I hasten to reply. I regret that an answer similar to that given to many applicants during every week must also be returned to you. I regret this the more, because your communications show talent, but you need much practice; and, permit me to say, a writer must usually have acquired some reputation before he can receive any golden rewards.' If you are necessitated to labor, I would advise you that there are many ways less vexatious, and more certain as to their issue, in which you might successfully employ yourself. "I retain the MS. subject to your orders. "Respectfully, etc., 66 It was with difficulty I could repress my grief, as I looked about that cheerless room, and on the young girl whose disappointment I knew must be so keen; but calmly, and apparently undisturbed, Lily continued her drawing. time of year is a very costly business, dear Lily, besides being so cheerless!" "There is no use talking about it; I should have loved to live here, for my own part, all my life, but I have engaged a school in the town we are going to, and they wish it to be opened early in the spring. There's no help for it-we must go." And they went. From that day until within a few months I heard nothing in regard to the Reeve Family. Lily had promised to tell us her experience in the west, of her success in this new attempt at securing a liveli hood; but her promise was unfulfilled, and we could not but fear lest despondency had utterly crushed all the aspirations of her genius, that if she yet lived, poverty and hopelessness had come to be her only portion. Still, though her name had never reached us through the medium talents like hers choose for their utter "What will you do now, Lily ?" I asked, anxious ance-the press-there was always with me a lingerto at least break the embarrassing silence. "We are going west next week!" "West! where-how?" "To Illinois. I have borrowed the money-we cannot stay here and starve. I am going there to take a school. If I cannot get a living by writing, there are many other ways-and I will try them at least." Had she told me her immediate intention of taking a journey to the South Pole, I should have felt my powers of credulity very little more taxed than they were at that moment, so wild and perfectly impracticable seemed the scheme. But Lily had spoken so seriously, and with so much determination, I was constrained to believe her. The picture she was engaged upon-I have it yet -was an imaginative and a striking one. It was a moonlight scene. Beside the water's edge, among wild rocks, a girl was standing alone-the figure was a likeness of herself-and a very perfect one it was, too. The expression of the sketch was touching in the extreme. "She is looking for peace and rest there," said Lily, in explanation. "She has sought it so often, but has not found it-and she never will." "Does she seek it in the right way, Lily?" "I don't know. Every thing seems changed to me of late. I am bewildered. It seems to me as though I had lost myself. Since that letter came I doubt my powers more than ever. To think of one in my situation having to practice before I can work successfully! There is little time to practice, I think, when eight human beings are wondering where their next meal is to come from-when their wood-yard is in such a state of depression and emptiness as ours is!" ing hope and belief that Lily had, under some assumed "I have but just received your letter, dear friend of by-gone days, and believe me, it has given me no little satisfaction to think that you remember me, and with interest still. I am inclined to laugh, and weep, and wonder, when I think of myself as I was in the days long ago, when we lived among you so very poor and dependent; but there is a feeling of gratitude living in my heart stronger than every other emotion now excited in my breast by the freshened remembrance of my old home. "You ask me to tell you what I have been doing, and wish to know under what name I have immortalized myself. You will not believe I left behind me all my ambitious desires when we made our abode here in the west! Have you ever chanced to -? It is the name I chose to adopt in my hear of The mother sighed heavily as Lily said this, but appearance before the public. Perhaps you may did not speak. "But you certainly can do something here," I cried. "Don't go and bury yourself in the backwoods. I'm sure you can be a teacher in our school if you'll only ask. It's perfectly wild in you to think of going this winter! traveling, you know, at this have seen it, and read verses accompanying it, but I am confident you never recognized in those merry strains the voice and the heart-tune of your once poverty-stricken and desponding friend." (The reader may imagine my astonishment and amaze on reading these words-for my correspondent, A VOICE FROM THE WAY SIDE. 305 Lily Reeve, was none other than one of the most removal here I altogether abandoned my pencil and beloved and popular of writers!) my pen; I thought I would never labor with them again. But I was mistaken in myself, as many times before I had been. I knew not the wants and necessities of my own nature. "I feel conversational to-day, besides, I know it is but just to assure those who were so generous in my days of adversity, that their money and sympathy were not altogether thrown away. I was very far from being forgetful of those who in my earlier years rendered me such efficient and valuable aid; but I thought it better even at the risk of being esteemed ungrateful, to be unknown to them and to you, until I should be able to reflect some little credit upon them. I shall soon publish a book which is dedicated to those friends of former days, through that I hope to relieve myself from any charge of forgetfulness or coldness they may have justly brought against me. "It is only ten years since we first made our home in this western world; but I have grown gray in feeling since then, and looking back into my childhood, the road to it seems to be one of interminable length. Decidedly as our fortunes have brightened, we have had our struggles and heart-sorrows here also; and we have had much of sickness too, which seems to await almost every settler in the west; but there is so much more for which we have occasion to be thankful, that it seems almost a sin even to revert to our first trials and vexations. My mother, thank Heaven! now that she is old, may rest; her latter years are not harassed with the thoughts of a dependent, impoverished family; my brothers are in a way, all of them, to support themselves, and my young sisters are being educated in such a way that they will never have to rely on others for their support. And for all this I pray we may be ever thankful as we ought. "When we first came to this place all things were decidedly new. The inhabitants, men, women and children, truly seemed to us to have reflected in their own natures the marvelous greenness and freshness of the close surrounding forests; the village was poor, like all new places, and not one quarter its present size. Indeed, we call it a city now. "But you never can think what a house of refuge it was to us poor people! I was glad from my heart that there were none rich, none powerful here; that all was one grand level, above which wisdom and strength of mind, and superior goodness alone might rise. I was glad, I say, for despise it as you may, I am bold to acknowledge there was something awfully repelling to me in the thought of looking up to people because they happened to be rich, or occupy by birth a high station. Even the notice taken of me in my young days, in the place where I sojourned, was galling to me. It savored too much of condescension, which, child as I was, even then I despised and hated. There were many children here even in those days; for some years mine was the only school-how well it was patronized I need not say. I prospered, and was contented. Oh, it was such a joy to look on our own comfortable home; to know what a cheerful fire and plenty of food meant in one's own house! There is something so exhilarating in the thought of independence and reliance on one's own exertions, that for a whole year after our "The second winter I had continually a restless yearning for higher and nobler pursuits than the mere business of school-teaching; that supplied our natural wants and necessities admirably, it is true, but there were longings of my mind that it became as necessary for me to supply. And so once more in the long winter evenings I resumed my pencils and pen, and I worked with them. It is impossible for me to express to you the intense satisfaction following these labors; it seemed as though I had found suddenly an Aladdin's lamp, and that it dispelled the darkness and gloom of undefined yearning, and showed me a true and a great end that I could accomplish! I did not then immediately force my new productions upon the editors, but remembering well that one salutary lesson I received long ago, I strove hard to perfect myself. It would be wearisome for you to listen to the narration of my progress till I had gradually mounted up into the notice of the noble people of the west; how kindly and charitably they hailed my writings; how encouraging were the letters which, from many sources unexpected and unsought, I received, I will leave you to imagine-I felt then as though I were truly working out my destiny. Words crowded to my lips for utterance; thoughts pleaded in my brain to be heard; I longed to speak words of encouragement and strength to others-such words as from my own experience I knew full well many an overburdened soul needed. I spoke them, and I humbly hope they found acceptance and regard in many a heart. "You will ask if I then was wholly satisfied? You will ask if notoriety pleased me? If I cared for no other and humbler good after I had attained that—in short, if I did not yearn for other love than that lavished on me by my own kin. In all calmness and confidence now, I can answer, yes! there were hopes unsatisfied, desires unfulfilled. Admiration was not all I craved-commendation not all I coveted. But years passed on, and with them the time when I could have rejoiced in loving and in being loved. The wild dream that haunted my mind of a perfect happiness on earth, of another kind of affection than I had yet received or given, went by. Coldness, and I am almost constrained to think at times, heartlesshave usurped the place once occupied by the winged god; the altar which needed but a word to be enkindled and wrapped in flame, is torn away-a calm, immovable spirit occupies its place. I am not lonely or unhappy, only I feel strangely changed. I feel old in spirit; there may be no cloud, but there certainly is no sunshine; passionless now, and without the least craving for human love, my years glide on. I am satisfied in having helped to make the happiness of those for whom I have labored, and yet, true to woman's belief, I must say, I am well aware that I have missed life's highest good; I have passed by, in my eager search for a something that has not ness, satisfied, that bright possession which the poorest of earth's children, equally with the most exalted have extended to them by the hand of our benificent Father. Do you think I am strangely confiding with one whom for ten years I have not known by thought, or word, or deed? But we were children together; and I remember how that you more than all I left behind me knew the thoughts and desires of my inner life. Doubtless, since we have come to be women, we have both much changed, but at this hour I will believe you sympathize with me as in the days of old. "Not long ago there came one to me, a man gifted with noble intellectual faculties, and rich in heartwealth; he has wished me to be his wife; but knowing as I do what a very pauper I am in all that is best calculated to make his a happy home-you will understand I am not speaking of fortune or beauty now-I have declined his suit. I cannot regard him as I could have a few, but a few short years ago. I do not love him as my imagination tells me that woman can and should love. For a moment when I read his words, my heart beat wildly-I was happy; but that passed quickly; I distrust myself; I do not wish now that any one should intrust to me a charge of their happiness through life; it would be madness, and no less than foul wrong in me to wed with one whose affection I could make but such a paltry return. I give to you the answer I sent him; it is the sum total of my thoughts on this subject—and I would ask you as you read them, do you not think that there is but little to envy in one who has flung away a diamond, for a trifling but more brilliant gem? ΤΟ It is too late; once, once I could have loved thee, I had not once been deaf to thy fond pleading- Thy finger touches upon tuneless chords! There was a time when, hadst thou breathed of love, I would have coveted then, far, far above I would have gloried then to be thine own; Once, when my heart beat strong with youth and hope, I fought for honor-fame. I thought that these The boon of love-but fate my prayer withstood! Too many years have passed since that sweet dream— It cannot be thou wouldst not prize a gift Seek for a younger mind-a lighter soul; Seek one who has not been what I have been. I would not that around thy home should roll A cloud surcharged with gloominess and pain; Seek one who hath not from her childhood seen Her inmost thoughts-the best and brightest gold; Seek one who smiles-one who yet dares to dream— Who has not hardened to a crystal cold!' "And now, being quite sure that I have outwearied you, and believing that you will gladly let the remainder of your interrogatories to day pass unanswered, I will conclude, with the earnest hope that you may never be tempted to barter the sacred affections of your heart for any more alluring, but less, oh, far less satisfying prize-in the name of our childhood. "Always yours, "LILY REEVE.” Dear reader, it may be proper to state, that despite this most emphatic disclaimer on the part of Lily, a western paper I have recently received, contains a notice of the marriage of the distinguished poetess, Lily Reeve, with the Hon. Had it not been for this, one other proof of what is called the fickleness of woman's nature, you perceive I should have been enabled to end my story without a marriage; but you will bear in mind that this repetition of the almost invariable climax, is not my fault! A SONNET. BY FAYETTE ROBINSON. [SEE ENGRAVING OF MAY MORNING.] READ on, young maiden. I will gage a kiss Of some great bard, or it may be the lore Unmeasured love. Read while thou may'st enjoy, |