do we see that seems to require only a touch to inspire it with a soul."

"It is very true," replied Howard. Republican society is becoming as artificial and aristocratic as European. There is little of nature among us at present. Our habits, our manners, and our pursuits, all appear to be guided by conventional rules."

"What is to be done to remedy the evil?" asked Inez, raising her bright eyes to his, while an arch smile passed over her countenance.

"Indeed, I know not," replied Howard. "Folly seldom listen's to reason's voice, and it is better to take the world as it is, than attempt its reformation."

"And sip the honey, while we taste freely of the bitters. I will set you the example," and accepting an invitation to join in a quadrille just forming, Inez vanished, while Colonel Stanbrook returning, took the vacant seat by the side of his niece. Howard gazed after the graceful figure of Inez, till it was lost in the crowd. "What a strange, wayward being!" thought he, and then remarked aloud,

"Your friend, Miss Laura, seems to enjoy the amusements of the evening; how happy she appears."

"Her nature was formed for happiness, but she has not always found it," said Colonel Stanbrook; and then changing the subject, he pointed to a group of gentlemen who stood near: "Look at that trio, Mr. Howard," said he, "one would think they were settling the affairs of the nation, so eager and animated are their gestures."

"If their discussions would result in any good" said Howard, "I should hope they would continue, for our country seems to have reached a solstice which requires an experienced hand to snatch it from ruin."

"Yes, hand and head too,” replied the Colonel. "That is any head but a blockhead, for some of our speakers have been left upon their legs, harranguing to an empty house, our wise councillors becoming fatigued with the two hours speech, without an original idea in the whole." "And a ball room” said Howard "is about as proper a place for political discussion as the London Opera house, where cabinet secrets are so often divulged without reflecting upon who may be the listeners. This talking and fighting for office, seems to me derogatory to the dignity of any man of sense. How often does it create animosity among friends-ruin the happiness of families, and too often result in the ruin of the constituents themselves."

"And how greatly they mistake the matter, Laura. Vanity is woman's master passion. Fashion has usurped a fearful dominion over nature, and the fair puppets will never listen to reason while their will is against it. Women are changeful and capricious. There are no two alike in manners, disposition or dress. Go into a church, or any other public place, and you will find the men nearly all alike in their apparel, while the women display all the colors of the rainbow. A woman seems to study every change and variety, as the whim seizes her."

"What a scandalous libel on our sex, uncle!" "Ah, Cornelia, I should have spared it, had I known you were within hearing, as I have given you sufficient lectures on the subject already."

"Then the present was for the benefit of Laura, or Mr. Howard, I suppose. But I am tired to death. I sometimes wish it were in our power to annihilate those who annoy us, I would cut dead some dozen of my acquaintance."

"Tut, tut, girl, what's the matter now ?" "Why there's those Seymours, from New York-mere nobodies, yet putting on such airs! it is really ridiculous! Then there's the L- -s whose father was a shoemaker, or some such thing-flourishing in their carriages, and pushing themselves where they've no businessand the Ss who cheat every body, and whose brother married a carpenter's daughter. Then the Mellons, who set up for blues, and are always boasting of their acquaintance with the talented and beautiful Mrs. somebody, and Miss nobody the great, and showing the poetry written to them by Mrs. S——, and the autograph of Mr. J——, and talking like Miss Edgeworth's heroines; and there's the Lindsays

"

Stop there, Cornelia. Mr. Lindsay is a friend of mine, and although his wife and daughters sometimes expose themselves to rude remarks, you are not the person to make them. Here we see the evils of public entertainments. How much envy and jealousy are excited, how

many bad feelings are engendered, particularly in the minds of the young, by visiting such places as this."

Cornelia tossed her head."In pity uncle, spare us an enumeration of the curses entailed upon pleasure seekers. I came here to enjoy myself, and will do penance for my faults tomorrow, by listening to a long chapter of reproofs or still worse-a whole canto of poetry, from your pet, Inez. Apropos she has charmed that handsome foreigner from my side this evening. I wish you would keep her here among you, and not let her interfere with my conquests! And here she comes, to be surewith the coolest indifference toward her partner and every one else! Leaning on his arm too, so familiar. What affectation! I detest coquetry."

"Cornelia, I am surprised at you," said Laura. "You know that Inez has not a spark of coquetry in her disposition. She is as free from that, as from every other fault ;" and the fair cheek of the young girl, became crimson in defence of her friend.

“Oh, she's a paragon," said Cornelia, with a toss of her head; and with this remark, she whirled off in a new waltz with a new admirer, and the music pealed forth a livelier strain.

A learned writer remarks that "we should not judge of character by small peculiarities.” Howard thought otherwise. A few short hours had brought him in contact with three individuals, of whose character he imagined he had already formed a correct opinion. Unlike in every particular, both in beauty, mind, and manners, yet each possessing charms which individually attracted the admiration of society.

Ere midnight, the gay hall was deserted; the lamps had burned dim-roses faded from the cheeks of the belles, and the beaux were fatigued with their arduous duties of paying attention to their fair ones; the flowers drooped their heads in sympathy with the heavy lids of their wearers; silence reigned where music had triumphed, and tired limbs longed for repose.

Thus closed an evening at the Springs.

[To be continued.]

Her tears were dried, her arm was raised,

The dagger gleamed on high;

Into her husband's face she gazed,
He was afraid to die!

She paused, how many feelings rushed

Fast through her throbbing brain, Until once more the bright tears gushed Over her cheek like rain.

'Twas but a moment! one last sigh
That life's sweet dream was o'er;
She was again the Roman wife,
The heroine once more.

His spirit 'mid the battle's roar,

Sustained its bearing high;

But now it feared the approaching hour
Of mortal agony.

While she-oh woman! who that views
Thy frail and tender form;
Would deem that it so well could bear
The terrors of the storm!
She knelt before him-fervent love
Beamed in her kindling eye;

No selfish thoughts of earth now dimmed
Its star-like purity.

She knew that life, when they should part,

Would be but harrowing pain;
That nought could heal the broken heart
Or bind the severed chain.

One trial yet remained to show
That not to man alone,
Though conqueror of a thousand fields,
Is strength and courage known.

It had been hers, in happier hours,
The victor's brow to wreathe;
And in misfortune's trying power,
Those soothing accents breathe,
Which chase all sadness from the brow,
All anguish from the heart;
And now the summons had gone forth
That they were doomed to part.

Once more, to prove affection's light
Not even death could dim;
She plunged the dagger in that heart,
Which only beat for him!

A smile of fond unchanging love
Lit up her glazing eye!

And her last words were "Paætus, 800,
It is not hard to die!"

The sun rose up, and cheerily
Before the piping blast,

The stout ship rode from southern seas
So gaily, and so fast,

That every mariner, in prayer,
Blessed the blue ocean, and the sky,
And God's all-favoring air.

Many were left on the lessening shore,
Many from off the strand,
Weeping-the loving and loved-gazed out
Waving the tell-tale hand;

Mothers, and sires, and brothers were there,
And sisters, a blessed name to all-
Watching the ship so fair.

Smaller and smaller, a single speck

Dots the horizon's rim,

And the ship and the mariners all are gone,
And many an eye grows dim ;
"Never," they say-as they weep in vain,
The crowd on the distant shore and strand-
"May the ship come back again."

The ship glides on with her mariners,
Never a dream have they

Of danger, though tempests hurtle 'round,
But merrily up alway,

They watch the clouds for a fresher gale,

And shout when the storm-king's trumpet breath Beats on the bellying sail.

Gallant and brave those mariners,

Tried on the Nor❜land wave

Never a heart of one grew faint,

Whether the storm might rave-
Or the sea shook out its flag of foam-
Or smote in wrath on its thunder drum-
Or turned a thought to home.

Save 'twere to bless the loving and loved

And the stout ship rode on,

Till the warm southern seas were passed,
And the warm winds were gone ;
Still she rode on, a gallant sight,
Cleaving the milk-white foam in twain,
Leaving a track of light.

A gallant sight-a thousand leagues
Behind her lay untrod

By other keel, or by other souls,

And the sky seemed, and God

Nearer each day, as those Nor❜land seas
She coursed, like a steed that is fitly reined,
And laughed at the icy breeze.

But wo betide-the gallantest steed
That ever answered rein,
And gallantest knight that ever piled

His foes in a heap of slain,
Must sometimes yield to the serried foe,
Must yield to the myriad bristling spears,
Yield to the conquerer's blow!

Thus fated-the ship and her mariners,
Riding so gay and fast,
Were driven so swift on the Nor❜land seas,
Spurred by the piping blast-
That sudden they came to an icy land,
It seemed an icy, mountainous clime,
Mountains-but never a strand.

An icy land-'twas a marvellous land,
Seen at the ruddy dawn-

As the mariners, dreaming beautiful dreams,
Woke, and their dreams were gone!
A marvellous land, with its mountains bright,
Tipping, it seemed, their glistening spears
With more than starry light.

But beauty flies when danger is nigh,
As frost when the sun comes down-
And every gleam of the icy spears
Grew to a terrible frown;

For the ship sped on-as it knew no fear,
And the mariners shook with horrible dread
Of doom so awfully near.

Yet swifter it seemed, as the mountains rose
Fairer in size and sight-

The ship swept on, like a riderless steed,
Mocking the helmsman's fright;
Swifter she rode, like a bolt she sped
Her way through the icy crags piled 'round
Hiding all but the sky o'erhead!

Still stout was the ship, and stouter in heart
The mariners on her deck:

But never a ship, nor mariners bold,
E'er met so terrible wreck ;
Gladly each soul would have yielded its breath
On the open sea-but 'twas awful to think
Of dying a piecemeal death.

For never, they felt, could the icy chain
Which girt them round and round,
Be cleft again, but for life and death

They were fast and firmly bound;
They saw the white moon when midnight came,
And the pointed stars,-and the sun at noon,
Glared down with an eye of flame!

To be roused out of a middle nap when there's no occasion for it, is at any time a ceremony to growl at, if one happens to be a growler; but to be so disturbed at midnight in the middle of a wood swamp, in North Carolina, as I was in August last, with the musquitoes as thick as snow-flakes during a Vermont nor'-easter, and the fever-and-ague so dense in the atmosphere that you could cut it with a knife, is enough to tap the gall of a saint, if saints have any gall, and let out his bitterness. But as I am neither a growler nor a saint, it seemed most wise for me to tumble into the other tack and take a pull at the sweet end of our stick of ill-luck, if so be, I could find it.

Our party consisted of about three hundred, men, women and children, bound southward in a train of railroad-cars. Our next stopping place was to have been the town of Welden, N. C., where we were assured that we should arrive at about midnight, and find ample and comfortable lodgings; but as I stated before, we were roused from our middle naps by the stoppage of the train in a wood swamp. Avoiding the sleepy inquiries of the ladies, as they lifted their disjointed curls and ringlets from the laps of their husbands, where they had coiled them down for a doze, and had been comfortably (?) snoozing away the hours of night-travel, I caught the arm of a companion, and having shaken him up like a bottle of

physic, to make him lively, dragged him forth upon the platform for an observation. The boiler of the locomotive was pouring out its remnant of steam with a lazy sort of expression, that went half groaning, half hissing through the wood, and seemed to say "I'm laid up for the night." Here and there pineknot flambeaux gleamed cloudily among the trees and about the cars, borne by negroes, and as they sent their smoky glare through the dense atmosphere and darkness, gave one an idea of the place that Don Juan is supposed to have inhabited, after his life of stolen sweets on earth.

66

Conductor, what's the matter?" This was the fiftieth time the poor devil had been bored with the same question, varied and diversified with an interjection, an expletive, or an oath, according to humor of the inquisitor, and as many times had he given in his peculiarly philosophical way, the same answer, thus-"The storm has carried away the bridge between here and Welden, and undermined a quarter of a mile of the track, so that it is impossible to proceed. In the morning we will have stages to carry you to town." At the least calculation, a ton weight of curiosity was removed from the breast of each individual who listened to this calm reply; but if one might judge from the guttural rumbling that followed, an equal amount of very unsaintly gall took the place of fugitive curiosity. One of two things remained to be done; either to stay in the cars and be sucked to death by musquitoes, or take shelter under the cloud of a flambeau, and look out for an adventure-small chance for the latter as it seemed-but there's no harm in trying. My companion is something of a rover like myself, when he's awake, and it was agreed that we should employ one of the sable cicerones and see where he would lead us. Accordingly, a six foot, woolly-header was hailed

"Ebony!"

"Here, massa," answered the gigantic stick of sealing wax, as he sprang towards the platform.

"Is there a public house near here, Ebony?" "Yes, massa, two, close down here, cross de swamp. Go dere, massa ?"

"Can you show us the way? ?"

"Oh yes, massa, I knows him like a book." "Lead on then." We set out in an atmosphere of pitch and ague, and dove into the forest.

"Ebony!"

"Massa?"

"How do you manage to get so many blood sucking musquitoes here?"

"Oh we raises 'em, massa, we do,-yah. yah," and the old darkey uttered a chuckling laugh, which denoted an under current of fun. There was evidently something just below the skin of his teeth that was itching to get out-so we gave it a chance.

"What do you raise them for, Ebony?"

The old fellow's shoulders fairly shook with glee,-yah, yah, yah, resounded through the still gloom, as he answered in broken passages"Yes, massa, we raises 'em, yah, yah; we raises 'em for keep away de bobalishioners— yah, yah, yah!"

you

"For what! Bobalishioners! What do mean?" My friend, more quick of apprehension than I, suggested that he meant the abolitionists.

Yes, massa, dats it, de bobalishionists don't like skeeters, no how dare skins aint tick nuff, yah, yah, yah!”

"And you don't seem to like the abolitionists any better than they like the musquitoes." Here our guide put on a sober face, and looking over his shoulder, in a tone that showed that he was afraid he might have gone too far, enquired-" Massa bobalishioner ?"

"Oh no, Ebony, never fear, we are no abolitionists."

"Taut so-Cuffe 'taut so-massa look like gemman all de time."

By this time the light of a blazing fire was visible through the trees, at a distance of a few hundred yards, towards which our guide led the way.

"What light is that, Ebony?" "Public house dare, massa."

“Good, we shall be there directly."

And we were there directly-emerging from the wood upon an open place, we found ourselves upon a road near the river's bank, and, as we afterwards learned, at the spot where one end of the railroad bridge ought to have rested, and did rest before the recent flood carried it away. In the middle of the road a pile of pine logs were blazing away, sending a bright glow along the surface of the ground and a dense column of black smoke upward into the welkin darkness. Wrapped in a coarse blanket, the person of one of our fellow passengers, who had got the start of us in search of the "public house," was lying quietly by the side of the burning logs, having taken shelter there from the swarms of tormenting insects--on