowing but the passing thought of a moment to that which has been the work of an existence. Truly genius, like virtue, ought to be its own reward; but it cannot. Bitter though the toil, and vain the hope, human exertion must still look to human approbation."

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"Artists," observed Mr. Morland, are generally an enthusiastic, unworldly race; jealous of praise, as the enthusiastic almost always are; and exaggerating trifles, as the unworldly always do. But society is no school for the artist the colors of his mind, like those of his pictures, lose their brilliancy by being exposed to the open air. Sir Joshua Reynolds said a painter should sow up his mouth'- -a rather inconvenient proof of devotion to his art But it is with painting as with every thing else -first rate excellence is always a solitary one."

"It is curious," replied Lorraine, "to remark the incitement of obstacles. Under what difficulties almost all our great painters and poets have labored!"

"I have," returned Mr. Morland,." a favorite theory of my own, that early encouragement is bad for any of the imaginative pursuits. No-place difficulties before them; let the impediments be many in number. If the true spirit be in the possessor, he will overcome them all. Genius is the Hannibal of the mind. The Alps, which to the common observer seemed insurmountable, served only to immortalize his passage. The imagination is to work with its own resources; the more it is thrown on them, the better. Making as it were a mental Simplon, is only opening a road to inferior artists and commonplace poets."

"West is a great instance in your favor. Do you recall a most delightful incident in his early life? He was, as you know, a member of the Society of Friends-their doctrines forbid any cultivation of the fine arts. When his extraordinary talent developed itself, a meeting of their society was held to debate on the propriety of its exercise-and their judgment was, that so evident a gift of Heaven ought not to be neglected. Young West left the assembly with their blessing and sanction.

"What a beautiful story!" exclaimed Emily.

"It has only one fault," answered Mr. Morland, "that, like many other beautiful stories, it is not true. I questioned one of his nearest relatives about this very circumstance, which he declared not to be a fact."

It was now getting late, and Mr. Morland summoned them to depart; for he was a constitutionalist in the best sense of the word. It was his own constitution to which he attended.

CHAPTER V.

Oh, so vulgar!-such a set of horrors!
Very common expression.
"But passing rich."-GOLDSMITH.

It was just the end of July, and one of those tremendously hot weeks, which, once in a summer, remind our island that heat is as good for grumbling as cold. It passed as weeks do when all is hurry, confusion, and packingwhen there are a thousand things to do, and another thousand left undone. It is amazing how long such a week seems-events lengthen the time they number: it is the daily and quiet round of usual occupation that passes away so quickly; it is the ordinary week which exclaims, "Good gracious! it is Saturday again."

The human heart is something like a watch; and Emily's advanced not a little in its usual pace, when, one morning, Lady Mandeville, on her return from a drive, said, “I have been accepting an invitation in spite of all our good resolutions against that unnecessary waste of time-visiting. I often think one makes resolutions to have the pleasure of breaking them: but this is really an urgent case if we do not see the new Countess of Etheringhame this season, it admits, I think, of a question whether we shall next. I met her this morning, and she asked us in the name of charity. London is so empty, she is fearful of taking cold."

"I have heard that Lord Etheringhame was a man of the most recluse habits-what magic has turned him into the most dissipated?"

"The power of grace, the magic of a name.'

His beautiful wife knows no rule but her own will, and no will but her own. Lord Ethringhame is the very man to be governed his temper is discontented he calls it sensitive; his habits self indulged--he calls them refined; he

has literary tastes-he calls them talents; he is indolent to an excess-he calls it delicacy of feeling, which unfits him for the world. He married with some romantic notion of domestic bliss, congenial tastes, moonlight walks, &c. Lady Etheringhame's reading of connubial felicity was different: first, the old Castle was abandoned for Park Lane-the moonlight walk for a midnight ball-and for this congenial tastes, universal admiration. All this was very disagreeable to allow, but still more disagreeable to resist ; and Lord Etheringhame is a cipher in his own house: the cipher gives value to the other figures, still it is a cipher after all."

"Well, Lord Etheringhame has all the milk of human kindness to say nothing of the water," remarked Lord Mandeville, "but I do wish he was just master of some honeysuckle villa, and his brother in his place; though Lorraine's career will not be the less distinguished because he has to make it for himself."

Evening came, and with it the assemblage of Lady Etheringhame's few friends: few as they were, there were quite enow to draw from every one the exclamation of, "I could not have believed there were so many people in town.' The countess came forward to meet them, looking more beautiful than ever. But it was not now that Emily envied her beauty;-no philosopher like a girl in love, to feel, for the time being, utter indifference to all possible pomp and garniture.

Emily looked round the rooms, though, with sufficient anxiety: often did a sudden flush on the cheek involuntarily avow the deception of the eye; and more than once did the ear become quick, as it does when hope lends its charm to the listener: but it was in vain—and her spirits took a tone of despondency she would fain have entirely ascribed to fatigue;-when Adelaide approached. Now, the fair countess had a little feminine pique to vent, and a woman's unkindly feelings are very unkind indeed; and that spirit of universal appropriation which belongs to insatiable vanity broke out in the following speech, aimed at Miss Arundel, though addressed to Lady Mandeville : I dare say you expected to meet an old favorite of yours -by the by, he is almost always here-Lorraine; but, though I used the strong persuasion of your ladyship and his old friend Miss Arundel being expected, some rural whim seized him, and go he would for a few days from

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town." The countess cast one look, and in the deeper paleness of Emily's cheek, saw that her shaft had entered, and passed smilingly on Another moment, and she was receiving as much pleasure as could be put into words from the flatteries unsparingly offered by the young Count Alfred de Merivale.

Once Emily was again startled into the belief of Lorraine's presence; a second and nearer glance showed her mistake it was his brother, whose likeness was as strong in feature as it was opposite in expression. The govern ment of the mind is absolute, but nothing in its whole do minion does it modify as it does the face.

They left early, yet the evening had seemed interminable; and considering that Emily was niched between an inlaid table, on which stood a shepherd in a yellow jacket offering a China-Chinese I mean-rose to a shepherdess in green and pink-and a tea pot, all exquisite Dresden specimens and an old lady, of whose shawl and shoulders Emily had the full benefit, while her neighbor discussed with an elderly gentleman the vices and follies of the rising generation; and considering, also, that such conversation was more edifying than amusing, it is not so very wonderful that Emily found the evening somewhat dull. On their return home, however, she was greatly consoled by Lady Mandeville's reading aloud a billet from Edward Lorraine, regretting that unexpected business, which he had to transact for his brother, obliged him to go down to Etheringhame Castle; and expressing his hope and expectation that in a few months he should meet them on the Continent.

The next morning she had to see Mr. Delawarr as her guardian; some forms were necessary to go through; and accordingly to his residence she and Lady Mandeville drove-rather before their appointment. They had to wait a short period in the drawing room. What a cold, uninhabited look now reigned through the magnificent apartments! There were no flowers---none of those ornamental trifles scattered round, which speak so much of pretty and feminine tastes---no graceful disorder---chairs, sofas, tables, all stood in their exact places. "I should never have thought," observed Lady Mandeville, "of missing Lady Alicia, unless I had come here."

The hurried track of the multitude soon effaces all trace of death; but here the past seemed preserved in the pre