your own, until the hour of trial showed me the stronger and sterner thau even the indignation secrets of my own heart." Lionel pondered deeply on these words,-there was a mystery in them which he could only solve by believing that Fanny had heard of his ill-success, and had wearied of her early attachment. His anguish of mind was only calmed by an indignant sense of wrong, and his pride was summored to the solace of his wounded affection. The consequence of such a combination of circumstances may be readily imagined. Fanny had abandoned him in his misfortunes, while the gentle Ellen, the child of wealth and luxury, devoted herself most tenderly to his comfort. Full many a heart is caught in the rebound.' In one month,- one little month,' after the receipt of this most singular letter, Lionel Grey was the husband of the beautiful Ellen F of outraged affection, determined him to cherish not a single reminiscence of the past; and by the very care which it cost him to forget, Lionel learned how fond and deep was his remembrance. The repose and quietude of his wife's manner,— that calm, and, as it sometimes seemed to him, cold reliance upon his affection,-was the most trying of all things to his impulsive temper. She was full of gentleness and sweetness, but there were times when he would gladly have found her less passively tranquil. Wrapped in rich shawls, and reclining on a downy couch, she seemed to enjoy a sort of half dreamy life. She was happy if Lionel sat beside the silken cushions on which she leaned, and she seemed scarcely less happy if left to the quiet loneliness of her own chamber. She was as one who watches with half-closed and by advice of his physician, sailed with his eyes the gliding of some quiet stream, while she fair bride to the genial climate of Italy. Mrs. Grey had inherited her mother's fragile health along with her wealth and her beauty. Nothing could be lovelier than her petite figure, her sweet, girlish face, overhung by the most luxuriant and rebellious of blonde tresses, her delicate, fairy-like hands and feet, and the sort of willowy grace which pervaded her whole appearance. But no trace of color ever visited her smooth cheek, and but for the rich, coral hue of her soft lips, she might have seemed like one whom death had already marked for his own. She was one of those characterless women, who, like mirrors, reflect passing objects, but only retain the image of that which is placed perpetually before them. She was a creature of habitudes, and nothing had ever disturbed the perfect quiescence of her feelings, until her heart had awakened into something like a passion for Lionel Grey. She had been stirred into active life by the doubt which hung around her affection, but now that she was in possession of the object of her wishes, she gladly returned to her former tranquillity and peace. No jealous fears, no distrust of herself, or of her husband, ever entered her mind. She loved him, she was his honored and cherished wife, and she was therefore perfectly happy. possessed not sufficient energy to fling even a flower upon its gentle current. With such a wife, so silent, so abstracted, so slumberous in her habits of thought, Lionel was not likely to find his heart fully occupied. She was like an amiable but petted child; so long as she was indulged and caressed, she was content. She was a most loveable creature, but she could never inspire a deep, strong and abiding passion. Often when Lionel sate beside her, clasping the little white hand which lay like a snow-wreath in his, would memory conjure up before him the stately figure, the flashing eye, the impressive gesture, the heart-echoing voice, of one whose beauty ever derived new power from the intense and vivid life which characterized her loveliness. Ellen was the gentle child of Lionel's later affections, but he felt that she could never be the priestess in the inner chamber of his heart; and there were moments when he was most unutterably wretched. An incident which occurred during his residence in Florence, gave him fresh food for mournful thought. He was standing in the cool shadow of a projecting portico conversing with a lovely dark-eyed flower-girl who was binding a bunch of violets and rosebuds for him, when a carriage passed by. Darting from his side, the girl flew to the carriage-door and flung the bouquet into the lap of the lady, who with a Lionel, on his part, had striven to banish from his memory all that could throw the shadow of wrong upon his gentle wife. Fanny's letters,-sunny-faced child were its only occupants. The the flower from her hair,-the glove from her hand, all the love-gifts which are so precious because identified with personal recollections of the beloved one,-even the braid of raven hair which had lain so long next his heart,-were destroyed ere he married. A sense of duty, low, sweet voice in which the stranger uttered her thanks, thrilled the very soul of Lionel, and as the wind lifted the thick veil which shrouded her face, he beheld the pale but beautiful face of Fanny Lee. "She is so pale, so very pale," said the girl, as she returned, "and she loves my flowers so months, she was laid within the grave which held dearly." "Do you know the lady?" asked Lionel. the ashes of her idolized child. Ten years from the time when he first set foot in Europe, Lionel "Oh, no, she is a stranger; but she looks ill Grey was a lonely and desolate man. and, it seems to me, sorrowful." Wealth was his, for he was the sole heir to his wife's fine In vain Lionel sought to learn something fortune, but there was no human creature with further of his faithless mistress. He met her no whom he could claim kindred. He was alonemore, and his fancy enabled him to depict her as alone amid the appliances of luxury-alone amid the wife and mother-perhaps ill-perhaps disap-spectres of past happiness-alone amid recollecpointed in her trust, but certainly lost to him for tions of by-gone joys and sorrows. ever. A second time did that image of past happiness appear before him. A year had elapsed, and Lionel was the father of a noble boy, but the invalid mother could not be persuaded that he had not inherited her delicacy of constitution; and, tortured by the fear that his blooming cheek and sparkling eye were but tokens of latent disease, she insisted on taking up her abode in Paris, where the skill of French physicians might be exerted in behalf of her darling child. Lionel Grey was one day standing in the deep recess of . a window, playfully tossing the lovely little creature towards his pretty and girlish-looking mother, when a pale and almost ghastly face suddenly looked out upon him, from a cabriolet, which some trifling obstruction in the street had detained for a moment before his hotel. It was a face not to be mistaken-the large full eye,the curve of the sweet lips-the broad white brow ;-pale and faded as was the bright beauty of that countenance, it was still the image of her whom he had so loved. A second time he had seen her, and a second time she had vanished like a spectre from his gaze. "You must join us, Mr. Grey," said Mrs. Lisbourne, "we intend passing a few months in England, and shall then return to America. You are alone, and we shall be most happy to minister to your comfort during the journey." "Come, Lionel, I shall insist upon it," said her husband, "I have not yet forgotten our college-days, and if you are less mindful of our former intimacy, it is quite time to renew it; so I will take no denial." "I am so little fitted for society, my good friends, that I should be only a burden upon your party." "We have no party, Mr. Grey; we left America on account of Mr. Lisbourne's health, and ours has been only a family party. Our children and their governess are our only companions, now that my brother Fred has left us." "I thought he was still with you." "No," said Mr. Lisbonrne, smiling, "he found the attractions of a certain lady quite too potent, and beat a retreat." "You don't mean to say that Fred Tracy fell in love with your governess?" "Something very like it." "And so you sent him to Coventry, to save him from the arts of a designing woman?" A flush crossed Mrs. Lisbourne's round cheek as she replied; "I cannot allow such an aspersion to rest on one who deserves nothing but good at my hands. Frederick has only himself to thank for his unlucky attachment and its disappointment." “The lady did not refuse him, surely?" Years passed on, and the bitterness of Lionel's feelings had been subdued by the kindly influence of time. He had lived to think calmly of past loves and by-gone hopes, habit had taught him to love the gentle creature who relied on him for happiness, and the instincts of an affectionate nature had made him almost worship his beautiful boy. But it seemed as if Providence had designed to surround him with blessings only until he should have learned that they were necessary to his happiness. A disease, which while it scarce stole the rose from the child's cheek, yet tortured his frame with agony and contracted his graceful limbs until he was a helpless and unsightly cripple, sapped the springs of life. The fair boy died, but not until the sight of his bodily sufferings had wrung from the anguished father a prayer that he might be released from the pangs which racked his feeble "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Lisbourne; when frame. His mother, always fragile as a delicate you spoke of the eloquent Mr. Tracy's attachexotic, sunk beneath her grief, and in a few brief" ment to a humble governess, I really thought “I had rather not discuss the subject, Mr. Grey: Fred acted like a simpleton, and one does not like to talk of a brother's follies. The lady has been a member of my family for the past five years, and during all our wanderings by sea and land, she has been to me like a friend and sister." you were jesting with me. My idea of a travelling governess always shapes itself into the semblance of a thin stiff-looking woman, with high cheek-bones and a pinched, red nose, a sort of pedagogue in petticoats, who always smells of lavender-water and stale-cake." "By Jove! you will change your ideas then, when you see our nonpareil of governesses," exclaimed Mr. Lisbourne; "red nose, forsooth! Why, her features are as classical and almost as pale as those of the famed Venus of the Tribune. Beautiful, graceful, dignified, and as cold as 'the icicle on Dian's temple,' she is a woman whom every one must admire, but whom few would dare to love." "You are enthusiastic, Lisbourne; perhaps it is fortunate for me that I am proof against her fascinations; and that 'man delights not me, nor woman either.' "It is lucky for you, Lionel, for there is a romantic story connected with her, which would just suit your imaginative temper." she returned from witnessing the nuptials of Fanny Lee with her early lover. I was just thinking," returned her husband, "what a couple of fools they had been. Divest the circumstances of their fantastic coloring, and how do they appear? Lionel Grey falls in love with a pretty girl, he engages her affections, obtains the consent of her rich old father, who ought to have been glad of such a son-in-law, and then instead of marrying her, leaves her to loneliness of heart while he is gratifying his infernal pride in the search after fortune. Fanny Lee is patient and loving like a true woman, but no sooner does adversity overtake her, than she fancies she ought to imitate the mad folly of her lover, and accordingly relinquishes all claim upon him in obedience to the dictates of an insane generosity. Lionel mistakes her motive, and in a fit of pique he marries. Thus after all his magnanimous resolutions, he actually weds an heiress, without having the excuse of affection, and now the possession of "It must be something more than romantic to her estate enables him to please himself in the interest me now; but pray, what is it?" "Ask Mrs. Lisbourne; women know how to dress up such delicate dishes of gossip far better than we do." "Her story is a very simple one," said Mrs. Lisbourne; "she was betrothed to a young man, whose name I have never learned; but he was poor and proud; he refused to become the penniless husband of an heiress, and therefore, after receiving her plighted faith, he went South to make a fortune. During his absence, the father of his ladye-love became engaged in some unfortunate mercantile transactions, and was reduced to bankruptcy. With pride equal to her lover's, she now resolved to follow his example. She wrote to him, renouncing her engagement and freeing him from all ties. The gentleman was probably not sorry to be released, for he did not reply to the letter, and she some time after heard of his marriage. She supported her father by her own exertions during the remainder of his life, and, at his death, by the recommendation of a friend, I received her into my family as governess to my children." "Her name-her name?" gasped Lionel Grey, while his face grew white as ashes, and his lips quivered with emotion. | choice of a second wife. While Fanny has been induced to forget all her foolish pride, and is now the dowerless bride of one who has reaped a golden harvest from the sod which covers a heart that loved him. Ten of the best years of their lives have been wasted,-their freshness of feeling is gone for ever,-they are grey in heart if not in head,-they have suffered tenfold more than they could have done from the mere frowns of fortune, and now, after all, they are precisely in the condition which they would have been had they married in their first glad youth; excepting that they have lost much happiness which they never can regain. They have acted like simpletons, and afford another exemplification of the old fable, wherein a man is represented as wandering over the whole world in search of happiness, and finally returning, heart-sick and weary, only to find that the angel whom he had sought so far, was brooding with folded wing beside his own hearth-stone.” Brooklyn, L. I. LOVE IS A PARTHIAN. WHEN Love is advancing To capture the heart, With soft wiles entrancing, He shows not a dart; For Love wounds, no, never, Original. THE THALES OF PARIS;* OR, THE MODERN PHILOSOPHER. . who supported every ill without a murmur, or rather who defied man to trouble the serenity of his soul, and the tranquility of his mind-thus acted, and why shouldn't I?" "And do you put out the same defiance to man, that Thales did?" asked Mons. Durand. "Sans doute. You know, my friend, whether have the right or not. Have you ever seen me depart from my principles ?" I "I know,” replied Durand, "that for thirty years, since we left college, I never saw you afflicted with any family ill; and if Thales of Milet, whose history I have forgotten, was always as lucky, his philosophy cost him very little more than yours has cost you." ONE of the whims, conceits, or fancies most carressed by the bourgeois of Paris, is that of Philosophy. Not that he studies nature or cultivates knowledge; but when his fortune has reached the limits of his desires, when age has softened the ardor of his passions, if he has a gable end on the street and a country-house; if he is well established at home, in the midst of a comfortable luxury, surrounded by his wife and family, he thinks himself superior to events, above accidents he is a philosopher. His philosophy is his hobby-horse, the reed upon which he rides like the child of Horace. When his wife scolds, when his roti burns, or some unex-pher than Thales himself, for I have never failed pected accident deranges a country party, he either as a husband or father, and Thales was a smiles, appeases and consoles-he is a philoso- bachelor." pher. Philosophy is his universal remedy; provided that it guarantees him against the events of life; and that his houses and his furniture are insured, and his funds out of the way the hazardous chances of steam or railways—should not fulfil your hopes, could you support sleep exempt from imposts in the royal treasury. "Frankly," replied with bon homie, Mons. d'Herbois, "I think myself more of a philoso 66 "But, once more," said his friend Durand, 'you have never been put to the proof." Let it come, I am ready." 66 of Monsieur d'Herbois, happy type of this consolatory system, seemed to have been placed in this world expressly to cry up philosophy without ever being called upon to put it in practice. Enriched by a paternal fortune which he had augmented, he married young, a woman whom he loved. His only son aged twenty-two years, at this time, the time of our story was about to marry a young lady whose character, fortune and family suited equally our fortunate father-the philosopher. If your wife should betray you, if your son these misfortunes with the constancy of Job?" "Of Thales, my friend, of Thales; don't confound them if you please. 'A tout événement le sage est prêparé,' said the poet, who spoke of a Greek, and not of an Arab, like your Job." Mons. d'Herbois, proud of himself and of his Thales, pursued with alacrity the preparations necessary for the nuptials of his well beloved son, and already saw his grand-children dancing on his knees, when one morning he wished to enter Gustavus' room to consult him upon the purchase of some jewelry. Before turning the handle of the door, the curtain of which was on his side, he stopped because he heard a noise: his son was not alone. "Oh! oh!" said he, "Gustavus is making his adieu to his bachelor life." He raised a corner of the curtain, tranquilized himself a little: Gustavus had but one visitor, a stranger. "My friend," said he to Monsieur Durand, who was no philosopher, "I shall give Gustavus my house at Sussy. I know it's a great sacrifice, and that we shall not be able to pass our summers there for the future, because my wife will not perhaps agree with her daughter-in-law; but we love Gustavus so much, and besides, one must be a philosopher. We shall occupy too, in Paris, the second floor; the first being given up to the young people. My wife may pout a little; but, as I have often said to her, 'how He placed himself so that he could see and would it be, my dear, if a sudden misfortune hear. Standing in the middle of the room of the should ruin us? Then we should have to climb young man, was a person about the age of Mons. up to the galetas, and call to aid all our philo-d'Herbois, hair graying, intelligent and sharp sophy perhaps, to mount yet higher.' Thales of countenance, the body enveloped in a great coat Milet, one of the seven wise men of Greece, á la propriétaire. "It is perhaps a creditor," thought he. "Peter?" exclaimed the younger d'Herbois, || sary to attack them by a ruse so as to obtain "you have misunderstood me, Monsieur, my name is Gustavus." "I have made no mistake," continued the stranger; "listen to me, I beg you, I am about telling you something that fills me with joy; and all my fear is that it will not cause you as much pleasure as it does me." from their credulity that which their indifference would refuse us.' I made up my mind to send you to Monsieur d'Herbois, by Cousin Potard, who was herself the dupe of my ruse. You are my son Peter, my own Peter." Pithou rose when he had finished this singular story, took Gustavus by the head, kissed his forehead, and shed tears of joy over the astonished young man. 66 What could I do, my son ?" said he. "The "Go on," said Gustavus, "nothing that is agreeable to an honest man can grieve me. Go on, Monsieur." This man, whose presence gave singular unea-time passed with Monsieur d'Herbois, has prosiness to Monsieur d'Herbois, sat down and thus cured you the advantage of a good education, began: and has been free from misery. When I examine myself well, and think seriously of what I have done, I do not repent. Since that time, Heaven has blessed me. I went to Paris, embraced commerce, and like others, have made a fortune. You will feel that I am not the man to wish you to profit by the wealth of Monsieur d'Herbois. We will tell him all; adieu. I have the proofs of what I have advanced; I am now going to fetch them to show to Monsieur d'Herbois. "You must know that it is now twenty-two years since Madame d'Herbois had a son. She could not take charge of it herself, so a nurse was sought, and my wife, Margaret Pithou, of Pontoise, was chosen." Ah! you are my nurse-father," exclaimed Gustavus with open arms; "come, my father and mother will be delighted to see you." Softly, softly," said Pithou; "neither Monsieur nor Madame d'Herbois must know that I am here, nor that I have spoken to you, until you know all." "Know all? Monsieur Pithou, what is the matter?" "You shall see." The more the conversation assumed an interesting and mysterious turn, the more the philosopher d'Herbois became fixed, fearing either to move or to breathe. "We were poor raisers of veal," continued Pithou, "but came out very well at the end of the year if our cows did not fall sick. We were young and had a child scarcely three months older than that of Monsieur d'Herbois." 66 Than me?" said Gustavus. So saying, Pithou embraced Gustavus anew, and departed by the private staircase. In the meanwhile, D'Herbois, who had not lost a word of the conversation, knew not what to do, or to think. Gustavus his son! that child whom he had not lost sight of for twenty-one years, whom he loved better than father had ever loved son, for whom he would have given up every thing, who bore his name! Gustavus to be called Peter Pithou; he the son of another? D'Herbois ran to seek his wife with troubled countenance. "Madame," said he, "madame, I have a son no longer. My child is dead,-has been, for twenty-one years." Madame d'Herbois was a woman of a lively disposition; she knew her husband well, and did "You frightened me," said she smiling, "but if Gustavus has been dead twenty-one years, I feel a little re-assured in thinking of the appetite he evinced this morning at breakfast." "Gustavus is not my son, madame." "You shall see. Our misfortunes dated from the arrival of a Parisian, who established himself at Pontoise, with plenty of capital, pur-not take his word literally. chased the handsomest cows, had the most spacious sheds, in brief, crushed the smaller raisers like me, by raising veal that was always the fattest and brought the best price. One bad year ruined us. My wife took it to heart, and fell sick, and one night she and the son of Monsieur d'Herbois died. My poor Peter," continued Pithou, addressing Gustavus, "my poor Peter, I was in a pitiable state; nothing left, without wife and money, nothing left but debts and an infant. Then I was seized with an idea from heaven. I said to myself, 'the rich are here to solace the poor and to aid them, but as they are hard, egotistical and miserly, it is neces "Mon dieu! Madame, you do not understand me; he is no more my son than yours. Poor Gustavus died at his nurse's, and we have the son of Pithou, Peter Pithou." They then recalled all the details of the infancy of Gustavus; he had been, in fact, put to nurse at Pontoise, and withdrawn, on account of the death of Marguerite. All that Pithou had |