of deeming her plain. Certainly her features are not regular, but there is a charming effect resulting from their combination, which recals to me the CHAPEAU-DE-PAILLE: it originates in the redundant piquancy of an intellect- of a mind, that seems to date new epochs of thought from every passing minute.

Nevertheless, amidst all its changes, there are no flashes of joyous brightness sparkling for an instant in her eye. She accounted for this, half sportively-half seriously.

"Miss Hastings," I said to her, laying down the book when Mrs. Aubertin had left the room, "I have been able to discern from the fluctuations of your countenance, that you have entered deeply into all that our author has described -you have shared his feelingstrembled at his fears drooped at his sorrows-been exalted by his hopes, but not exhilarated by his joy. The habit

of your thoughts is melancholy, is it

not ?"

She blushed for a moment, and cast down her eyes. She raised them again as if sure of herself, and then between sport and sadness, as I have just remarked, she replied Melancholy? - yes; I fear that is the habit of my mind. You say I have genius; is it vanity to avow that I am conscious of it? Am I not compelled by gratitude to acknowledge the immense sphere of enjoyment it opens to me, from which the greater part of mankind are excluded? - What is the very essence of this faculty? 'Its strong, mimetic art.'-Wellhere is the very source of my occasional melancholy; - you shall not need to hunt for it as Abyssinian travellers for that of the great Egyptian river;— you may discern it now plainly. Reflection naturally presents to the mind more passions of sorrow than of joy - more scenes of suffering than of happiness.

Now, I do not picture others under the influence of these feelings;-by a deception of the imagination they affect me as occurring actually to myself. The illusion, though quickly past, is strong; and it leaves a shadow behind it." She sighed, and paused.

66

But," said I, delighting to hear her speak thus openly of herself, and desirous of eliciting as much of the character of her mind as I could, "this same illusion must sometimes bring over the spirit gleams of brightness."

"Occasionally - rarely — perhaps, I do not encourage such musings as I ought," she returned, and she spoke rapidly as if to prevent an avowal which seemed about to escape her, that she had peculiar and deep cause for reflecting all thoughts of lightness. "From observing much of human events, I perceive that the greater part of the life of each person is unfortunate; feeling how closely I am united to my kind, I naturally

anticipate a similar condition. The sadness of this anticipation is not bitter; I never forget that I am in the hands of the living God, and I tutor my heart to exclaim hourly, with most fervent sincerity, that difficult aspiration -"Thy will be done!" There are moments when I feel that it is, indeed, hard to utter this with the true voice of the soul. Disappointments do occur sorrows do pierce from points whence such attacks were least expected. But far be from me the impiety of bewailing, that I am called to endure the penalty man pays for immortality. I owe gratitude for so much, that I tremble to indulge a regret, that somewhat has been withholden."

How beautiful—how exquisitely beautiful, she appeared to me at this moment! The rapidity with which she had spoken

-the emotions which had been excited, had given a glow to her cheek, warm, animated, and brilliant.

"And this the world calls frenzy; but the wise
Have a far deeper madness, and the glance
Of melancholy is a fearful gift;

What is it but the telescope of truth
Which strips the distance of its phantasies,
And brings life near in utter nakedness,
Making the dull reality too real ?"

I have often debated, whether the satiety attendant on long and uninterrupted prosperity, or the gloominess of constant adversity, would tend more forcibly to produce that conviction of the emptiness of this world, which is so beneficial to the improvement of the heart, and so conducive to the elevation of its affections to things above. I think it is Pascal, who has made an admirable reflection to the following purport: - the Solomon and Job testifies

experience of equally to the emptiness of human life: the former, enjoying all the splendour and the wisdom of the most magnificent and intellectual potentate on earth, exclaimed on the vanity of the pleasures around him ; the other, sunk in the deepest abyss of