and grow, and increase, else they become as a curse to the ground, cumbering, where they should fertilise. The problem of happiness can only be solved by they who use every affection which God has given them, and who bind the whole circle of love upon their souls. It is the unloving who are unhappy; in affection, fate itself must own its conqueror; for the pallid cheek, the tearful eye, the sad heart, fill up the measure of love, and heap together each fond feeling till nature's household garner can treasure up no more! Can sorrow touch the loving save through the beloved? Can the mother's heart be wrung when the child is blessed? Can the wife lament when sunshine is over the life's path of her mate? What friend or brother cannot find his healing in the love which he both gives and receives? It is true!-affection is nature's divinest truth!-But how few there are who treasure it aright, or keep it safely when once possessed; for a whim, a toy, a fleeting joy, they will cast it from them; and the god-like amulet which love has framed against despair-they will scatter it in pieces to please the vainest fool who mocks its truth.

And the first influence of these desires of the yearning soul had now stolen over sweet Lucy; but, as was said before, all unconsciously that influence arose : she needed sympathy, and she found unlikeness; she looked for affection, and she was alone in her solitude. And then she grew sad, weeping in secret over the hard lesson which life had given her, and which she might not learn alone. Women are always beautiful, always lovely; but their sweetest hour is that oneso fraught with danger as it is-when they first discover that the joys of childhood are unsatisfying to the needs of womanhood, and that the mild loves of youth are insufficient for the feelings of maturity. Household affections are the dearest altar of heaven, but they must be all there. The wife and mother, as well as the child, must fill their places. These vacant, the whole is incomplete and the sacred fire burns dim.

It was the bright summer time, when even Borrowdale forgot its tears, and clad itself in sunny smiles, and flowers, and verdure. The whole Lake district teemed with the annual visitors who form the chief article of commerce in Cumberland, and Westmoreland; road, lake, and mountain, swarmed with the "parties" who had come from the north, and from the south, from the east, and from the west, to worship in that glorious temple of nature. There they might be seen, mounted on the rough hill ponies, and accompanied by the guides who tell such wonderful tales of every rock and every glen you pass, or in boats, and small sailing vessels, coasting round the lake, listening to the echo of the horn, or to the roar of the cannon, as it makes its mimic thunder roll among the rocks; or in post-chaises, gigs, and "tubs" gaping through the land; and finding all beautiful, or all barren, as they were farther from, or nearer to, idiotey. Lucy was accustomed to these yearly inroads on her solitude; and she often found much amusement in watching them. And some are such strange people! They are such masses of blue, and red, and orange-such shreds of milliners' and drapers' shops, done up into a living packet of finery! or else they must, forsooth, make themselves human scarecrows by the uncouthness of the attire they are pleased to call “ country." And often the fair young mountain maid would open her pretty eyes, and bless her good fortune, which had given her sweet Borrowdale for her place of fashion and "manners."

One day, or rather evening, a party wandered by the cottage, which attracted Lucy's attention, and subsequent acquaintance. It was not the luxury about them which betokened that they were of a superior class; for excepting one young and wilful beauty, nothing could be more consistent than their appearance and the scene. Large straw hats, Scotch plaids, and country shoes, were not signs of overpowering wealth; but that certain undefined air of superiority, that consciousness which a good social standing always gives showed that they were of the highly placed in life.

One amongst them formed a striking contrast with the rest. She was young and eminently handsome, and dressed with a sumptuous elegance more suited to the May parks of London than the summer mountains of Cumberland.

Her dark hair was plainly braided off a brow high and positive; her eyes were almond-shaped, but in spite of their heavy languor they had a haughty glance which belied the affected lassitude of her manner. She was tall and finely formed, and trod the ground as if she had been the empress of all. She seemed to be the ward or friend of the rest, certainly of no kindred blood or spirit! And her air, too, was disdainful towards them, and haughty and impatient, as if she felt even the slight control under which she lived as too much for her pride to brook.

A lady, still sweet and attractive, though past fifty years of age, a beautiful and beloved creature, whose life had been one of happiness, and duty, and affection-one whose heart and mind were now as fresh as in the early days of youth, and who had not so much aged, as been perfected, by time-seemed the matron and chaperone. Her husband, a fine but stately man, her daughter, a young girl, home for her holidays from school, and a young man still at college, the only son, completed her household; while Ellen Craven, and an officer, a Captain Lascelles, a handsome and "dangerous young man," were the foreigners over whom she extended her protection.

The girl was too young, the mother too wise, to flirt; Ellen Craven thought that the whole duty devolved upon her, and she acquitted herself to perfection; for they had not left home a fortnight before she had entangled the officer and captivated the student; and now stood in the perilous position of a continued flirtation with a professed "lady killer," while engaged to a boy, his first love.

As they came up, wandering past the cottage, Ellen was leaning on the arm of Lascelles, ever and anon turning on him her dark eyes, with one of those long looks which she well knew could fire the heart of any man-much more of one already half in love. And then she would turn to the youth, who paced moodily by her side, teazing him as she would a chained lion, and delighting in the sight of his powerless rage.

Flushed and uneasy, young Frederick Grayster scarcely replied to her tauntings; and she, the more determined to show her power as he became rebellious, redoubled her sarcasms, while she threw an expression of tenderness into her manners towards her companion which made the poor boy almost frantic.

Lascelles was not unwilling to improve his advantage. He pressed her hand, and bent lower and lower as he whispered in her ear and gazed into her face. "I am sorry to trouble you," said Ellen, in a languid voice, “and I fear I press too heavily on you; but I am tired, dreadfully tired."

"Too heavily! beautiful Miss Craven, your whole weight would be but a feather's burden to me !"

"Ah, you are very good! You are more gallant than Frederick, who saw me nearly fainting, and yet never offered to assist me."

"Am I, then, only a substitute for one more favoured-for one who has more right, Ellen, to this honour ?"

"Nay," she answered, loud enough for Frederick to hear; "it is not such an honour, Captain Lascelles, when Mr. Grayster could see me toil beneath this burning sun and never dream of offering to assist me! It cannot be such a pleasure, else others-he being the first-would have secured it."

"This is unkind, Ellen," exclaimed Frederick; "Lascelles knows that you refused my aid twice. What more could I do? I could not force you to accept it!"

"What could you do!" repeated Ellen Craven, arching her eyebrows with a look of contempt and disgust; "anything rather than act on a woman's 'No.' You are mad to ask the question!"

"Is that your morality, Ellen ?" asked Mrs. Grayster, rather gravely.

"It is the morality of the world, my dear madam," she answered scornfully. "I shall not forget your advice," said Lascelles, as he again bent his head to look into her beautiful face.

Ellen opened her lips as if to speak, but, as if it were too much trouble, they

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languidly closed over silence. Yet one strange look shot out from those dark eyes, a look made up of so many conflicting feelings-nay, passions-that it made Lascelles start as he caught it. Yes," she then said, slowly, "you may remember it, you may even quote it as the advice of a woman; it will come with authority."

"Then the next time you bid me leave you, Ellen," cried Frederick, passionately, "I will not obey you; and the next time you rate me for disobedience, I shall construe it as praise for my perseverance."

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No, you need not," said Ellen;" when I bid you, as I do now, to leave me for the rest of the day, I mean it; I know that you will not attend to me, and I know that you will still persecute me with your attentions, but I must tell you that they are unwelcome." And she applied the small golden scent-bottle which hung on her finger to her nose, as if overpowered with her own energy. The daughter, young Mary Grayster, though she had not heard what had passed, noticing her brother unhappy, ran to him, and passing her arms round him, asked him to climb up some rocks with her, coaxing him affectionately. Frederick, who was very fond of his innocent sister, could not refuse her; and he was not sorry, either, to show a little indifference to his proud mistress, though it cost him a hard struggle to make the poor attempt he thought so grand.

As he turned from the road, Ellen called after him—“If Mr. Grayster will give me my sketch-book before he makes for the wilds, I shall feel obliged. I have no wish to see my drawings floating in the air, as a terror to all rash rockclimbers."

The young man came, half sulkily, forward, and handed her the book. He would not even look in her face, but bent his eyes on the ground, magnanimously savage.

"Thank you," she said. The words were simple, but their effect electrical. Spoken in a soft, bewitching voice, while she dropped Lascelles' arm and laid her hand on the boy's, with a thrilling touch, they undid all that her shameless coquetry had done, and pacified the offended pride into the meekness of grateful humility. With burning brow and beating heart Frederick listened to her voice, then, taking her small, gloveless hand, he pressed it passionately to his lips.

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Come, Frederick, make haste!" cried Mary.

I cannot go," he almost sobbed. "You must not go-you must go aloneLascelles will go with you—I cannot !" Then he added, in hurried and broken accents, "Do you forgive me, beautiful, beloved Ellen ?" his voice trembling with emotion.

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"Yes, I forgive you for a little while. There; do not look so foolish! Captain Lascelles shall hold my book, if you tremble so! Silly boy! are you frightened of me ?"

"Oh, Ellen! how can you torture me so cruelly! You know that you are the very charm of my life-the sun of my existence-"

"And moon, too? Pshaw! do not talk romance to me, Frederick," she interrupted, coldly; "I hate romance and fine speeches. I am utterly unromantic myself;" and then she glanced at Lascelles, but he, whistling an opera air, had started off to join Mary on the rocks.

He was no dying, sighing, lover,—the handsome young officer !—and he had seen enough of Miss Craven's nature, to know that haughtiness met with pride, coquetry with indifference, was the best way to subdue her. Submission only fed her vanity; and vanity was the rock on which her beauty, grace, and nobler virtues were wrecked.

A frown crossed Ellen's face; but bending it, so that not even Frederick should look into it, she began her sketch. And yet her hand trembled while she drew the pretty rose and ivy-covered cottage, with that grand background of giant cliff, where huge stones were scattered as if they had been a Titan's playthings flung at random. Lascelles and Mary Grayster stood upon the rocks, rejoicing in a "better view" than the rest; the father and gentle mother leaned

F

upon a gate, watching the river as it shone in the distance and glided among the trees; and Frederick, while he held the parasol over his loved mistress, gazed unrebuked into her face, while the declining sun shed bright tints upon them all. In the midst of the picture stood the cottage, but no life was about it. Suddenly the door opened, and Lucy stood upon the lawn. If she had been a thing of heaven-a spirit or an angel from the skies-she could not have more startled the party. Her beauty, so refined and spiritual, was so little in character with the scene; her grace and elegance so little in accordance with her place, that this very discrepancy seemed to add to that beauty. Oh, surely not discrepant were they-the child and the mother-sweet Nature and her youngest darling! That she had been Lucy's instructress, nurse, and friend, was her own best warranty for every beauty and every virtue!

Her long golden hair hung down her blushing face, and her deep blue eyes seemed darker than the purple cornflowers in her bosom. Her white dress, fashioned so simply, gave her a yet more youthful air; and her whole appearance betokened such simplicity, such innocence, grace, and beauty of mind, as well as of feature, that all exclaimed with surprise as she advanced to the little wicketgate which opened into the road. All but Frederick; and it was long before he saw her at all, and when he did see her, and spoke of her afterwards, he said that "she was a pretty little girl, with yellow hair and a white frock."

And so it is the MIND is the only truth of matter; and, like a prism, it changes at its own will, separating and colouring that which it shines upon.

Of all the party, Lascelles was perhaps the most captivated by this sudden apparition of simple beauty. Accustomed to the refinement and the artificial charms of fashionable life, where every minute point is increased by art of every kind, this ingenuous, blushing, youthful grace seemed to him as of a different creation. It was only to compare her with the queenly London belle, that he could take his eyes from that sweet face. To compare her-and to what result? Would not artifice again win it over nature and her loveliness?—or would the heart of the worldly man dare to confess the superiority of that which his social education had ever taught him to despise ?

Mrs. Grayster, full of an artistic admiration, arrested the light steps of the young girl; and supposing her some peasant's child of higher mould and gentler form than common, one who had been petted by her parents into a state of idleness, and consequently had gained a greater refinement and delicacy than was her birth-right, spoke to her in a patronising tone, asking her some trifling question about the mountains round.

The blood rushed into Lucy's face; then I saw her sweet nature pass like an angel's wing across her brow, and still the burst of pride which the unceremonious manner of the stranger had roused.

If I had ever loved her I loved her doubly then. There was something so inexpressibly beautiful and pure in this subjugation of such an impulse; something which spoke loudly to the good which her simple education had engrafted on her soul, when it could bring forth results of such perfection as the subjection of man's mightiest passion-pride.

"It is Castle Crag," she answered with her silvery voice, speaking gently, and looking up into Mrs. Grayster's face with her large blue eyes, trustingly as a child.

"I beg your pardon," said the lady kindly; her benevolent heart pained at this involuntary mistake. "I did not expect to meet with a gentlewoman in this wild scene.'

"Oh, do not speak of it," said Lucy, smiling, and holding out her hand; “I saw that you took me for a cottager; and so I am ;" and she pointed to her simple home. And then she asked them to come and see the view from a high terrace that was behind the house; and they all accompanied her, the best friends imaginable.

Mary and Lascelles came down from their rocky station; and Ellen, having finished her sketch, carefully turned her eyes upon the fair stranger, while she

held up her jewelled eye-glass to examine her better.

Not that she was short

sighted, for her glass was not even the myops' "number one"-but it was pleasant to be able to stare down country modesty, and to show the superiority of "London Assurance” among the Cumberland mountains.

"Pretty and romantic!" she said scornfully; but there was a restless glance, and an uneasiness of manner, which did not escape me, stationed as I was among some low shrubs, and rocks, and heather. I had not thought myself called upon to forsake my comfortable mountain lounge because some strangers had chosen to make a halt near me !

Lascelles made some trifling remark about the scenery, and the clouds, the lights and shadows, heather beds and weather-which all persons talk about when they first visit the country; and as Lucy answered him her eyes grew brighter, and a sweeter smile came to her lips. His manner expressed admiration; and be the young girl never so inartificial, still nature has given her, in her own heart, a dictionary by which she can construe love and admiration, and know their meaning.

"I hope to see you again," said Mrs. Grayster, when they took their leave; and she kissed her; "I shall pass here to-morrow, and call on you."

Ellen bowed coldly and haughtily; Mary shook hands, and kissed her too, for some pretty moss-roses which she gave her, as if they had been long-tried schoolmates. Frederick Grayster forgot to take leave at all, and the father bowed himself patronisingly away. It was now Lascelles' turn. He had lingered behind the rest, and as he spoke to her in a low voice, bending his handsome head gently downward, the blood mounted into Lucy's brow, and she smiled with pleasure. But she looked frankly into his eyes, bade him adieu, and waved her hand as he went.

And the future opened itself as a picture before me; and I saw the fate which destiny had marked out for each.

PART SECOND.

AND time passed on, bringing forth its children, born of sorrow or of joy, to weep or to rejoice over its departure. Mighty things were done. In empires vast political changes strode onwards, casting their giant shadows in the future, and picturing, though dimly, the events which were to come; in families the sudden death or the bright marriage effected its change there—a change as important in its circle as the overthrow of dynasties and kings! Thrones might be shaken, the destinies of a world transposed, and whole nations hurled to ruin as they stood, but side by side with all this giant's work stole on the small current of the young maid's silent life. Side by side with deeds which wrote themselves a deathless name in history, spoke forth the trembling whispers of her first love. And in the midst of the vast universe, her newly awakened feelings formed her a world apart, and made her life as lonely as was ever sweet Ariadne's, as she stood upon the Naxian shore.

Lonely in truth! It is a maxim now almost trite, though still so true, that the want of sympathy is the only loneliness. And what sympathy can a young girl receive in the first feelings of her trembling, unacknowledged love? These are for none to understand, for none to answer!--for none but that casket of all that is holy, dear, and pure, the loving sister. Wanting this, she has nor friend, nor sympathiser!

As I had foreseen, Mrs. Grayster acted on the impulse of her feelings; and a few interviews were sufficient to convert the casual visitors into friends. Time and place so influence man, that the feeling which, under ordinary circumstances, requires years to become matured, under others, ripens as soon as it is born.

I did not feel so much uneasiness at this connexion whilst the party