I read a great deal more here than at any time before; but it was principally at night, and during hours which I should have devoted to sleep; for in the day time, I was restless and nervous in consequence, and unfit for any thing but moping about. I read works of feverish interest, and used to get worked up into such an excited state of mind, that my cries alarmed the family. My tutor at times thought me partially deranged.

I was accustomed to spend whole nights upon the banks of the lake, which was distant from the house only a quarter of a mile. Frequently I obtained permission for here I was under the appearance of authority to visit my cousin, about two hours' walk from the house; yet I did not go there often, but employed my leave of absence in wandering about the fields, in sight of the house where she lived. I shrunk from exposing the secret feelings of my heart by my conduct. When in her presence, I was always respectful and rational; there was a subdued earnestness in my manner, which I am now conscious that she, with the nice tact of her sex, fathomed. She must have known that I loved her, and I believe she was, to say the least, rather interested in me. Who can be insensible to affection ?

I was called a wild, dissipated young man. Nobody ever expected I would make any thing worth having; and so mothers did not court me for their daughters. But in the house of my cousin, I always received a kind welcome. The whole family treated me as if I was worthy of something good, but it was the hospitality of open-hearted people, who feel above suspecting or being suspected, and not the calculating kindness of the selfish and low-lived. Nevertheless, I rarely went there. I trembled when I did go. My heart beat loudly as I approached the house; my knock was hesitating; my manner flustered.

My cousin was so much older than I, that with the greatest coolness imaginable, she used to take it upon herself to amuse me, and show me the garden, and pluck a choice flower for me, and see that I had sugar enough in my tea. I was a little, short, fellow, but upon such occasions, I confess, I blushed more for my dignity than my love. We used to sit, during the warm summer afternoons, in an arbor situated in the midst of a highly cultivated garden, with a fountain playing up in the centre. I used to think of the garden of Eden, and I do indeed doubt whether Adam ever enjoyed more in his paradise than I did in the fountain-arbor.

I had some enthusiasm, and she loved to excite it. Deeply read herself, and elegantly educated, she could sport with my crude and irregular reading, and she had all the advantage of comparing her tastes with nature, in me. We had music, too, and of that I was passionately fond, by inheritance. I cannot at this day describe what we said, but I only know that it was bliss to me to be near her to look in her dark, full eye, and the expressiveness of her whole person. Sometimes, we wandered about the grounds, among the hay-makers, and gave scope to the full glee of youth free and open in all our feelings, and unconscious of our actions. How I was fascinated, as I gazed upon the grace, the beauty, heightened by exercise and excitement, the unstudied elegance of her movements!

But generally I was very reserved, unless taken by surprise, and hurried, by some such amusement, out of my diffidence. I remember that it used to wound my pride, to observe that my cousin could be so assured, and easy in her address to me. She would reach out her hand to me with a frankness that told me it did not contain her heart, but only her good wishes. Women do not give their hearts, their affections, those thoughts and emotions they have kept as a hidden treasure, since the commencement of their girlhood, without a trembling fear an indefinite mistrust that the receiver will not value the gift according to its estimate in their own minds.

After an afternoon spent with her, at early evening I used to set out for home. I always pretended to leave them in haste, for fear of being late; but many is the night I have stood concealed near the house, to catch glimpses of her figure to hear, perhaps, the tones of her voice - her joyous laugh, or her affectionate caresses of her younger sisters. There was an excitement about this, that gratified me. I sought to create difficulties. It was necessary to my idea or scheme of love, that 'the course of true love never should run smooth.' I could not have felt any sympathy for the loves of another, which were prosperous; I could not have been interested in my own easy conquests.

Returning home at night from these visits, I lingered along the banks of the lake; I plunged into the deep groves. I wished to find solitude, lonely and untrodden places, where I could sigh unrestrained and unwitnessed, and give vent to the pent-up ecstacies of my soul. It was a boyish romance, but it was not silly. It was too serious to be trite; too influential upon my life, to be called ridiculous.

I have registered these feelings, to show into what a vein of thought and conduct a young man may be led, by cultivating exclusively the imaginative powers-by reading fiction alone. He is mad, to all intents and purposes. The great objects of existence, the good of society, his eternal interests, sink into insignificance before the one great idol his fancy rears. He is absorbed. All the channels of the soul are made to run in different directions, and to nourish various designs of duty; are turned by disease into one great river that sweeps through the moral nature, and bears down with it all hopes of usefulness. Such is passion.

My remaining term of suspension passed on in this manner. How I got reinstated in college, with my class, I am unable to say. I was received through some influence or other, with the proviso that I should pay some attention to certain studies during the approaching long vacation.

CHAPTER x.

WHEN I returned, my class-mates hardly knew me, nor I them. We had all changed materially in our habits and feelings. New lights of genius had sprung into notice; old ones had gone out, or were eclipsed. We had all grown, both in mind and body.

It was now the junior year, and the character of the man, the permanent character, began to show itself. The effects of different

courses of study began to be apparent. The young men who had attended well to the lessons, but read much beside, shone out with unexpected brilliancy in philosophy, logic, and composition, while the students of Greek, and Latin, and Mathematics, alone, fell back in reputation with the class, if not in rank with the government. Young men who had studied for rank, had it; but they who had studied for knowledge, and taste, and for intellectual rank, had it, and evinced it.

A false criterion is created at college, during the first two years, by the studies of those terms. Latin, Greek, and the Mathematics, are the only pursuits, and the rank one takes depends more upon the school where he may have been fitted, than upon the general strength of his mind. A mere piece of machinery may be made a good Latin scholar; and by dint of digging and spending six hours upon a lesson, a very clownish mind may appear respectably in the recitation-room, in construing and parsing. I hardly know how this criterion may be avoided; but in the giving out of parts for exhibition, a very superior writer and general scholar sometimes finds himself playing second to his inferior in all things, except Greek verbs and geometrical theorems.

I had formed a character, too; but it was one not likely to be known by college boys. I was the slave of my feelings and my impulses. I could write a better love-letter than forensic theme. I did indeed possess a delicacy of sentiment, which shrunk from display. I was diffident and retiring, from the very knowledge I possessed, that I was placed by my class below my proper standard. But when my spirits were excited, they ran away with me. I then became the boldest of all. A load was removed from my heart. I no longer felt the degradation of being no scholar. My pride was asleep, and in the reaction of depressed feeling, I rushed headlong into any scheme that offered amusement or dissipation. Then came the reaction of over excitement -the fullness of satiety' and I relapsed into an unhappy, good-for-nothing idler. I felt possessed of capacity, but I did not know where to begin to exert it. I had no adviser. Good students avoided me, as an unprofitable companion, and the professedly dissipated and vile did not like my half-way my balancing between good and ill; so that I was lonely, conscience-stricken, restless, and miserable.

course

At home, I enjoyed some happy hours, for there I had a sister for whom I felt the strongest affection, and by whom if acts speak any truth -I was equally beloved. I told her all my difficulties, and she probably knew how inadvertent were my errors, for she never spoke to me in other than kind and endearing words. she was a woman, and could only soothe. She could not advise.

But

My father, during all this time, supposed every thing was fair. He still had hopes. He saw me reinstated in my class, and promised himself much from my ripening years. He saw that I had faults; he must have seen it; but then he attributed them to the usual folly and thoughtlessness of youth. He saw others in the He did not know how deeply the bonds of idleness, and frivolity, and irresolution, were fastened upon me. Fortunately for him, the future was wrapped in darkness.

same way.

-

How can I ever repay the affectionate solicitude of this sister!— her deprivations for my sake! I believe she would have sacrificed her life for me. She was near my own age- two years the eldest. She had been left a motherless child. We had known only a few years of the tenderness and care of a mother. Left to herself, she had, by the merest chance in the world, formed for herself a strong and noble character. She was worthy of being a pattern for Ameri

can women.

While quite young, she was sent to the best boarding schools. There she got little save a smattering of French, and a taste for drawing, and a love of romping. In due time, she was brought out, as all young ladies are, more on account of their size, than their age or accomplishments. That is, she was invited into company, and behaved herself very modestly. She thought it pretty to hang her head, and blush, and lisp her words, and appear the mildest, tamest creature in the world; though I can aver that she was hoydenrish to a fault, and loved our sports quite as well as we did. She would chase us boys round the house, if we offended her, and fight her own battles-running up the front stairs, down the back stairs, through the parlor and library and we could only escape her by running into the street. She soon, however, got rid of all this romping spirit, and settled down into a very naturally-conducted miss. She took to reading Miss Edgeworth, and Hannah More, and Mrs. Chapone's and Gregory's letters — and the effect was most salutary. She seemed to view her life in a new light; and without pretending to be very good, and very prudish, or vastly proper, she really was the most generous and high-minded girl I ever knew. Every body loved her. She never had an enemy, and she never will have; for she is now in heaven, with her mother, and one of her sisters.

She was an instance how much beauty depends upon expression. Her features were large, her figure rather embonpoint, her teeth indifferent, her hair light, but luxuriant. She was quite an ordinarylooking girl, when at home, in a state of quiescence, as ladies are apt to be in America- sewing, or reading, or drawing; but when in society she loved, or witnessing an interesting tragedy, meeting dear friends, after a long absence, she was positively the most beautiful girl I ever saw. Her eye would light up with vivid brightness; her figure assume the most graceful and speaking expression; her smile was enchanting, and her whole heart was in her voice, and action, and look. She was much admired, but mostly by those who knew her the best.

Ι

I have said a good deal about this sister, because I wish to pay a tribute to her excellence · for her affection was my greatest consolation, and it is now. I love to look back upon that enduring regard, that unalienable interest, we felt for each other. How often has her persuasion saved me from error! How much do I owe to her constructions of my conduct with the family, with my father! She was ever at hand to allay bitterness, to cherish kindness, and remove all obstacles to a reconciliation. When in pecuniary difficulty, she has often relieved me, from her own purse. I owe her much in all respects. She has tended me in sickness, soothed me in distress, sat with me whole nights of agony, when my nerves were excited

almost to madness; and, best of all, she exerted all her powers to keep alive in my heart my early religious impressions.

She married she left her home her husband removed to one of the West India islands. She followed him, without repining, to a strange land, because his interest was concerned in the step. She left splendor, luxury, fashion, and the dearest circle of friends, who doated on her, and became a wife to a poor man. Among numerous offers, she chose him who she thought loved her the best. She prized affection more than wealth, and the devotion of her husband more than the devotion of the world. While she lived, she was amply repaid for her choice. She was a happy, trusting wife. Love was to her the end of existence. The same depth of affection which was bestowed upon a careless and useless brother, found a more worthy object in an honorable husband.

But God did not spare her long to her friends. She died - and her husband and child died with her, during the ravages of the yellow fever. But she died happy. In a letter which I received from her, mentioning the death of many of her acquaintance, she says of herself: 'I do not fear death for myself, but I fear lest my dear infant be taken from me; if we could all die together, I should be willing to die to-day.' A short time after this, she died, having first laid her husband and child in the tomb.

I only remained at college, after my return, for a few months. The extra studies I was required to make up during the vacation, were entirely neglected. I returned after the vacation, and being examined, was found wanting. It was deliberated whether to send me away, or to give me an opportunity to make up my deficiency in term time. The latter course was determined on. I was required to remain in town, and to recite every day at a fixed hour. We were accustomed to visit our parents, frequently, during term-time, but this privilege was denied me, under the penalty of dismission, should I leave the college-bounds, on any pretext.

The very day after the usual time for my visiting home, my father came out, and inquired the cause of my absence. I pleaded sickness, and still kept away. He came again, and I told him the truththat I was restrained within the bounds as a punishment. He felt for me consoled me, encouraged me came out to see me twice as often as before. My mother and sisters sent me presents, and wrote by every opportunity for they thought I suffered very much. Time wore away, and I felt happy enough, for I had done my duty; I had, upon compulsion, been more than studious.

The period of my release was at hand. The very day before the last of my confinement, my father came out to see me, and promised himself much pleasure from having me at his table once more. I was yet the hope of the family. He gave me some money, and said he intended to invite some friends to meet me. He seemed overjoyed; but by mistaken indulgence, my disgrace was accelerated. The very evening after he had left me, and supplied me with the evening of my last recitation I was solicited, more urgently than usual, to go upon a party of pleasure. Horses were all provided. It was to be a delightful jaunt through the country, to try the speed of some favorite horses. We were to rendezvous at

money