TO A PROFILE. BY B. BARTON. I KNEW thee not! then wherefore gaze The form thy features used to wear? As if those lips could speak to me. I knew thee not! and thou could'st know, Commenced just as thine own was done; For few and fleeting days were thine, To hope or fear for lot of mine. Yet few and fleeting as they were, Whether they did or not, I owe At least this tribute to thy worth ; Though little, all I can bestow, Yet fond affection gives it birth; And prompts me, as thy shade I view, To bless thee, whom I never knew! LUCY AND HER LOVERS. BY CAMILLA TOULMIN. “WHAT is the matter, Lucy?" Nothing, dear aunt," replied Lucy Freeling, who from long habit thus addressed Mrs. Lawson, although they were but distantly related. Why do you ask?" 66 "I thought you had been crying," returned the other; "your eyes look very red." 66 My eyes ache rather, as they often do now; that is why I have put away my work so early." The scene I would paint was a neatly-furnished, comfortable-looking room, in one of those thousand streets of London, which, without having any pretensions to consequence or consideration, are, nevertheless, thought very eligible by a large class of people, either for some individual or general advantages. In one corner, as if to be out of the way of the other occupants of the room, sat a young man of about four and twenty, working diligently at his ordinary employment, that of a watch-maker. Various implements and particles of minute mechanism, whose uses are incomprehensible to the ignorant, were before him, and the strong light of a partially-shaded lamp fell precisely on his work. Jasper Lawson was not a common character, and perhaps his employment, which, while it required patience and a certain degree of attention, like women's needle-work, afforded much opportunity for the self-instruction of thought and reflection, might have had something to do in moulding his disposition. He was "the only son of a widow," to whose comfort, even in the matter-of-fact respect of pounds, shillings, and pence, he largely contributed; his mother having no other dependence except a small annuity, secured to her from some benefit society to which her husband had belonged. Lucy Freeling was the daughter of a distant relation, and had been left an orphan in early childhood; but the widow had so tenderly fulfilled the offices of a parent that Lucy had scarcely known her loss. The interest of a few hundred pounds, which should have been hers when she became of age, might have sufficed to bring her up in the station to which she belonged. But for a few years Mrs. Lawson had exceeded these limits for the purpose of giving her increased advantages for education; and when she arrived at the age of seventeen had paid a sum of money to place her for two years with a milliner and dressmaker. Although she was not old enough to make a legal contract, it was per fectly understood and relied on that this advance, so judiciously made, would be refunded when Lucy attained her majority. Alas! before that time arrived, the trustee in whose hands her little fortune was placed became a bankrupt; and that from such unexpected causes, that the circumstance of Lucy's money being engulphed in the general ruin arose less from fraud than from imprudence. But the eighty pounds debt which had been incurred was now a dreadful burden to those who had such slender means of repaying it. Nevertheless, the right-minded girl set bravely to work, determining by the exercise of an art in which she had so prudently been instructed, to make up the sum by small degrees. The widow had also put by from her little inand Jasper had worked hard to help out the repayment; and now the struggle was nearly over—a few more pounds were all they required. come, Lucy not unfrequently worked at home, instead of at the large establishment where she was employed; for her home, as we have before hinted, was centrically situated, and she lost very little time in going backwards and forwards; this had she done on the evening on which we have introduced her. But there was another person in that neat and comfortable parlor, and one who was now a frequent guest. Ralph Ashton was a lawyer's clerk, and on the strength of a situation |