out with the long struggle. The soft blue eyes were dimmed with tears, as they rested mournfully upon the receding sun; the face was pale; the delicate lips were tremulous with emotion. She turned slowly away and entered the house; Helen drew back involuntarily at the sight of Clayton; he had evidently been regarding her with surprise and displeasure. He had been absent for two days, and she said somewhat hastily, "You are welcome home, my brother." Strange that Helen never should have dropt the appellation of brother.

Edward Clayton knew that she loved him not, and had only yielded broken-heartedly to her father's wishes. They sat down together. "Helen," he said, coldly; "you are sad, very sorrowful, and it is ever thus.— Have I not cause of complaint?"

66

None," she mildly answered; "knowing the past, Edward, you must bear with me. Yet a little while," and she smiled faintly, "I must put away all thoughts that displease you; be patient until then."

"Patient," he repeated, bitterly. "Aye, I have need of it; you are cold, Helen; cold as the north star, that shineth on for ever, yet imparts no heat. Nay, I sometimes think there is less manifestation of affection than before I was your lover. Then there was ever a kindly smile, and look of interest, to welcome me; now, you sit apart and alone, forgetting the existence of others in your own unhappy thoughts. Is this wise, Helen ?"

She replied not; but tears gathered into her eyes, and she shaded them with her hand for a brief space ere she replied:

"This time to-morrow, Edward, and I will have no right to such thoughts. You will have no cause to complain of me, hereafter; for the present I have been unnerved by recollections that press heavily upon my spirits, on the eve of this great change in my life. And now I would be alone; I have need of quiet communing with my own heart. Good night, Edward."

She extended her hand towards him, and even that, Clayton felt, was a favour seldom bestowed, and as he raised it to his lips, he returned her good night with something less of disapprobation than was usually visible, at the termination of their interviews. He left her, and Helen was alone; her father had been absent nearly all the afternoon; as she rose to seek her chamber, he came towards the house, accompanied by a stranger, who remained upon the piazza, Mr. Clavering entering the room where Helen was. The thoughts of the young girl were far away, and she took no note of the recent and strong agitation her father's countenance betrayed.

"Sit down beside me, Helen," he said gently; "I have much to say to you."

She obeyed, and something there was in his voice, that fixed her attention.

"Great and unexpected happiness, my own Helen, is often difficult to bear, with any portion of firmness; and such I know it will be to you, to hear that Stanley's name is cleared from dishonour."

"Call it not dishonour, father," said Helen, who trembled with emotion; "it was perhaps a too easy yielding to the wishes of a dying parent: but, oh, my father, it was not dishonour!" As the words passed the lips of Helen, another step was in the room, and the tones of an old familiar

voice was in her ear, and Helen Clavering knew it was Stanley by her side. "Most foully have they wronged my noble father, Helen. He is dead, and with his latest breath he bade me seek for you, in this far western world, and bear a dying father's blessing to the wife of his son. len, I have come; thank God, it is in time."

He

A full explanation had already passed between Mr. Clavering and Stanley; they had accidentally met in the afternoon, as Stanley was on his way to the home of Helen. His first request was for the letter, and while he admitted the accurate likeness of the hand-writing, he pointed to the seal, and said, abruptly :—

"My first suspicions were right; that is a seal I have seen before, in Edward Clayton's possession. I distinctly remember having remarked it while he was in England; he told me it had been his father's. Mine is very different, and Helen must have seen it."

Helen had, frequently, but had not noticed the seal on the letter Clayton had given her, until it was pointed out. Then there was Mr. Clavering's ignorance of all the changes that had taken place in England, which Clayton must have known and must have concealed. Little doubt remained in the minds of any present as to his guilt.

Mr. Clavering met the traitor alone; overwhelmed by such entire detection, Clayton lost presence of mind, and gave such unequivocal tokens of guilt, that Mr. Clavering desired him to leave his presence then, and for ever. Driven forth a vagabond upon the earth, we turn gladly from the after life of Edward Clayton; crime became unto him a familiar thing, and there was blood upon his hand ere his dark career closed in a violent death.

It was in England: summer still lingered, and the soft air came in at the open window, touching the fair cheek of Helen Clavering with its odorous breath, "bearing the sweets of ten thousand flowers." It was her bridal morn!-Costly robes were on the maiden; and bright jewels wreathed her hair, but brighter far, and better, was the light of hope and happiness that had stolen over that sweet and gentle face, and beamed from the sparkling eyes. A moment more, and Stanley was by her side; he brought the rich gems that had been his mother's; clasping the bracelet over the white arm, he raised it to his lips-" Mine thou art now, Helen-mine, and mine only;" and the promise that he made her then, to love, and tenderly to cherish, was never broken through in all after time. Instances there are like this, that come over the spirit in this changing world, as the soft sea-breeze to the exhausted dweller under India's burning sun, reviving and strengthening for the time to come; giving hope and promise of that better land, where the shadow of man's evil passions may not rest upon his happiness.

"HOW NOISELESS TREADS THE FOOT OF TIME."

ADVICE TO YOUNG MEN.

BY J. 8. BROWN.

THE various and important duties of the youth of our country, especially those of the young men, cannot be fully appreciated by the unreflecting. The efficient performance of these duties depends upon the cultivation of the mind; and as the objects of this association are to promote the social, moral and intellectual improvement of its members, I shall solicit your indulgence, while I attempt to discourse upon the proper cultivation of the mental faculties of man, believing that no other subject, within the sphere of human knowledge, is fraught with greater impor tance, or attaches itself more closely to the vital springs of human happi

ness.

"Man's life commences in ignorance and helplessness." His progression is a journey through changing and ever-varying scenes, variegated with flowers of joy and hope, interspersed with the thorns of wo and disappointment a picture, ornamented with brilliant and dazzling virtues, and spotted with the contaminations of degrading vice, and demoniac passions. His life is an existence marked with wondrous deeds—a thinking, reflecting, cogitable, invisible something, which animates that which is in itself inanimate, progressing onward from the weakness and imbecility of infancy, to the mature and vigorous potency of dignified manhood, finally to terminate in this last scene of all-which ends this strange eventful history-in second childishness and mere oblivion." This is the alpha and omega of man's existence upon this sublunary sphere. He first enters upon the arena of life, ignorant of the bright world into which he is ushered, ignorant of the nature and design of every thing his waking eyes behold. He sees the sun apparently rolling its magnificent orb through heaven's ethereal blue, but instead of viewing it as a common centre around which worlds revolve, he is more likely to get the impression that it is but a ball of fire rolling over our heads during the day, and at night clothing itself in darkness, and returning to light, at coming morning, the oriental chambers. He opens his eyes to behold his mother's smile, but knows not that it is the reflection of innate, immortal maternal love. He beholds this bright and sunny earth clothed in verdant habit, from the green borders of transparent fountain, where "the laurels dip their glossy leaves," to the granite hills, where the giant oak defies the whirlwind and the storm; but sees not the Author of its brilliant beauties. In visions bright as seraphic faces, he views the love-inspiring countenance of smiling nature, but discovers not in her laughing dimples the rays of love divine. This is poor human nature in its first stage of existence; this the blank leaf of mind,

"Where no impressions yet have been,

Where no memorial can be scen."

What an eventful era do we find in the first budding and development of human genius, human thought and human action! Then commences the first scintillations of that light, the light of genius, which will illuminate the world, and continue to shine when "the elements shall melt with fervent heat;" when worlds shall sink into chaotic night. But in the

days of infancy, in juvenile years, the intellect is in embryo, the passions are in bud, and reflection, Sampson like, is locked as yet in a lethargic, Delilah-slumber. But the tide of life flows on, and then commences the "hum of existence." Coeval and commensurate with the physical organs, those of the mind are expanding; the mind itself, breaking from its embryo state, begins to revel in the regions of fancy; the moral sentiments show themselves, and reason begins to shine. Then every attribute of the man is in action, and the opening blossoms of perennial mind are spreading to the fitful breeze of external circumstances. Then the halcyon days of school, the lyceum, and social parties, give a wider range to the intellect and moral feelings, regulate the social habits and affections, and mature into living action, the whole energies of the moral and intellectual man.

These circumstances surround every son and daughter of Columbia's soil. Though the ratio of these advantages is graduated by circumstances, yet all possess them in a degree. Maternal tenderness and paternal care, the admonitions and instructions of the wise and good, the hand that leads through the flowery paths of science, the crystal fountain of literature, the social circle that brings into exercise the holiest affections of the human heart; the debating lyceum, in which are exhibited the clash and collision of intellect, and which invites investigation and fires genius, are auspices that surround us all.

Here are materials from which the meanest serfs, as well as luxury's most favored sons, can weave a garland of glorious renown, or construct "a mental pyramid," which, unlike all transitory things, will defy the last and mightiest wave of the troubled sea of time.

But if we take a glance into society we discover an almost infinite disparity between individuals whose opportunities have been, as it were, identical. On the one hand we see a graduate of the schools, rising to the zenith of moral excellence and mental worth; on the other we behold his early associate and classmate, groveling in sensuality, fast merging to the nadir of human degradation and depravity. Here, we see a cheering and living monument of the realization of youthful and aspiring hopes, in the unblemished goodness and comprehensive greatness of a well stored mind; while by his side stands a mental wreck, a miserable remnant of blasted hopes, a blighted bud of early promise. Here we view the boy of a rustic, ornamenting the chair of state, while at his feet, the son of a nobleman is receiving in broken and abashed spirits the merited sentence, the culprit's doom. We behold two rival statesmen, the glory of the nation, the wonder of mankind, riding on the waves of popular applause, soaring on the wings of intellect far above the mediocrity of their race, surprising the world with the dazzling brilliancies of cultivated minds, and at one time, both standing side by side on the top round of the ladder of fame, and only lamenting because there were steps no higher; yet, strange to tell, one of these, nature's prodigies, fills the grave of a culprit, regarded by all men, as the "greatest, wisest, meanest of mankind," while the other is no less than Monticello's sage, whose name will ever throw a halo of brightness upon the faintest page of American history, and the "sound of whose praise will go rumbling down the shores of time, until lost in the vast ocean of eternity."

To trace, to some extent, the causes of these opposite features and won