pre-occupied partiality; for to all, as to him, Grace Evrett was the same, presenting no strongly-contrasted discrepancies, though illustrating-in the one influence which ruled her two-fold character A perfect WOMAN, nobly planned No. 10.-Sapperton: Peep the second. Lord, what fools these mortals be! SHAKSPERE.-Midsummer-Night's Dream. "She certainly is," said Villiers, when-the inn-clock striking four-he tumbled into bed, and pulled-up the clothes with such indications of having accomplished a fit of musing as elongating his legs, &c.-" She's certainly a charming girl-that Nannie St. Aubin !" *Wordsworth. * These were the halcyon-days of life! An additional fortnight had elapsed, when, upon a time, the weather's fairness, about noon, encouraging, he rambled away from the St. Aubins'-a peculiarity that eluded not his cognisance; for many, of late, had animadverted upon his empressement-"And this," he sagaciously commented, is a ne plus ultra of evidence that mine's but a cousinly regard, since I estrange myself par choix to an opposite hemisphere from hers." Vastly penetrated with which moral apophthegm, he omitted to make account of his uncurtailed cogitations, wherein she served for pivot to Forecast, just as much as Grace did to Reminiscence, in the performance of their mental gyrations. The walk was solitary, in consequence of Herbert pleading a sudden engagement; (their departure had been definitely determined for the week following-the legal requirements completed, but some calls of ceremony supervened ;) it was likewise in a lonely direction. Yet, not altogether untired of the incessant whirl he had revolved-in, and lured-on, besides, by the diversity of the high-way-here, oak and elm-archedthere, winding along plains warm with the upgathering harvest-again, topping a tiny eminence, beyond which a various order of landscape beckoned forward-encountering few, and entirely undisturbed, he prolonged his stroll, till the sun's declination counseled return. Nevertheless, one other plantation of dun-green Scotch-firs and sycamores, and dark with copper-beech, was a temptation not to be resisted; but he resolved it should be the ultimatum. It comprised also mountain-ashs; whose red-berries, instead of enlivening, flung only a weird and lurid tint across the sombre density of the intertangled mass. As this now began to wrap him in, it excluded the sun-light. Wildness might have been cradled there all was still as the sepulchre and neither less mysteriously nor less calmly beautiful: the very field-bee shrunk from its invasion. But ten minutes brought him through; and then He almost recoiled, from the re-commencing prospect. It was of those calculated, by their steril and striking features, to stamp indelible impression on the beholder. A barren tract of heath and fern undulated monotonously onward, undecorated by tenement or tree: but, immersed in the shade-fold of the skirting (as if fearing to be seen by human eye), and still more selfobscured by the gray pebbling of its exterior, stood a manse and its out-offices, not barely forbidding, in their lone and lifeless aspect, but so repulsive that, with an incipient shiver, he turnedoff. Vainly would the scene be obliterated. It rose palpably before him, when the actual vicinity was long-relinquished. It accompanied him into foreign lands. Re-emerging from the artificial twilight, about to wend back, he discerned a man not many paces apart-respectable seemingly, though dust-stained -and yet suggestive of one burthened by, or intent on, foul deeds; with face shrouded under a slouched hat, and form completely muffled in a shaggy bear-skin. Villiers ventured interrogation upon the owner and uses of that building; but had not half-finished, when, like a shaft, the unanswering churl shot to the side, cleared the dyke, plunged into the corner of the copse, and disappeared, leaving Emile in the highest amazement at his inexplicable celerity. But this enigma soon gave place to the canvassing of a more momentous. That morning, he had penned and posted an epistle to his father-Herbert's advice according with his own on the manifold expediency of its delay-first, to allow for intermediate expenditure of Dalyell's ire; next, by necessity of the reply being addrest Hâvre, to lessen any sentiment of domestic breach which correspondence from an adjacent shire might conduce to; and finally, that the indiction of the letter at all, as well as its advisable brevity, might be referred to the fact, and the bustle, of embarkation for abroad. Brief, then, it had been; for, where, on Villiers' part, there existed no fault whatever, detail was not recommendable; its contents chiefly treating of the cruise (Herbert's junction with which would, he well knew, pleasure Dalyell), and adding, to an affectionate wish for their houshold-happiness in the interim, his general expression of frank and manly regret for having caused in any degree, at any previous periods, however involuntarily, its diminishment; concluding with specification of the date of sailing, and their purposed stoppage for mails at Hâvrede-Grace. Pondering upon pros and cons, he perceived (though how late after the error baffled guess |