once or twice, but it was evident that I had no hold upon the populace. Either my notions were too fine-drawn, or my manner failed to inspire enthusiasm. The inward fervor, and its outward sign, are not always correlative. While full of feeling, so as hardly to control my voice, men thought my manner cold. The sentiments which were received as tame truisms when I uttered them, though in a voice loud enough to be clearly heard, were greeted with tremendous shouts when repeated by some Boanerges. The groundlings, as well as some others who ought to know better, demand that a passion shall be torn to tatters; and he who fails to minister to such tastes must not hope to become a popular orator.' 'You did not abandon the people's cause?'

'By no means. I resigned myself to what I supposed was my fate with a mute despair. My dreams were dispelled; but, concluding that if I could not talk, I might certainly fight, I entered the army as a private, and served four years in various capacities. That sword yonder has the names of a few engagements engraven on its battered blade. At last I received a severe flesh-wound, and retired from the service. This little hamlet caught my attention when a homeless wanderer, and any villager can tell you my brief history here.'

Greenleaf was silent and pensive, as though he had found a column with its sculptured capital prostrate in the woods. He looked down the darkening street, while the school-master sat with a tear in his eye, and his arm around his only daughter. And as the fond father looked in her lustrous eyes, beaming on him with affection, his proud yet tremulous glance seemed to say, 'Here I am repaid for the forsaken world!'

As Greenleaf walked home, he could not conceal from himself the fact, that he loved the daughter of the school-master with his whole soul. But his lips at least had never betrayed his secret to her; their intercourse had been frank and unrestrained; and he would not have wronged the trusting father by secking to win the sole object of his affection, without his free consent. The painter had counted upon raising money by the sale of his pictures (when transferred from his paste-board sketches) in New-York and London, to enable him to proceed to Rome; but, if he now yielded to the current of his present impulses, that course was plainly impossible; for he was poor, as the world rates poverty, and the school-master was far from being rich. It was the turning-point of his life. On the one hand was the goal of his ambition; on the other, the object of his love; Italy and a hope for immortality, or a quiet home and a peerless wife. While occupied with his pictures, or while reading the triumphs of the great masters of his art, his soul was consumed with the desire to follow their brilliant career; and he seemed to spurn the time and the toil that must intervene between the new world and the classic ground whither his aspirations tended. But one glimpse of Alice Lee was sufficient to overset his ambition and its auxiliary philosophy; and, in room of his dreams of fame, came the vision of a fair rustic Eden, of which she was ever the enchanting Eve.

Weeks passed, and Greenleaf was still between contending influences; but such a strife could not be long protracted; circumstances soon compelled him to act, and to decide his destiny. Mrs. Harwood, the landlady, had always scorned the character of being a gossip; 'She had no

tales to tell of her guests, not she; she had two daughters, likely gals, and she would n't like to hear them talked about.' Such common-places, with the air of mystery which some women like to affect, the significant nods, the manner which says so plainly, 'I could if I chose; I know more than I care to tell:' all these were sufficient for a circle whose smallest actions were under a vigilant mutual inspection. The stranger's visits to the house of Mr. Lee were, as a matter of course, well known; and the mysterious airs of the landlady furnished a foundation for various edifying rumors. This idle gossip soon reached the painter through Zebulon, the landlord. His determination was speedily formed; he would go at once. Other motives coïncided; for summer was now nearly spent, and there would not be more than time enough to prepare for the voyage; a matter of far greater consequence half a century ago, dear reader, than a trip in one of Collins's steam-ships at this day.

Wishing to give a few more touches to his sketch of the village, Greenleaf walked up the hill one afternoon, and approached his accustomed resting-place. But he was not alone. Alice had preceded him only by an hour, and was seated under an oak near by, reading. Their surprise was mutual as he approached. After a few words of conversation, he sat down to his task. Alice was seated a few feet behind him, upon the trunk of a fallen tree, so that she could look over his shoulder; and if he failed in making a correct transcript of the scene, it must be attributed to his bounding pulse and tense nerves, rather than to any want of appreciation of the landscape. A hundred times a torrent of words was ready to escape from his lips; but he heroically resolved to conquer himself; and he continued to talk, as calmly, to outward appearance, as usual, although his whole soul was rent by the strife within. The sketch was finished; still he remained rooted to the spot; and, though hourly and momently dooming himself to exile, a joyous thrill ran through every fibre as the music of her voice fell upon his ear. An eagle flew from a tree near by, and rose with a majestic sweep to the clear blue fields of the upper air. At the rushing sound of the broad wings, Alice rose and pointed to the receding form.

'Look, how he rises! Like the strong will of a great Soul soaring above difficulties, or like a genius to his native skies!'

These words would have inspired the unhappy painter with fresh courage, if they had been spoken by lips less fair; the hand, too, and extended arm, which pointed to the eagle, were so exquisitely moulded, that the painter could not control his secret admiration. Catching her hand, that he might look upon its faultless proportions, he asked her, for a feint, if she had faith in palmistry? A laughing negative was the reply, and a whole row of pearls was displayed before the wavering questioner, now fast-losing his courage. After finishing his examination, he ran through the usual predictions of fortune-tellers, and, raising the hand to his lips, 'The witch's usual fee, Alice,' he said with a smile, while his heart seemed to rise in his throat. His resolution faltered: Italy was far, and fame was often but a delusive phantom; and here was the woman created and destined for him. Should he resign such a prize, or even a hope of winning it, for a mere dream? A moment more, and the painter had been lost. But he repressed his emotion with a mighty

effort, and looked up to the skies for a moment of self-possession. The tide of passion subsided, and the full, strong current of his native energy rushed in. He lost not a moment, but arranged his port-folio, and descended the hill in advance of his companion.

Not daring to trust himself to another interview with Alice, Greenleaf thought it best to call at once and take leave of her father, before her return. The painter's hopes and desires were not unknown to Mr. Lee, but the latter was not aware that his young friend's departure was to be so speedy. In a few words, Greenleaf thanked him for his kindness, and spoke of the possibility of a future meeting with hope. The fervor of his manner was not lost upon Mr. Lee; but, if the father divined the secret cause, he kept his own counsel.

By the mail, whose weekly trip occurred the next day, George Greenleaf left Innisfield, with totally new aims, and with brighter hopes, but yet with memories whose mingled delight and sorrow only he could know. The necessary preparations were soon made, and he set sail for Italy, intending to be absent five years. With high hopes he set forth; the world was all before him: the consciousness of undeveloped powers stimulated him; and of the many glorious visions of the future, surely, all could not prove delusive.

But his thoughts were by no means so buoyant, when adding five years to the age of Alice Lee. What events, natural and probable in themselves, but terrible and unnamable to him, might not occur from sixteen to twenty-one, the period of woman's freshest and most captivating charms? What rustic beaux might not sue for the hand which his lips once pressed; the hand now perhaps lost to him for ever! He could not pursue the thought farther; even at its first view, his spirits sank like the barometer before the storm. But the vessel heaved steadily on, and the intensity of the painter's feelings soon wore off. And whether, like most men, he gradually lost the memory of the beautiful maiden, the first sincere object of his love, so that her face became to him like a cloudy, indistinct daguerreotype, laid by in some forgotten crypt; or whether he ever after cherished her image, as the lake 'bears on its breast the pictured moon, pearled round with stars,' and trusted to his pure and loyal faith to preserve the power in his art which it had brought him-let the future say: if, perchance, I, or some other, shall trace his farther progress in life.

But unless some romancer, dear reader, shall enlighten you on this point, I fear greatly it will remain unwritten. History is not for such matters; it is occupied more profitably in detailing murders at wholesale. And though the wise man long ago said that he who ruleth his own spirit is greater than he that taketh a city;' yet while successful besiegers, from Demetrius Poliorcetes down, have been honored with the historian's attention and the world's applause, the many heroes, victorious over themselves, are passed by unnoticed.

Was Alice's heart meanwhile untouched? I dare not, as a veracious chronicler of our little village, undertake to assert that it was not. Still, if her bosom had throbbed with new and delightful emotions, she hardly knew why; and her maidenly peace, though at first disturbed by the sudden departure of her friend, soon recovered its wonted placidity.

The old gentleman continued in the same even course: he was quiet and happy, for gossip had nothing whereon to feed; and, that annoyance ended, the world had not a sorrow for him. Every evening, after his labors in the school, or on his little farm, he sat under the patriarchal elm, or by the blazing fire in his library, and his bright-eyed daughter was never away from his side.

ALL things are changing, even thou!
I fondly hoped we might elude
The pang that we are suffering now
In this our last vicissitude,

And glide apart on Life's broad sea,
Like ships at night-unconsciously.

I knew that, woman as thou art,

A tide which thou couldst ne'er control
Must rise upon thy maiden heart,

And sweep my image from thy soul:
As well return to ocean's strand,
To seek one's foot-prints in the sand.

Mine was a passionate good-will:
And, ever waking in my breast,
I felt a yearning and a thrill,

Which mournfully I hushed to rest;
For the frank interest in thine eyes,
True to itself, ne'er sought disguise.

When I was sad with any care,

With any grief, and came to thee,
Thou wouldst so sorrowfully share

The burden which was laid on me,
That I forgot all other pain,
To soothe and make thee glad again.

And when I strove to tell thee aught
Beyond the reach of words, thy face
Became a picture of my thought,

And gave the shadow life and grace:
Until its beauty seemed to be,
That it was listened to by thee.

With an increasing tenderness,

E'en now thy spirit seems to grieve,

And vainly struggle to confess

The change itself can scarce believe:

Still seeking, by some gentle art,
To teach my soul that we must part.

Thus, while a warmth from earlier days,
Whose brightness we should else forget,
Is lingering, with the golden haze

Of Indian Summer, round us yet:
Our paths divide, and leave the scene
We trod together, ever green!

M. W.