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"Lady Adela is a very agreeable woman," she said; "quiet, perhaps, to a fault, but with that high tone of manner which is always charming. Lucy Wendale seems a dear good girl, though evidently a confirmed old maid. You will find her of inestimable use when you are married, that is to say, if you ever have to manage this great rambling place, which will of course fall to your lot in the event of poor Mr. Wendale's death." As for myself, I was as happy at Fernwood as the August days were long. Lucy Wendale rode remarkably well. It was the only amusement for which she cared; and she and her

the old mansion, that I noticed one peculiar circumstance connected with the suite of rooms occupied by the invalid, Mr. Thomas. These rooms were at the extreme left angle of the building, and were lighted by a range of six windows. I was surprised by observing that every one of these windows was of ground glass. I asked Laurence the reason of this.

"Why, I believe the glare of light was too much for Mr. Thomas," he answered; "so my father, who is the kindest creature in Christendom, had the windows made opaque, as you see them now."

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horses were on terms of the most devoted attachment. Laurence, his sister and I were therefore constantly out together, riding amongst the hills about Fernwood and exploring the country for twenty miles round.

"Has the alteration been long made?"

"It was made when I was about six years old; I have rather a vague recollection of the event, and I should not perhaps remember it but for one circumstance. I was riding about down here one morning on my Shetland pony, when my attention was attracted by a child who was looking through one of those windows. I was not near enough to see his face, but I fancy he must have been about my own age. He beckoned to me, and I was riding across the grass to respond to his invitation, when my sister Lucy appeared at the window and snatched the child away. I suppose he was some one belonging to the female attendant upon Mr. Thomas, and had strayed unnoticed It was one day that I was sketching the castellated façade of into the invalid's rooms. I never saw him again; and the next

Indoors, Lucy left us very much to ourselves. She was the ruling spirit of the house, and but for her everything must have fallen utterly to decay. Lady Adela read novels or made a feeble attempt at amusing my aunt with her conversation. Mr. Wendale kept his room during the fore part of the day; while Laurence and I played, sang, sketched and rattled the billiardballs over the green cloth whenever bad weather drove us to indoor amusements.

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day a glazier came over from York and made the alteration in the windows.

Laurence and I were to be married in the following spring. He would come of age in February, and I should be twenty in "But Mr. Thomas must have air; I suppose the windows are March-scarcely a year between our ages, and both a great deal

sometimes opened," I said.

"Never; they are each ventilated by a single pane, which, if you observe, is open now."

"I cannot help pitying this poor man,” I said, after a pause, "shut out almost from the light of heaven by his infirmities, deprived of all society."

"Not entirely so." answered Laurence. "No one knows how many stolen hours my sister Lucy devotes to her poor invalid."

"Perhaps he is a very studious man, and finds his consolation in literary or scientific pursuits," I said; "does he read very much?"

"I think not. I never heard of his having any books got for him."

"But one thing has puzzled me, Laurence," I continued. "Lucy spoke of him the other day as a young man, and yet Mrs. Porson, your housekeeper, told me he had lived at Fernwood for upwards of twenty years

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"As for that," answered Laurence carelessly, "Lucy no doubt remembers him as a young man upon his first arrival here, and continues to call him so from mere force of habit. But, pray, my little inquisitive Bella, do not rack your brains about this poor relation of ours. To tell the truth, I have become so used to his unseen presence in the house that I have ceased to think of him at all. I meet a grim woman, dressed in black merino, coming out of the green-baize door, and I know that she is Mr. Thomas's nurse; or I see a solemn-faced man, and I am equally assured that he is Mr. Thomas's servant, James Beck, who has grown gray in his office; I encounter the doctor riding away from Fernwood on his brown cob, and I feel convinced that he has just looked in to see how Mr. Thomas is going on; if I miss my sister for an hour in the twilight, I know that she is in the west wing talking to Mr. Thomas; but as nobody ever calls upon me to do anything for the poor man, I think no more of the matter."

too young to marry, my aunt said. After tea Lucy and I sang and played. Dreary music it seemed to me that night. I thought my voice and the piano were both out of tune, and I left Lucy very rudely in the middle of our favorite duet. I took up twenty books from the crowded drawing-room table, only to throw them wearily down again. Never had Lady Adela's novels seemed so stupid as when I looked into them that night; never had my aunt's conversation sounded so tiresome. I looked from my watch to the old-fashioned timepiece upon the chimney half a dozen times, to find at last that it was scarcely ten o'clock. Laurence had promised to be home at eleven, and had begged Lucy and I to sit up for him.

Eleven at last; but Laurence had not kept his promise. My aunt and Lady Adela rose to light their candles. Mr. Wendale always retired a little after nine. I pleaded for half an hour longer, and Lucy was too kind not to comply readily.

"Isabel is right," she said; "Laurence is a spoilt boy, you know, mamma, and will feel himself very much ill used if he finds no one up to hear his description of the mess-dinner."

"Only half an hour, then, mind, young ladies," said my aunt. "I cannot allow you to spoil your complexions on account of dissipated people who drive twenty miles to a military dinner. One half-hour; not a moment more, or I shall come down again to scold you both."

We promised obedience, and my aunt left us. Lucy and I seated ourselves on each side of the low fire, which had burned dull and hollow. I was much too dispirited to talk, and I sat listening to the ticking of the clock, and the occasional falling of a cinder in the bright steel fender. Then that thought came to me which comes to all watchers. What if anything had happened to Laurence? I went to one of the windows, and pulled back the heavy wooden shutters. It was a lovely night, clear, though not moonlight, and a myriad stars gleamed in the cloudless sky. I stood at the window for some time, listening for the wheels, and watching for the lights of the phaeton.

I, too, was a spoilt child; life had for me been bright and smooth, and the least thought of grief or danger to those I loved filled me with a wild panic. I turned suddenly round to Lucy, and cried out, "Lucy! Lucy, I am getting frightened. Suppose anything should have happened to Laurence. Those horses are wild and unmanageable sometimes. If he had taken a few glasses of wine-if he trusted the groom to drive

I felt these words almost a reproof to what might have appeared idle, or even impertinent, curiosity on my part. And yet the careless indifference of Laurence's manner seemed to jar upon my senses. Could it be that this glad and high-hearted being, whom I so tenderly loved, was selfish-heedless of the sufferings of others? No, it was surely not this that prompted his thoughtless words. It is a positive impossibility for one whose whole nature is life and motion, animation and vigor, to comprebend for one brief moment the terrors of the invalid's_if_" darkened rooms and solitary days.

I had been nearly a month at Fernwood, when, for the first time during our visit, Laurence left us. One of his old schoolfellows, a lieutenant in the army, was quartered with his regiment at York, and Laurence had promised to dine at the mess. Though I had been most earnest in requesting him to accept this invitation, I could not help feeling dull and dispirited as I watched him drive away down the avenue, and felt that for the first time we were to spend the long autumn evening without him. Do what I would, the time hung heavily on my hands. The September sunset was beautiful, and Lucy and I walked up and down the terrace after dinner, while Mr. Wendale slept in his easy chair, and my aunt and Lady Adela exchanged drowsy monosyllabic sentences on a couch near the fire, which was always lighted in the evening.

She came over to me, and took me in her arms as if I had been indeed a little child.

"My darling," she said, "my darling Isabel, you must not distress yourself by such fancies as these. He is only half an hour later than he said, and, as for danger, dearest, he is beneath the shelter of Providence, without whose safeguard those we love are never secure even for a moment."

Her quiet manner calmed my agitation. I left the window, and returned shivering to the expiring fire.

"It is nearly three-quarters of an hour now, Bella, dear," she said presently; "we must keep our promise, and as for Laurence, you will hear the phaeton drive in before you go to sleep, I dare say."

"I shall not go to sleep until I do hear it," I answered, as I bade her good-night.

I could not help listening for the welcome sound of the car

in the corridor to look into my aunt's room; but she was fast asleep, and I closed the door as softly as I had opened it. It was as I left this room that, glancing down the corridor, I was surprised to see that there was a light in my own bedchamber. I was prepared to find a fire there, but the shining light through the half-open door was something brighter than the red glow of a fire. I had joined Laurence in laughing at the ghost story, but my first thought on seeing this light was of the shadow of the wretched Lady Sybil. What if I found her crouching over my hearth?

It was in vain that I tried to listen to Lucy's conversation. My thoughts wandered in spite of myself-sometimes to Lau-riage wheels as I crossed the hall and went up-stairs. I stopped rence in the brilliantly-lighted mess-room, enlivening a cluster of blasé officers with his boisterous gaiety; sometimes, as if in contrast to this, to the dark west rooms in which the invalid counted the long hours; sometimes to that dim future in whose shadowy years death was to claim our weary host, and Laurence and I were to be master and mistress at Fernwood. I had often tried to picture the place as it would be when it fell into Laurence's hands, and architects and landscape gardeners came to work their wondrous transformations; but, do what I would, I could never imagine it otherwise than as it was with straggling ivy hanging forlornly about the moss stained walls, and solitary pools of stagnant water hiding amongst the tangled brushwood.

I had half a mind to go back to my aunt's room, awake her, and tell her my fears; but one moment's reflection made me ashamed of my cowardice. I went on, and pushed open the

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door of my room. There was no pale phantom shivering over the open hearth. There was an old-fashioned silver candlestick upon the table, and Laurence, my lover, was seated by the blazing fire; not dressed in the evening costume he had worn for the dinner party, but wrapped in a loose gray woollen dressing gown, and wearing a black velvet smoking cap upon his chestnut hair.

An old record tells us that Jans Jelissen declared he would rather collect ten florins of a man than one florin of a woman; for, when he went round, some of the sturdy Dutch women slapped the door in his face; others soundly berated him, while one named Catarina Rodolf set a fierce dog at him, for which she was fined six guilders by the authorities. We ought to mention that the schnout's functions resembled those of the

and keep the people in order. It was, however, for the burgomaster and scheppens to decide what punishment should be meted out to the guilty.

Without stopping to think of the strangeness of his appear-present chief of police, his duty being to go about the city, ance in my room; without wondering at the fact of his having entered the house unknown to either Lucy or myself; without one thought but joy and relief of mind in seeing him once more I ran forward to him, crying out, Laurence, Laurence, I am so glad you have come back!"

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All honor to our old Dutch grandmothers! even though they did spend half their time in making their copper kettles brighter than their eyes, and in scrubbing their way from the upper | floor to the lower. They were the depositories of the homely virtues, and their hearts were placed in breasts whose instinct was abhorrence of vice.

A FRENCH STORY.

He-Laurence, my lover, as I thought, the man, the horrible shadow, the dreadful being-rose from his chair, and snatching up some papers that lay loosely on the table by his side, crumpled them into a ball with one fierce gesture of his strong hand, and flung them at my feet; then, with a harsh dissonant laugh that seemed a mocking echo of the joyous music I loved so well, he stalked out of the door opening on the gallery. I tried to scream, but my dry lips and throat could form no sound. The oak paneling of the room spun round, the wallsA PARIS paper tells the following very Frenchy story of "a and ceiling contracted, as if they had been crushing in upon me to destroy me. I fell heavily to the floor; but as I fell I heard the phaeton wheels upon the carriage-drive below, and Laurence Wendale's voice calling to the servants.

(To be continued.)

THE DUTCH HOUSEKEEPER.

worthy gentleman," who having unfortunately married a termagant, resolved to become a widower in a way not to expose himself to the penalties of the law. Without expressing any opinion as to the morality of the husband's conduct, we copy the anecdote, trusting that his example will not find imitators in this region:

He owned a beautiful country seat, situated on the bank of a delightful river, to which his lady was much attached, and which she visited regularly every Sunday morning. She had THE picture of one of our Knickerbocker great grandmothers in for this purpose a charming little mule with splendid trappings, her young wifehood must always be interesting to New Yorkers, and of which great care was taken. For three days previous to more especially to those who delight in the early traditions of the lady's accustomed visit the husband had deprived the our great metropolis. The concurrent voices of all praise the animal of all drink, so that it was almost famished. Sunday homely virtues of the Dutch housekeepers, whose frugality, in-morning came; the lady set out on her mule, accompanied by dustry and cleanliness have become proverbial-indeed, they her husband, who was anxious to see the sport. The poor sometimes carried these virtues to an inconvenient extent, since beast sought water on all sides, and had no sooner discovered Washington Irving records that the frow of Hans Stuyvesant the river than with the rapidity of lightning he started off, and was so fond of scrubbing the floor, that she scrubbed it so thin stopped not until he had plunged himself head and ears into the the indefatigable housewife went through one day, to the river. The bank was steep and the stream both rapid and deep utter disgust and astonishment of a Dutchman who was smok-at this place, and lady and mule were soon buried beneath the ing his meerschaum in the room beneath. traveller in Holland says that half the time of Dutch wives was taken up in scouring their pans and scrubbing the floors;

An American

and that when in Amsterdam he could have eaten his dinner off their pavements, so bright and clean appeared the red bricks which compose them.

waves.

The husband regretted the loss-of the mule, but reasoned like a philosopher, that to accomplish one's purpose sacrifices must be made.

Whoe'er thou art, thy master see,
Who is, or was, or is to be.

IT IS NEVER TOO LATE 10 LOVE.-Women who are past thirty, Mr. Valentine, in his admirable History of New York, drawsay, and fifty, too, fall in love and make fools of themselves. a delightful picture of the times when of an evening the worthy The inscription on the statue of Cupid from the Greek anthoburghers of New York used to sit outside their houses, with logy is quite truetheir pipes, chatting with their neighbors, while the younger branches of the family tree made a paradise of the comfortable stoops which every house then boasted. In those days New York, or as it was called, New Amsterdam, was governed by a schnout, burgomasters and scheppens; and then the present foot of Maiden Lane was Smit's Vly, and a windmill stood on a little hillock where Trinity Church is now built.

Two or three farm-houses were the only buildings between Smit's Vly and the road to Fort Amsterdam, while the Bowery led to old Peter Stuyvesant's farm, which reached from where the Cooper Institute now stands to about Twenty-third street on the East river. Every New Yorker has seen the last relic of that fine old desperate Dutchman, the Pear Tree, corner of Thirteenth street and Third avenue. This is the last tree of his orchard!

In April, 1665, when New Amsterdam surrendered to the English, who changed the name to the one it now bears, a compliment Gov. Nichols paid to the Duke of York, afterwards James II, an order was given that the victorious soldiers should be billeted upon the inhabitants. This was, however, so sternly resisted by the Dutch matrons, that the English governor compromised, and levied a tax upon each housekeeper, which ranged from one to three florins. Jans Jelissen, the bellringer, was commanded to go round and collect the same, for which he was to have ten guilders a week. For this he was to be responsible for the money

By the way, Voltaire stole that epigram and called it his own. Its truth must be conceded. Widows, who were not very much pleased with the first husband, fall often deeply in love with a second, frequently a very unworthy object. Have we not the example of the Ephesian matron, who became enamoured of a soldier whilst watching at her husband's tomb? Cleopatra, it is well known, had been in love with Cæsar; and her young child, associated with her on the throne, was called Cæsario; but, after Cæsar's murder, she fell deeply in love with Antony, her "Roman Antony," and a very beautiful play has Shakespeare built on the incident. Mrs. Thrale, the friend of Dr. Johnson, and wife of the great brewer of that name, fell in love at fifty with Piozzi, a dancing-master, an Italian, and, in the doctor's opinion, a mean creature. She offended all her friends by the folly of her passion, wrote silly verses, and acted like a young girl and married him. Why not! Love is powerful enough, and brings under his rule others beside silly young girls and maidens. It is the universal passion; it conquers all things, but can itself be conquered, and should always be combated when too violent; but single, married or widowed, the human heart is capable of loving at all ages.

It is an easy matter to commend patience when there is no danger of any trial, to extol humility in the midst of honors, to begia a fast after dinner.

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THE BRITANNIA TUBULAR BRIDGE.

THIS stupendous work, which is rightly considered as one of the wonders of the world, erosses over the Menai Straits, from the Island of Anglesea to Carnarvon. It is an iron tubular structure erected to accommodate the Chester and Holyhead Railway, and consists of two lines of tubes, each 1 513 feet long, supported on three towers, besides the shore abutments, 103 feet above the sea. The first train passed through the tube on the 6th of March, 1850. The total cost was £601,865, equal to $3,250,000. About a mile from the tubular bridge the strait is crossed by another bridge called the Menai Suspension.

"Uncle Edward, did I keep you waiting! I beg pardon," and she put up a most penitent face for the morning caress. A peculiar expression overspread his countenance as he stooped to meet her, and silently retaining the coaxing little hand that rested on his shoulder, he moved slowly from the window embrasure where for the last half hour he had been standing.

Whatever his age and estate, both women seemed to have assisted at his christening, for at this further dilatoriness, the long-suffering elder exploded a second name in a fiercely pathetic tone, "Edward, are we ever to have breakfast!'' which appeal was responded to by the pair becoming seated.

The tubular bridge, or rather the tube itself, is not of equal imperative jingle of Miss Campbell's coffee equipage; percepThe ensuing silence was such as might be felt, save for the height throughout; the end fitted to the central main tower, tible in the atmosphere was a grievous lack of the oxygen of commonly called the Britannia Tower, is thirty feet in height, sociability. Vainly Margaret essayed by casual remarks to inwhile the end fitted into the Anglesea Tower is only twenty-terest her uncle; his manner was pre-occupied and, abstracted. seven feet. The centre being intermediate, and the smaller Neither was Miss Campbell to be propitiated; jest nor earnest tubes still farther tapering towards their termini, so as to give availed anything; only frozen monosyllables rewarded her the whole viaduct that additional strength which arched roofing efforts. Although this was not absolutely a new state of things, only confers. The width is fourteen feet eight inches throughout. The sides, tops and bottom are formed of oblong wrought with former happy gatherings around the same board. an additional cloud was in the sky, and contrasted painfully iron plates, varying in length, width and thickness, according to circumstances, but of immense size and weight. They are so placed as to produce the appearance of stone or brickwork, and to obtain the greatest possible amount of durability, care being taken to secure every joint, by means of which the plates themselves are connected, and no less than 327,000 feet of them are contained in a single tube. In addition to the 1,600 tons of wrought iron made use of in the construction of the tube itself, an additional 200 tons of metal was necessary in order to form lifting frames and cast iron beams, for the purpose of attaching the tube to those chains, by which, under the potent influence of hydraulic pressure, it was lifted 103 feet above high water

level.

THE DISOWNED.

BRIGHT and beautiful was the morning, as a sweet young girl, full of life and spirit dashed out of yonder dwelling on the hill, and tripped away in the gladness of the bracing atmosphere; but in marked contrast to the girl's bright face was the sinister one that shot out of a side window to look after her, and then shot in again. It were a pity that music should be checked, if it still possessed a power once ascribed to it of soothing the savage breast, for this second personage had a look bordering slightly on the savage.

Unamiable, however, as was the apparition, it possessed no spell to detain the maiden, and she passed lightly on to an elevated point near the house, whence the surrounding landscape was favorably seen blushing beneath the sunrise in its bath of morning dew.

It was hill country, and upon slope and valley the rich of this world had befittingly embowered their Lares. She loitered carelessly, lingering here and there, and viewing the expanse as one does what is familiar and well-beloved. The ripple of a smile which hovered around lip and eye, much like bits of sunlight on the wet leaves, may have been caused by any of those dreamy thoughts of which youth is so prolific, but truth to say, the ultimate snatch of laughter into which it merged was born of a suspicious aroma of coffee and rashers the breeze had got hold of.

"Why, it must be desperately late!" she exclaimed, turning hastily to retrace her steps. As she approached the house a sounding sniff issued from the upper part of a black bombazine dress standing in the doorway, and was a whole chapter of commentary on the remark. There was perhaps a spice of contrariness in her needless delay in changing shoes, smoothing hair, &c., before appearing in the breakfast-room; but who does not sympathise with a trifle of the old Adam at proper times? It is not pleasant to be sniffed in to breakfast.

A sigh from the figure in bombazine, expressive of a temporary relief of sorely tried patience, greeted her entrance, and no other response was vouchsafed to the saucily cheerful "Good morning, Miss Campbell," as the young girl brushed over to the other occupant of the room.

Margaret's thoughts strove to arraign her as culpable for annoying her aunt, but good common sense spoke up in defence; she had tried meekness until meekress was no longer a virtue. Miss Campbell seemed determined not to like her

niece.

At length the last-mentioned lady broke the ice with the interrogation, "What train do you go by, Edward?” "I have not decided," he replied.

One quick glance of surprise betrayed Margaret's mortification on being thus, for the first time, kept in ignorance of her uncle's movements. The silence that ensued was not again broken by her. There was an unpleasant stricture in her throat; surrounding objects had acquired a novel aspect, as if they were swimming. She industriously cut her toast into longitudinal strips, theu reversed the order and carefully serrated the edges; and the motions of the repast gone through with, she was silently leaving the room.

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'Well, sir," she answered in a choked voice.

"Can you bestow a moment of your valuable time on me?" he asked, and he caught her eye with a serio-comic smile. "Indeed it is very unkind of you," she answered, pausing, and gulping down a great sob.

"Unkind-what is unkind? Come here, chiid ;" and making room for her on the sofa where he had seated himself, he gave her shoulder an admonitory thrust, which said, "Stay there until aunt is off," and then subsided into a newspaper.

If that lady could take a hint, there was chance for her to do so now. From this perception Margaret expected a protracted detention, but the reverse was the fact; the maid-servant was If she did not pause for an admonitory remark, it was probably hustled out and aunt herself gone in a fabulously short period.

because one at least of her hearers had received all he would bear before breakfast. I do not mean to convey that the elder lady was unqualifiedly hateful, nor that all her superior wisdom was oppressive to more fallible mortals and had a tendency to make them restive.

A similar reflection to this kept the lips of Mr. Campbell closed some minutes after the sound of retreating footsteps had vanished; then rolling his newspaper into a solid missive, he shied it on to one of Miss Campbell's immaculate tables, inwardly wishing that some ugly thoughts which had been corrugating his visage behind it could be as easily disposed of.

"Come, puss," he half yawned, "let's know about this dispensation that has deprived you of breakfast." No reply. "Come, how about it?" he continued, and the tawny whiskers came in for a leisurely caress, as he threw back his head aud looked askance at Margaret.

"The young girl sat supporting her cheek with her hand, her eyes bent thoughtfully on the floor, and without regarding any of his queries.

"Come, dear, don't do so," he continued in changed tones. "Cheer up."

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