gates of Ivy Bank, prompted the child to return, and offer to him the same filial salutation as to Mrs. Grey.

While imprinting an affectionate kiss on her ivory forehead, emotions choaked in the throat of the startled veteran such as he had never again expected to experience.

But this little incident served only to increase the embarrassment of the parties who were now left tête-à-tête, and, by way of improving the matter, Fortescue, who was seated near his hostess, on the sofa, began talking of her daughter.

"Maria is certainly the most attaching, the most ingratiating creature I ever saw of her age," said he, in a broken voice. "I do not wonder you are so fond of her, I do not wonder you are so proud of her, she is named, I suppose, after yourself?"

No-my name is Milicent!" replied Mrs. Grey, in faint accents, her eyes involuntarily fixing themselves on the face of her companion. "Milicent?" repeated he, passing his hand over his forehead, as if trying to recall some recollection which had half escaped him,—a moment afterwards adding with a sigh, "Yes, I once knew a person of the name of Milicent!-ages ago,-in my youth ;- -a sweet creature, -an angel! But she died young, poor thing! The happier for her! I MARRIED. I was mad enough to call down upon myself all the miseries and disgraces of an unhappy marriage! I gave my hand to a beauty, a woman of rank,—a woman of fashion; who squandered my fortune, and disgraced my name! When I accompanied my regiment to India, she chose to remain behind; and how she consoled herself during my absence was soon no secret to the world! Already heartbroken, the publicity of my divorce converted the miserable man into a savage,—I dare say you have heard me called a savage-a brute-a-no matter! It was all Olivia's doing! She left me no. thing-nothing in this world. Luckily we had no children. Those that were born to us, died, one after another. I wept for them, then ! -now I rejoice over their early graves. But, pardon me,-pardon me for having agitated you thus!" cried he, perceiving that tears were streaming down the pale cheeks of Mrs. Grey. "I seldom revert to these things! But the kiss of that darling child, and the name you bear, have brought back painful reminiscences of former days. Poor Milicent!-poor gentle creature! I was with her, I remember, at Barnsbury, when my brother's untimely end hastened my ill-omened marriage. Milicent was only seventeen,—a girl-almost a rustic;-but how superior in her simplicity to those women of the world with whom I have been since familiar! I have often wondered since whether Milicent bore me ill will for the shameful part I acted towards her!" "Never!" replied Mrs. Grey, in a scarcely audible voice. ever felt towards you was deep sympathy in your family sorrows!" Already Colonel Fortescue had started from his seat, and with his eyes fixed upon her face in mingled amazement, joy, and tenderness, was accusing himself of being the blindest and stupidest ass on the created earth, to have been so slow in discovering the truth. Already deeply moved by recurrence to his domestic sorrows, he no longer attempted to control his emotions, but sobbed aloud ("brute" and savage" as he was) while referring to all they had been to each other!

May.-VOL. LXXI. NO. CCLXXXI.

I

"All I

"How you must have loathed me !" said he; "how you must have despised me !"

"No!" replied the happy Milicent, whose hand was now clasped in his, "I contented myself with rendering your ingratitude towards me still more ungrateful, by persevering fidelity of love. Soon after my return to Scotland, the untimely death of a kinsman caused my brother to succeed to his title and estate. He returned instantly from India, bringing with him, alas ! the germs of a fatal disease. Instead of enjoying his new fortunes my poor brother was forced to reside in a milder climate. I accompanied him to Italy; and, after lingering for years, he died at Naples in my arms."

"And I, who fancied it was yourself who had fallen a victim!" said Colonel Fortescue, perplexed by his imperfect recollections, "I never was able to obtain news of you. I never saw the Eglintouns again. Lady Olivia would not hear of associating with any of my old friends!"

"Even I have been, by circumstances, estranged from them," added Milicent. "But of you, I had no difficulty in obtaining tidings. Your welfare was ever the thing dearest to me on earth; and I have followed the changes and chances of your military career with a degree of interest unapprehensible by man. Your sex is incapable of understanding the joy of loving for loving's sake!"

Intoxicated for a moment by this explicit avowal, Colonel Fortescue pressed the hand of Milicent to his lips with almost as much passion as he had done in requital of her stitchery, twenty years before. But at that moment a jealous pang shot through his heart.

"You loved me still you say,--and so tenderly! And yet, Milicent, you married!" burst involuntarily from his lips.

No," replied his gentle companion, with an unaltered voice; "I am still single for your sake!"

"Single?" reiterated Fortescue, scarcely knowing how to press his inquiries; "who, then, speak, dearest Milicent, I implore you,who was the father of Maria?"

Yourself!" replied his companion, with a degree of placid intrepidity difficult to account for.

"You are trifling with me!" cried the agitated man, on finding her support, without a blush, the severely scrutinizing glance he fixed upon her face.

"I never trifled with you, and was never more earnest than at this moment!" persisted Milicent, with somewhat impaired composure. "That child, that beloved child,-the companion of my solitude,the solace of my cares,-is your's, was Lady Olivia's," continued she, shrinking from the burst of emotion she knew must arise from her confession."From her hands, her dying hands,-did I receive my sweet Maria!"

"You would not deceive me,-I know you would not deceive me!" faltered Colonel Fortescue, "and yet-"

"During the closing months of her miserable life," resumed Mrs. Grey, "grievously did she atone her injuries towards you. A victim to the brutality of him for whom she forsook husband, home, country, the cruelest retribution she had to undergo was the bitterness shown by the prince towards her little girl, born after your departure for India, but,

as he well knew, your child. In the agony of a mother's wounded affections she even determined to appeal to you in its behalf. But alas! you were far away! Months, long months, must elapse ere her letter could reach you; and even when received, how could she hope you would consent to receive the little outcast, or how was it ever to be transmitted to your care? At that period, by the mercy of Heaven, I visited Naples. At Lorento we inhabited the same house; and on discovering the dying English lady, described by the people of the house as in so deplorable a condition, to be her whose head had lain in your bosom, I visited her,-I comforted her last hours, I accepted the sacred deposit of your child,-I cheered the expiring penitent,-I closed her dying eyes! My tears consecrated her wasted remains for

the tomb !"

Those of Colonel Fortescue were now falling without restraint, and once more seizing the hand of his blessed Milicent, he strained it to his heart.

"The letter consigned to me for you by Lady Olivia, is still in my keeping," resumed Mrs. Grey; "when you are more composed I will place it in your hands. Finding that your professional career would detain you for years in a climate said to be fatal to children, I had not courage to lose sight of the darling girl whom soon, very soon, I began to love as a mother. Your affection for her was doubtful;-mine, certain. I determined, therefore, to complete her education before I resigned her to the hands of a father of whose tenderness of nature I, at least, had no very satisfactory experience. Forgive me! I now feel of what injustice I was guilty, and of what cruelty, in depriving you so long of the comfort and affections of your child !"

"Forgive you?" faltered Colonel Fortescue. "Alas! in what attitude of humiliation can I best implore at once your pardon, and an extension of your mercies towards me and mine! Let me see her again. Bring her once more to my arms-my child-my lovely girl-your gift, Milicent-the treasure you have preserved for me!"

Deep, indeed, was the emotion of the gratified Mrs. Grey, as she placed the wondering, weeping, yet delighted child, on the bosom of her father, hurriedly explaining the mystery of their unsuspected relationship.

"But surely you are also my mamma?" whispered poor Maria, clinging with one arm to her fond and faithful friend. "I shall stillstill, and always be your child!"

Instead of answering, Mrs. Grey imprinted an affectionate kiss upon the cheek of the child, which, somehow or other, brought her almost into contact with that of the colonel.

"And we shall all live together-all be happy together?" persisted Maria, still detaining her.

"You cannot-you must not refuse my poor little girl!" faltered the old soldier, almost beside himself for joy.

"Our poor little girl!" was the scarcely audible reply of Milicent. And before Colonel Fortescue got into his carriage to return to Hounslow that night, the wedding-day was fixed. WINTER had proved more auspicious than SUMMER to the faithful love of MILICENT.

LACHRYMOSE WRITERS.

BY HORACE SMITH, ESQ.

YE human screech-owls who delight To herald woe-whose day is night, Whose mental food is misery and moans, If ye must needs uphold the pall, And walk at pleasure's funeral,

Be mutes-and publish not your cries and groans. Near a menagerie to dwell,

Annoy'd by ceaseless growl and yell,

Is sad, although we cannot blame the brutes;
A far worse neighbour is the man
Whose study is a caravan,

Whence the caged monster ever howls and hoots.
Ye say that earth's a charnel-life
Incessant wretchedness and strife;
That all is doom below, and wrath above,
The sun and moon sepulchral lamps,
The sky a vault, whose baleful damps
Soon blight and moulder all that live and love.

Man, as your diatribes aver,
Only makes reason minister

To deeds irrational and schemes perverse.-
Human in name, he proves in all

His acts a hateful animal,

And woman-(monstrous calumny!) is worse.

This earth whose walls are stony gloom, Whose roof rains tears, whose floor's a tomb, With its chain-rattling beach and lashing waves, Is, ye maintain, a fitting jail,

Where felon man the woes may wail,

From which no prudence guards, no mercy saves.

E'en were it true this lachrymose

List of imaginary woes,

Why from our sympathy extort more tears?
Why blazon grief?—why make the press
Groan with repinings and distress?

Why knell despair for ever in our ears?

Ungrateful and calumnious crew! Whose plaints, as impious as untrue, From morbid intellects derive their birth, Away! begone to mope and moan, And weep in some asylum lone,

Where ye may rail unheard at heaven and earth.

Earth! on whose stage in pomp array'd,
Life's joyous interlude is play'd,

Earth! with thy pageants ever new and bright,
Thy woods and waters, hills and dales,
How dead must be the soul that fails
To see and bless thy beauties infinite!

Man! whose high intellect supplies
A never-failing Paradise

Of holy and enrapturing pursuits,

Whose heart's a fount of fresh delight,
Pity the cynics who would blight

Thy godlike gifts, and rank thee with the brutes.
Oh, Woman! who from realms above
Hast brought to earth the heaven of love,
Terrestrial angel, beautiful as pure!
No pains, no penalties dispense
On thy traducers-their offence

Is its own punishment most sharp and sure.

Father and God! whose love and might,
To every sense are blazon'd bright,

On the vast three-leaved Bible-earth-sea-sky.
Pardon th' impugners of thy laws,

Expand their hearts, and give them cause
To bless th' exhaustless grace they now deny.

DECEASED PEOPLE WHOM WE MEET DAILY.

BY LAMAN BLANCHARD, ESQ.

AN Irish gentleman of our acquaintance, when his new suit of mourning came home, began to moralize on the uncertainty of life. Mortality," said he, "is more fleeting than the fashion of a coat. Who can say that his spirit may not cast off its garment of flesh, even before the gloss has departed from his new waistcoat. Alas! I ordered this mourning for my friend, and may yet be destined to wear it for myself!"

We often laugh in the wrong place, and create the bulls we fancy we discover. It was easy to see, by the aid of a minute's reflection, that this was no blunder at all, except in sound. On the surface it is merely a ludicrous absurdity; beneath that, lies a world of grave meaning, and lessons of the profoundest and most melancholy truth. The provocation to laugh is checked by a philosophic sigh.

It is not, to be sure, the custom in civilized countries for men to go into mourning for their own loss; they only put on the suit of sorrow and solemnity when royalty, consanguinity, or friendship that leaves a legacy, expires; but if it were the fashion for honest people in this world, to do by themselves as they do by others, what thousands who are now flashing in coats of many-colours would suddenly appear before us clad in deep mourning! How would the delicacy of peach