tion, and weaving many a beautiful fancy of future happiness, to be found only in reciprocal affection, and you will anticipate the result.

"A well-invented story of high birth, unmerited misfortunes, and a long-cherished passion for me, awakened my sympathy, and I soon imagined that nothing could repay my lover's tenderness but the bestowal of my hand and fortune. I fancied myself deeply and devotedly attached to one who had submitted to the degradation of disguise for my sake; and, on the day when I attained my sixteenth year, I eloped with my lover, who now dropped his assumed title and adopted his true name of Wallingford. As my guardian was at that time in Paris, we met with no molestation, and were privately married in London, where we had decided to take up our abode. I afterwards learned that those of my teachers who had been parties to the plot were well paid for their services, while the only real sufferer was the principal of the establishment, who had been kept in total ignorance of the scheme, and whose dignified sense of propriety was shocked at having such a stigma affixed to her school. When my guardian returned, he read me a lecture on my imprudence, and tried to satisfy his conscience for past neglect, by refusing to allow me more than a mere maintenance until I should attain my majority. To this, however, I refused submission, and the matter was finally compromised in a manner quite satisfactory to both parties. Mr. Wallingford immediately engaged elegant lodgings, and we commenced living in a style better suited to my future fortune than to my actual income.

"My heart sickens when I look back to the weary years which succeeded my imprudent marriage. As time matured my judgment, I was pained by the discovery of many weaknesses and faults in my husband, to which I would willingly have remained blind. Yet the discovery of these did not impair the simple, child-like affection with which I regarded the only being on earth to whom I was bound by any ties. I clung to him as the only one in the wide world whom I was permitted to love; and it required but little effort on his

part to have strengthened my girlish fondness into the lasting fervor of womanly tenderness. While yet I remained in my minority, Mr. Wallingford treated me with some show of consideration. Fitful gleams of kindness, transient visitings of former fondness, glimpses of the better nature which had been so perverted by evil habits, and endearments still bestowed in moments of persuasion, linked my heart to the ideal which I had enshrined in his image. But no sooner was I put in possession of my fortune, than he threw off the mask entirely. I was too much in his power to render any further concealment necessary, and he now appeared before me in all the true deformity of his character. Dissipated in his habits, coarse in his feelings, low in his pursuits and pleasures, he had only sought me for the wealth which could minister to his depravity.

"I will not pain you by a detail of the petty tyranny to which I was now subjected. My impetuous temper was at first aroused, but, alas! it was soon subdued by frightful severity. Indifference, neglect, intemperance, infidelity, nay, even personal ill-treatment, which left the discolored badge. of slavery upon my flesh for days and weeks, were now my only portion. Broken in health and in spirit, I prayed for death to release me from my sufferings, and I verily believe my husband sought to aid my wishes by his cruel conduct. But the crushed worm was at length compelled to turn upon the foot which trampled it. I was driven from my homea home which my wealth had furnished with all the appliances of taste and elegance--and placed in a farm-house at some distance from London, while a vile woman, whose name was but another word for pollution, ruled over my house. To increase the horrors of my situation, I learned that Wallingford was taking measures to prove me insane, and thus rid himself of my presence, while he secured the guardianship of my person and property. This last injury aroused all the latent strength of my nature. Hitherto I had been like a child brought up in servitude and crouching beneath the master's blow, but I was now suddenly transformed into the indignant and energetic woman.

"Alone and unaided I determined to appeal to the laws of the land for redress-and prudence directed me to men as wise as they were virtuous, who readily undertook my cause. Wallingford was startled at my sudden rebellion, but he was never unprepared for deeds of evil. My servants were su borned, papers were forged, falsehoods were blazoned abroad, all the idle gossip which had floated for its passing moment on the breath of scandal, like the winged seed of some noxious plant on the summer breeze, was carefully treasur ed; and every thing that power could effect, was tried, to make me appear degraded in character and imbecile in mind. The circumstances attending my marriage-my first fatal error, committed at the suggestion and under the influence of him who now adduced it as proof of my weakness-was one of the evidences of my unworthiness, while the utterings. of a goaded spirit and the wild anguish of a breaking heart were repeated as the language of insanity. But for once justice and equity triumphed over the quibbles of the law. The decree of the highest court in the realm released me from my heavy bondage. A conditional divorce, which allowed me full power to marry again, but restrained my husband from such a privilege, in consequence of his wellattested cruelty and ill-treatment, was the result of our protracted and painful law-suit. My fortune-sadly wasted and diminished-was placed in the hands of trustees for my sole benefit, and I immediately settled upon Wallingford a sum sufficient to place him far above want, upon the sole condition that he never intruded himself into my presence.

"After these arrangements were completed, I determined to put the ocean between me and my persecutor. On my twenty-sixth birthday--just ten years from the day which saw me a bride-I landed in America. Alas! how changed were all my prospects, how altered all my feelings! I was still in the prime of life, but hope and joy and all the sweet influences of affection were lost to me forever; and, after wandering from place to place, I finally took up my abode in Elmsdale, rather from a sense of utter weariness than from any anticipation of peace. I little knew that Providence

had prepared for me so sweet a rest after all my sufferings. I little knew that peace and hope, aye, and even happiness, were yet in store for me. Resigning a name to which I had no longer any claim, I resumed my family name of Norwood, and sought to appear in society as the widowed rather than as the divorced wife. I have thus avoided painful remarks and impertinent questionings, while I was enabled to secure for myself a quiet retreat from the turmoil of the world. Perhaps to you, Charles Allston, I ought to have been more frank-but surely you cannot blame me from shrinking from the disclosure of such bitter and degrading memories. You have now learned all my early history-you have seen my error, and you have traced its punishment-let me now unfold the page which can reveal the present.

"A fancy, light as the gossamer which the wind drives on its wing, first led to my marriage. I was a child in heart and mind and person, when I became the victim of arts which might have misled a wiser head and a less susceptible heart. Left to myself, I should probably have forgotten my first love fancy even as one of the thousand dreams which haunt the brain of youth. But if, after my marriage, I had experienced kindness and tenderness from my husband, the feeling would have deepened into earnest and life-long affection, instead of curdling into hatred and contempt within my bosom. The love of my girlhood was blighted even as a flower which blossoms out of time, and loneliness has hitherto been my lot through life. Will you deem me too bold, my friend, if I tell you that from you I have learned my first lesson in womanly duty? Till I knew you, I dreamed not of the power of a fervent and true passion-till I beheld you, I believed my heart was cold and dead to all such gentle impulses. You have taught me that happiness may yet be found even for me. In loving you, I am but doing homage to virtue and wisdom and piety-in bowing down. before your image, I am but worshipping the noblest attributes of human nature enshrined within your heart. I dared not pour out the fullness of my joy until I had told you my sad tale; but now that you know all-now that no

shadow of distrust can fall upon the sunshine of the future, come to me, and assure me with your own dear voice that my troubled dream is now forever past, and that the dawn of happiness is breaking upon my weary heart!”

To comprehend the full effect of this letter on Charles Allston-the peculiarity of his character-his strict ideas of duty his devotion to his holy calling-his shrinking dread of anything which could, by any possibility, tend to diminish his influence over the consciences of his flock-and his longcherished dread of self-indulgence-must ever be borne in mind. He had loved Eleanor Norwood with a fervor startling even to himself, and, according to his usual distrustful habits of thought, he had feared lest the very intensity of his feelings was a proof of their sinfulness. Accustomed to consider every thing as wrong which was peculiarly gratifying to himself-measuring by the amount of every enjoyment the extent of its wickedness—restraining the most innocent impulses because he conceived heaven could only be won by continual sacrifices-he had shrunk in fear and trembling at his own temerity when his overmastering passion led him to pour forth his feelings to the object of his love. He had retired to his apartment in a state of pitiable agitation, and, while he awaited Mrs. Norwood's reply with hope, he yet half repented of his proffered suit, lest there should have been too much of the leaven of mere earthly tenderness in the bosom which had vowed to forsake all its idols. This letter therefore produced a terrible revulsion in his feelings. His rigid sense of duty, and his adherence to divine rather than to human laws, compelled him to behold in Eleanor Norwood only the wife of another. Vile and unworthy as Wallingford might be, he was to Allston's view still the husband; and though the tie might be loosened by the hand of man, it could only be entirely severed by the will of God. All the sternness of that long-practiced asceticism which had given Allston such a twofold character, was called forth by the thought of the sin he had so nearly committed. The wild enthusiasm of his nature led him to re