brought her near the grave. The door opened. When || knows where-but in haste, ere I meet him who has so Elizabeth beheld her long lost husband before her, she shrank from the sight and buried her face in the cushions of the sofa.

Elizabeth," said the stranger, mournfully, "I have come at your bidding; for I would not have intruded upon you."

deeply injured me. I would not shed his blood." He advanced slowly towards his wife. She arose from the sofa and pressed both hands on her heart, as if to keep down its throbbings. "Elizabeth, we must part!"

"Why should you part!" exclaimed Egbert, coming forward. She is not legally the wife of Egbert Green"Oh, Arthur, my husband!" she cried, clasping her wood, who surrenders his claim, and fervently wishes hands and looking despondingly up in his face. "Forto see you again united." He took their hands and give me―forgive me! Indeed I never forgot you, Ar-joined them together. "You are husband and wifethur-I loved you, and thought of you even in the arms let nothing but death part you!" of another. I was so lonely-I thought you in your grave."

Watson had stood immoveable, gazing in silence on his wife while she uttered these incoherent sentences; but her extreme emotion touched him, and seating himself near her, he looked fondly but sadly upon her. “Elizabeth, I have nothing to forgive," he said; "Heaven has severed us, and I impute to you no blame. I know your pure heart, and freely absolve you from all error."

"Oh, speak not thus kindly-it will kill me!" said his wife, bursting into tears. "Reproaches I can better bear. I have wronged you-I have wrecked your happiness for ever! Call me faithless, treacherous, and I will feel I have merited it all; but this kindness breaks my heart. Cast on me humiliation, opprobrium."

We

"It becomes us not to reproach one another. We have not wrought out our own destiny. God has deemed it fitting to turn our steps from the paths of peace to ways rough with disappointments and sorrows. once were happy, Elizabeth, and oh, let us accept what has been given us in thankfulness, nor murmur when it is withheld. Our past miseries have already worn this frame, and will, I fondly hope, soon dissolve it with dust; but you, Elizabeth, still so young, so blooming, how will you endure a long life of sorrow and lonelifor you will, of course-separate."

ness,

"Yes, yes!" cried his wife, covering her face with her hands, "speak not of him-we are already parted." "And how bore he the shock ?"

"Oh, he never loved me," she replied, with a sigh. "Never loved you!" exclaimed Watson with an indignant frown. "How is this possible, all charming as you are! Has some wretch for the sake of a home, thus stolen into my paradise? May Heaven blight

him!"

room,

The bosom of Watson heaved with a thousand varying emotions. His brow grew dark and agitated, which, changing and flashing with passions and feelings, seemed like the midnight sky, across which black and shadowy clouds are wildly driven by a stormy wind. As the moon bursting from among these clouds, a sweet and affectionate smile broke over his countenance, and turning to his almost lifeless wife he took her hand, and said-" Elizabeth shall this be so?" With one wild shriek she sprang into his arms.

"Yes, child, great news indeed-but not in the paper. Something strange about Egbert Greenwood and his wife."

Mary sank into a chair: "I hope no ill has befallen Egbert or his wife," said she, with much impatience.

The old lady looked with astonishment at her bewildered niece, who turned aside to conceal the agitation, too visible in her face. A death-like stillness ensuedand the silence was first broken by an exclamation from her aunt that-"Egbert and his wife were divorced!"

"Divorced! Good Heavens! This is news indeed." Unable to control her feelings, Mary passed into their little parlor, leaving her aunt insensible of her absence. A knock at the door-she opened it, and Egbert Greenwood stood before it. Neither spoke for some moments; but their mutual agitation betrayed the existence of all their early feelings. Egbert commenced his story. He spoke of his feelings and intentions during that day on which Mary returned home-of his belief in her engagement to her cousin of his consequent wretchedness after his mad marriage-of the return of Elizabeth's husband-their re-union, and the divorce which took place at her request; and his ardent wish to make Mary his wife.

The presence of Egbert had been unnoticed by the husband and wife during this agitating interview. He had, however, been a deeply interested observer; and now, while gazing on Watson as he rapidly paced the and Elizabeth weeping on the sofa, he lamented the share he had had in sundering such loving hearts. Mary Connor listened coldly at first; but she read his How happy would the return of her husband have ren-heart and saw the truth, and consented to become his dered Elizabeth, but for him. Could he not remedy this evil in some way? He would quietly withdraw, and then nothing would stand in the way of their union except a fantastic sentiment, which would lead her to think herself unworthy of him, and make him shrink from receiving her again after she had given herself to another. He would endeavor to restore them to each other against their wills.

bride. Mr. and Mrs. Watson had set out immediately for his friends in Missouri, where they were to take up their residence. To Egbert, Mr. Watson left the estate of Bella Mira, as it was chiefly the work of his own hands; retaining only the money received from his wife's house. In a few weeks after, Egbert with his happy bride and her aunt, set out for Bella Mira. I do not know whether in their journey their "coach

Watson stopped in his walk. "Why should we pro-wheel bended;" but this I do know" My story's long our misery," he said: "I must go-Heaven only ended."

E. R. S.

Original.

WOMAN.

The following curious remarks on Woman, have never before appeared in English. They are the work of a French Father Confessor, in the time of Louis XIV. In the following reign, the degradation of the female character in France was still greater. After that, came the Revolution. How uniformly the wreck of principle among the women of a nation, is followed by that nation's fall! What a delightful source of hope it is in our country, that the characters of our women should rise, with our depression in so many other respects!

seek the revival of their blunted senses, by extravagant and horrible imitations of what is written of certain ancient Greeks :-had any one told them, that far from screening from the public these appalling evidences of their shame, they could take delight in exposing them to view: had any one, I say, told this to our fathers, it would have been all true but it could not have been believed.

Nevertheless the women of whom I have given this revolting picture, are never without lovers; and nothing HOWEVER we may be accustomed to what is called can equal the agonies they cause to such as unfortunatethe gentler sex-whatever our opportunities of know-ly come within their sway. Being entirely destitute of ing women-we must never feel too sure that we know them in reality. They are one and all impenetrable. Involutions are every day discovered in their hearts, concealing dispositions of which none ever could have dreamed.

Their most general occupation is the endeavor to inspire love. In this they frequently succeed, and men are always ready to suffer themselves to be deluded, shutting their eyes resolutely against the evidences which hourly spring up on every side of how little they ought to trust those whom they are so bent upon be lieving.

conduct, of discretion, of probity, of directness, those who are bound up in then are liable to all the starts and whirlwinds of the soul, invariably consequent upon a passion ill requited.

Those are sometimes loved who are the least esteemed, and nothing so fully persuades me of how little freewill there is in a passion, as the petty and defective character of persons whom I see the most deeply loved.

Aminta is a little brunette: her eyes wonderfully vivid, her complexion very sallow and tawny, her teeth tolerably white and regular, her mouth extremely large, her bust not good; and yet, altogether, quite a pleasing In the east, women receive treatment very different person. No one could have less mind than she, nor from what they obtain among us. There they make could any one seem to have more. Superficially instrucpart of an equipage; they are rated among such of the ted on many subjects, she talks with the greatest effronmoveables as require the strictest looking after, and are tery upon all; and through her personal attractions, she guarded with the most scrupulous watchfulness till their obtains reputation for her common-places and sometimes presence is wanted. We pretend that such a course even for her blunders. Emerging only recently from the betokens, in the east, neither tenderness, nor politeness, obscurity of her native province, by some unaccountanor gallantry. They pretend that ours shows only ble chance she found her way into the best society, and phrenzy, passion, folly and extravagance. Perhaps dis- made her footing firm, in the very face of the convicinterested judges would find it somewhat difficult to tion that her appearances there must be very transient. settle the question in our favor; for if we call to mind Vanity, which in her reigns paramount, inspired her all the absurdities which, at least once in the course of with a resolution to maintain her stand, whatever it life the most circumspect commit upon this subject; if might cost; cards, conviviality, coquetry,-in short, we consider all the sanguinary and murderous quarrels whatever could promote her purpose, she has brought of which ladies are the cause; we may find that persons into action, and she may be called a card-player, without who place themselves beyond the reach of such calami-the slightest interest in play—and a continual sustainer ties, are entitled to pass for wiser than those who do of conviviality, without the least taste for it. Though not. The subjected state of women in the east, is re-her equipages are always the neatest and sometimes the garded as a mark of barbarism; but if they are crea- most magnificent, she has no sense of what belongs to tures more cruel and more dangerous than the tiger or style, nor even a relish for it; and though she carries the lion, there is nothing extraordinary in assigning flirtation and even passion to excess, her feelings are so them a chain; and I have heard it said by a very acute utterly unexcitable, that her indifference amounts to inobserver, that whenever it had been found necessary to sipidity. She has, in reality, no character but that civilize and domesticate women, they have proved not a which vanity prompts her to assume, and whatever apwhit less blood-thirsty or less ferocious than the animals pearance she wears, is always forced upon her. NeverI have named. theless, it is not possible for any one to be more the rage than she is. The brightest stars of fashion are to be

her in the outset, are now more eager to court her society, than they were formerly reluctant to endure her in their own. And yet there is no need of asking any reason for her rise, beyond the mere whim and caprice of the young men most in vogue, who being the brokers upon fashion's exchange, can always cry up this sort of stock to their own price and bring it into demand.

Had any one told our fathers that in the age we live in, we should see women plunging into notorious de-found in her train, and the very ladies, who disdained bauches of wine and brandy-defying on that score the most confirmed of men, and bearing off the palm in the degrading competition;-had any one told them, that these very women would gamble away in a single day the entire revenue of their family for a couple of years and that in the phrenzy of their anguish they would curse with the vehemence and the effrontery of the most hectoring trooper; had any one told them that these very women, satiated with the ordinary indulgences in which the corruption and licentiousness of the age has permitted them to revel without bounds and without restraint have come at length to look on them as insipid, and to

Corinna is a native of the metropolis. She has already seen more than thirty summers, although she confesses to not quite twenty. She is naturally brown, almost to blackness: nevertheless there are days when she would outdazzle in complexion the fairest Briton.

Her toilette is supplied with all the hues to be desired, whether upon the privilege of living so close she had For a few moand she culls them at her leisure every morning. Her not even been admitted to see him! coquetry is excessive and no gentleman of her acquain-ments she forgot the pressing danger of her lover, to tance escapes unassailed. But this is not altogether solace and to satisfy her jealousy. the ruling folly: she has a passion for every thing appertaining to the royal court, which leads her into prodigious extravagances. Whatever comes from that region, to her brings a title to be adored. It is impossible to number what throngs of fools and impertinentsdence. she endures upon this score.

I have somewhere read that mistresses might be compared to those church benefices which are called residentiary: they may be forfeited by absence, but it is not always so certain that they are secured by resi

cannot endure the other: nevertheless it is rare to find a lover jealous of any but a coquette, and it invariably happens that a woman is a coquette, when she has a lover who is jealous.

I will not venture to There are two sorts of characters entirely incompatirepeat the railleries, the hoaxes, the airs, she is obliged ble, and yet generally found together: a lover who is to put up with. There remains no hope that her weak-jealous and a mistress who is a coquette. The one ness can ever be overcome, since her own good sense, and a mind naturally strong, have failed to work its cure. There are few women on whose mind vanity does not act more potently than love, and there is nothing which they are not capable of undertaking, when the secret is discovered of flattering their vanity in offering them love. The intercourses of gallantry cannot last for ever:—a year or two is commonly the extent of such affairs, and one of the couple gets tired and is the first to quit. It seldom happens that both agree to break off at the same time: hence it necessarily follows that a mistress must be forsaken, or the lover must be forsaken by a mistress. The anguish of withdrawing from an intimacy of this nature is bitter, but it is endurable; that of having it withdrawn from us, passes even imagination. The choice must be made, and yet no one has the energy to decide for the endurable anguish, in order to avoid the other, however intolerable it may be thought. The evils to come touch us but lightly, in comparison with those which are at hand: such is the character of the human heart.

Dorimeine is a young girl of surpassing beauty; fair, rosy, and with a joyousness of manner which makes her the delight of every one who sees her. About three years ago, she wedded the immense wealth of a man of sixty, whom she has managed with an address which no one could have expected from her. It is impossible to find more subtlety in self-restraint: she has assumed an affectionateness for this husband, and has treated him with an untiring complaisance, which seem so natural, that she has made herself the perfect mistress of his mind, and now, pre-determined as he is in his wife's favor, he can only see and believe what she chooses that he shall see and that he shall believe. It is said she knows how to turn this advantage to account: all the The husband busy bodies get themselves affronted. discredits every thing which is not in his wife's favor; a rare species of incredulity; and yet, in other respects, he is a sensible man, and of a very jealous temperament. Prejudice blinds every body.

The worst annoyance to a sensible man from the chagrins of a love affair, consists in his being obliged to suffer those chagrins for causes of which he knows the Morinna is at least forty. She is tall; her eyes are absurdity, while at the same time he feels how utterly the finest in the world and her mouth one of the most impossible it is to quench them, or even to bring them agreeable: she is sufficiently intelligent, has much pounder subjection: the heart is independent of the head.liteness and still more knowledge of the world: her It is said that certain ancient Romans pushed their birth and rank are imposing and she sustains their influphrenzy in love, or in libertinism, even to the extravaence with extraordinary address. Her manners are gance of what they termed the pleasure of occision.caressing and anticipate whatever can give pleasure to This enormous cruelty could have sprung from no source but the design of assuring themselves that no one could succeed to them in the possession of the person they murdered. Nothing equalling this barbarity can be imagined; it is a ferocity of which we sicken even to think. Nevertheless it is certain that the most devoted of lovers, in the natural death of his mistress, will discover something not entirely unpleasing, involving a sort of consolation. He will find it difficult to account to himself clearly for the cause, but let the heart be observed, and this consolation will be traced to the same origin with the cruelty of the ancient Romans. Self love is a strange master.

Lesbia was in love to distraction with Cleonthus, and violently jealous of Faustina, who dwelt in the house opposite to that of her lover-which contributed vastly to the increase of her suspicions and her jealousy. Cleonthus was very dangerously hurt on the pavement and immediately taken into his abode. Lesbia hastened to inquire about him; but before she asked how he was, she made it her business to ascertain very minutely whether his neighbor, Faustina had not culled, and

She

those who are about her, while she conceals whatever
pique she may harbor against any from whom she may
imagine she has received causes of complaint, and does
it with such admirable adroitness, that it would be ex-
tremely difficult, on seeing her movements in their favor,
not to forget that they ever could have offended.
looks after a little family with which she has been left,
with a carefulness and a diligence to cast others in the
shade-for she possesses beyond all others the singular
science when wearied, of never allowing those who wea-
ry her to suspect they do; in short, she is a most wary
dissembler of her displeasures and dislikes. She would
be perfection itself, but for an unfortunate temperament
which has rendered her susceptible and tender to excess,
towards all who display any interest in her favor. She
even goes farther; for she has seduced her nearest re-
lations and all her friends, and she has found in all con-
ditions the means of gratifying the perverseness of her
nature. The care she took in concealing her adven-
tures, and the respectful discretion of those who were
mixed up with them, kept them long unknown; and it
was only by certain explosions that the eyes of all could

be opened. It is rare, with such extreme irregularity, to find the public so long deceived, especially in that spot of the world, perhaps, of all others, the least given, concerning the conduct of women, to being deceived in their favor.

44

Sabina was a devotee; she is now worldly. Lesbia was worldly; she is now a devotee. The same instability which has changed the one to evil, has changed the other to good-this is a compensation in morals. Every body is open mouthed against the irregularities of Sabina; the more so, because they follow a life so very staid; but how enchanting she is, both in person and manners! While Lesbia on the contrary, whose reform and good conduct all are obliged to praise, how little is she calculated to inspire passion! How flat in conversation! How insipid in appearance! Have they not both appropriated themselves to the uses, which

Ir was on the morning of a clear, bright and beauti

numerous progeny who bear the esteemed cognomen first mentioned, awoke from his slumbers in Fulton Market, and quietly wended his way towards the victualing establishment of Holt's.

The New-York Loafer was a decided favorite of Mor

ance rather early, it became necessary for our hero to depart from the premises, on which he had been indulg ing in the phantasmagoria of dreams.

ful day in June, when, ere the day-god had began to each has found to show her off to the best advantage? shed his refulgent beams o'er a drowsy world, the NewMarian, whose beauty was the delight of the most York Loafer, Mr. John Smith, or as he entitled himself, charming of coteries, and who even, to the age of eigh-I. John Smith, Esq., to distinguish himself from the teen, seemed capable only of trifling and of frolicing like a child, has produced a deep sensation at the royal court and in the high circles of the metropolis, by the misfortune into which she has been plunged by the most ill starred passion ever known. Though her standing required the most scrupulous appearance of discretion, pheus, or rather Morpheus was a decided favorite of the object of her love was the last man on earth to con- his, and he had ever made it a custom to dally and ceal an intrigue. After considerable intimacy, her revel in the happy charms which he alluringly held attachment increased, as that of her lover began to forth, but on the present occasion, the occupant of the diminish, and the coldness she remarked in him, so irri-stall, an enterprising butcher, having made his appeartated her, that it is difficult to describe the extent to which she carried her complaints and agitations. Seeming interminable, Cleonthus, her lover, resolved to cut them short, by frankly avowing his disengagement. The Loafer was naturally a quiet man-a very quiet "We are not ourselves everlasting," said he to her : man. He took a very inactive part in the local interests our passions can no more be everlasting than our- of the city and had never been known to molest any selves. I promised to love you for ever; and, at that person, or meddle with their affairs, nay, so supine was time, I really thought I could. It has become impossi-he, generally, that he seemed to have a reckless disble for me to keep my word; and it would be duplicity in me to deceive you any longer." No one can imagine what gushes of agony and reproach, followed this avowal, which was the last conversation Cleonthus ever held with Marian, who was left bereaved of reputation in the world, by the publicity of this intrigue, which she had carried on headlong, with utter unreserve. The prodigious extravagance of her wild prosperity had exhausted her resources. She was entirely without friendship or protection, for even her relations, whose advice and remonstrances she had despised, abandoned her from the beginning of her intrigue-and to the want of an establishment, or of any reasonable hope of ever obtaining one, she added, to put the climax to her wretchedness, a vivid recollection of her past pleasures, and an attachment for the ingrate by whom she had been deserted, which nothing could efface. It is said that Heaven, not to close up every chance, had given her some little taste for devotion. A choice like this could not fail of proving a very happy one for her, and it was the only one left for her to try.

The other day I noticed a young gentleman of much merit, in company with a lady of whom he took very little notice. "That man," whispered the lady in my ear, “seems so dismal, I could never bring myself to endure him, if I should try for a thousand years." The

regard for his own. It was also a fact, yet how to sufficiently account for it, may be more than we can at present determine, that the New-York Loafer was a poet, and although his poetical imaginings were nearly all "unwritten," yet did he quote from Byron, and Scott, and Pope, and Milton, with the utmost non chalance, aye, he sometimes was wont to put forth a sonnet from his own workshop. Whether, however, he was naturally born a poet, as many excellent writers contend all poets are, or whether from a diligent perusal and study of the best verses of ancient and modern authors, or whether warmed and enraptured with poetic visions, from numerous promenades and reveries in the Park and Battery, he had become inspired, is left for some of his future biographers to determine. We incline, however, to the latter opinion, for it is proverbial that the Loafer had plenty of leisure time to reflect on poetical subjects. How often might he be seen on a summer's morning, reclining upon the green turf of the Battery, his head resting upon his hand, and his elbow upon the grass aforesaid, while his senses drank in the Promethean fires of poetical inspiration from the shady trees above and around him-the balmy southern breeze, which seemed to waft the perfumes of Arabia to his manly brow-the glorious bay before him, which stretched to the border of the ocean, bedecked with