do we see that seems to require only a touch to “How diverting it is” said Colonel Stanbrook. inspire it with a soul."

“to watch the variety of character in a crowd"It is very true," replied Howard. “Oured ball-room. Look at that lady; in reality a Republican society is becoming as artificial and good figure—but so overloaded with ornaments, aristocratic as European. There is little of and so ill dressed, that it cannot appear to adnature among us at present. Our habits, our vantage. Why will the fair sex delight in manners, and our pursuits, all appear to be making themselves moving automatons ?-« guided by conventional rules.”

“Why uncle,” said Laura, " they have no “What is to be done to remedy the evil ?? idea but that they are looking beautiful.” asked Inez, raising her bright eyes to his, while “And how greatly they mistake the matter, an arch smile passed over her countenance. Laura. Vanity is woman's master passion.

"Indeed, I know not," replied Howard. Fashion has usurped a fearful dominion over " Folly seldom listen's to reason's voice, and it nature, and the fair puppets will never listen to is better to take the world as it is, than at reason while their will is against it. Women tempt its reformation."

are changeful and capricious. There are no “And sip the honey, while we taste freely of two alike in manners, disposition or dress. Go the bitters. I will set you the example,” and into a church, or any other public place, and accepting an invitation to join in a quadrille you will find the men nearly all alike in their just forming, Inez vanished, while Colonel Stan- apparel, while the women display all the colors brook returning, took the vacant seat by the of the rainbow. A woman seems to study side of his niece. Howard gazed after the every change and variety, as the whim seizes graceful figure of Inez, till it was lost in the her." crowd. “What a strange, wayward being!" | “What a scandalous libel on our sex, uncle !" thought he, and then remarked aloud,

"Ah, Cornelia, I should have spared it, had “ Your friend, Miss Laura, seems to enjoy I known you were within hearing, as I have the amusements of the evening; how happy given you sufficient lectures on the subject she appears."

already." “Her nature was formed for happiness, but “Then the present was for the benefit of she has not always found it,” said Colonel Laura, or Mr. Howard, I suppose. But I am Stanbrook; and then changing the subject, he tired to death. I sometimes wish it were in pointed to a group of gentlemen who stood our power to annihilate those who annoy us, I near: “Look at that trio, Mr. Howard,” said | would cut dead some dozen of my acquainthe, "one would think they were settling the ance." affairs of the nation, so eager and animated “Tut, tut, girl, what's the matter now ?» are their gestures."

"Why there's those Seymours, from New "If their discussions would result in any York-mere nobodies, yet putting on such good" said Howard, “I should hope they would airs! it is really ridiculous! Then there's the continue, for our country seems to have reach- L- s whose father was a shoemaker, or some ed a solstice which requires an experienced such thing-flourishing in their carriages, and hand to snatch it from ruin.”.

pushing themselves where they've no business“Yes, hand and head too,” replied the Colonel. and the S— who cheat every body, and “ That is any head but a blockhead, for some whose brother married a carpenter's daughter. of our speakers have been left upon their legs, Then the Mellons, who set up for blues, and are harranguing to an empty house, our wise coun- always boasting of their acquaintance with the cillors becoming fatigued with the two hours talented and beautiful Mrs. somebody, and speech, without an original idea in the whole." Miss nobody the great, and showing the poetry

"And a ball room” said Howard " is about as written to them by Mrs. S , and the autoproper a place for political discussion as the graph of Mr. J- and talking like Miss London Opera house, where cabinet secrets are Edgeworth's heroines; and there's the Lindso often divulged without reflecting upon who says— " may be the listeners. This talking and fight-! «Stop there, Cornelia. Mr. Lindsay is a ing for office, seems to me derogatory to the friend of mine, and although his wife and daughdignity of any man of sense. How often does ters sometimes expose themselves to rude reit create animosity among friends—ruin the marks, you are not the person to make them. happiness of families, and too often result in Here we see the evils of public entertainments. the ruin of the constituents themselves." | How much envy and jealousy are excited, how

many bad feelings are engendered, particularly “Oh, she 's a paragon,” said Cornelia, with in the minds of the young, by visiting such a toss of her head; and with this remark, she places as this.”

whirled off in a new waltz with a new admirer, Cornelia tossed her head.-"In pity uncle, and the music pealed forth a livelier strain. spare us an enumeration of the curses entailed A learned writer remarks that “we should upon pleasure seekers. I came here to enjoy not judge of character by small peculiarities." myself, and will do penance for my faults to- Howard thought otherwise. A few short hours morrow, by listening to a long chapter of re- had brought him in contact with three indiproofs or still worsea whole canto of poetry, viduals, of whose character he imagined he from your pet, Inez. A propos she has charmed had already formed a correct opinion. Unlike that handsome foreigner from my side this in every particular, both in beauty, mind, and evening. I wish you would keep her here manners, yet each possessing charms which inamong you, and not let her interfere with my | dividually attracted the admiration of society. conquests! And here she comes, to be sure ! Ere midnight, the gay hall was deserted; with the coolest indifference toward her part- the lamps had burned dim—roses faded from ner and every one else! Leaning on his arm the cheeks of the belles, and the beaux were too, so familiar. What affectation! I detest fatigued with their arduous duties of paying coquetry.”

attention to their fair ones; the flowers drooped “Cornelia, I am surprised at you,” said their heads in sympathy with the heavy lids of Laura. “You know that Inez has not a spark their wearers; silence reigned where music of coquetry in her disposition. She is as free had triumphed, and tired limbs longed for refrom that, as from every other fault;" and the pose. fair cheek of the young girl, became crimson Thus closed an evening at the Springs. in defence of her friend.

[To be continued.)

WOMAN'S FORTITUDE.

BY MRS. ANNA L. SNELLING.

ARIA, a Roman lady, was the wife of Cæan Pætus, whose fortitude and conjugal affection have immortalized her name. Several acts of noble firmness were crowned by that which terminated her existence. Her husband, having rebelled against Claudius, was ordered to destroy himself. Seeing him hesitate, Aria plunged the poniard into her own breast, to give him tho courage, and then presented it to him, saying, at the same time,“ Pætus, it is not painful.”

Hor 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.

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 nisfortune'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.

'Twas but a moment ! one last sigh

That life's sweet dream was o'er;
She was again the Roman wifo,

The heroine once more.
His spirit 'inid 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 storin!
She knelt before him-fervent lovo

Beamed in her kindling eye;
No selfish thoughts of earth now dimmed

Its star-like purity.

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 “ Pætus, 800,

It is not hard to die!"

THE BELEAGUERED SHIP.

BY C. D. STUART.

“IN 1774, an apparently deserted ship was met in the Polar Sea, encumbered with snow and ice. On boarding her. a solitary man was found in the cabin, his fingers holding a pen, while before him laid the record which he had traced twelve years before. No appearance of decay was visible, except a little green mould upon his forehead."

Three thousand leagues away there was glee,
By the hearths where dear ones clustered round,
For them, but the frozen sea!

O, beautiful, then, did the blue sky seem,

As never from land it seemed;
They watched the sky through the weary day,

Of the sky in the night they dreamed;
The sky was their world, save memory flew
Back to the port, and the dear home-strand,
Back to the loved and true.

And their madness grew to a frenzy wild,

And the weakest, stricken first,
Made a terrible meal--and their frothing blood

A draught for terrible thirst;
And so of the living the living ate,
And eating the living the living died,
A pitiful, terrible fate.

'Twas calmest of weather! the stout ship lay

Motionless-never a breeze
Swept over the mountains' glistening spears,

Fresh from the Nor’land seas;
No gossamer's wing would have ruffled there,
'Twas still as the grave that is tenantless,
Or the heart that's thinking prayer.
'Twas an awful calm-and the mystic light

That glows on the ioy sea,
Fell as a beacon to some fair world

Lost in immensity;
A world, had they wings, they might fly and find,
And so, had they wings, they had flown and found
The world they had left behind.
'Twas an awful calm and when hope was spent,

Ere many months had gone,
Their food all eaten, their water all drank,

How skeleton-like, and wan
Those mariners, once so stout and bold,
Could read in each other's faces a tale
Which made the heart's blood run cold.

No fragment was wasted-each drop of blood

Was dearer than wealth untold,
Nor ever was feast of a king so rich,

Costing a realm of gold;
And one was still left to die alone,
No starveling should quaff of his coursing blood,
Nor gnaw at his fleshless bone.

And he, when he saw that his sand was up,

With pen in skeleton hand-
Sat down to write of the stout ship's fate,

And her hapless mariner band;
But the sky grew dark, and the light was gone,
And he wrote not a word nor line,
But died e'er a word was done!

They had thought of homo-had wept and prayed,

Despair was come at last,
And hunger's madness, and terror, and pain,

And they stared at their doom agbast;

And there ho sat, until years had passed,

When the ice-girt ship was found,
And still he was grasping his pen, and seemed

Buried in thought profound;
To wake him they strove, but they strovo in vain,
Death's fearful stamp, on his pale high brow,
Was mould of a dark green stain.

A NIGHT IN THE WOODS AT WELDEN.

BY BALTIMORE.

To be roused out of a middle nap when Our party consisted of about three hundred, there's no occasion for it, is at any time a men, women and children, bound southward in ceremony to growl at, if one happens to be a a train of railroad-cars. Our next stopping growler ; but to be so disturbed at midnight place was to have been the town of Welden, in the middle of a wood swamp, in North Caro- N. C., where we were assured that we should lina, as I was in August last, with the mus- arrive at about midnight, and find ample and quitoes as thick as snow-flakes during a Ver-comfortable lodgings; but as I stated before, mont nor-easter, and the fever-and-ague so we were roused from our middle naps by the dense in the atmosphere that you could cut it stoppage of the train in a wood swamp. Avoidwith a knife, is enough to tap the gall of a ing the sleepy inquiries of the ladies, as they saint, if saints have any gall, and let out his lifted their disjointed curls and ringlets from bitterness. But as I am neither a growler nor the laps of their husbands, where they had a saint, it seemed most wise for me to tumble coiled them down for a doze, and had been into the other tack and take a pull at the sweet comfortably (?) snoozing away the hours of end of our stick of ill-luck, if so be, I could night-travel, I caught the arm of a companion, find it.

I and having shaken him up like a bottle of VOL. I.

physic, to make him lively, dragged him forth “Massa ?" upon the platform for an observation. The “How do you manage to get so many blood boiler of the locomotive was pouring out its sucking musquitoes here ? remnant of steam with a lazy sort of expres- "Oh we raises 'em, massa, we do,-yah, yah," sion, that went half groaning, half hissing -and the old darkey uttered a chuckling laugh, through the wood, and seemed to say "I'm which denoted an under current of fun. There laid up for the night.” Here and there pine- was evidently something just below the skin of knot flambeaux gleamed cloudily among the his teeth that was itching to get out--so we trees and about the cars, borne by negroes, and gave it a chance. as they sent their smoky glare through the “What do you raise them for, Ebony ?" dense atmosphere and darkness, gave one and The old fellow's shoulders fairly shook with idea of the place that Don Juan is supposed to glee,--yah, yah, yah, resounded through the have inhabited, after his life of stolen sweets still gloom, as he answered in broken passages-on earth.

" Yes, massa, we raises 'em, yah, yah; we "Conductor, what's the matter ? This was raises 'em for-keep away de bobalishionersthe fiftieth time the poor devil had been bored yah, yah, yah!" with the same question, varied and diversified “For what! Bobalishioners! What do you with an interjection, an expletive, or an oath, | mean ?" according to humor of the inquisitor, and as My friend, more quick of apprehension than many times had he given in his peculiarly phi- I, suggested that he meant the abolitionists. losophical way, the same answer, thus—“The “Yes, massa, dats it, de bobalishionists don't storm has carried away the bridge between like skeeters, no how-dare skins aint tick here and Welden, and undermined a quarter nuff, yah, yah, yah!" of a mile of the track, so that it is impossible " And you don't seem to like the abolitionto proceed. In the morning we will have ists any better than they like the musquitoes." stages to carry you to town.” At the least Here our guide put on a sober face, and calculation, a ton weight of curiosity was re- looking over his shoulder, in a tone that moved from the breast of each individual who showed that he was afraid he might have gone listened to this calm reply; but if one might too far, enquired—“Massa bobalishioner ?": judge from the guttural rumbling that fol. "Oh no, Ebony, never fear, we are no abolilowed, an equal amount of very unsaintly gall tionists." took the place of fugitive curiosity. One of two “'Taut so—Cuffe 'taut so-massa look like things remained to be done ; either to stay in gemman all de time.” the cars and be sucked to death by musquitoes, ! By this time the light of a blazing fire was or take shelter under the cloud of a flambeau, visible through the trees, at a distance of a few and look out for an adventure-small chance hundred yards, towards which our guide led for the latter as it seemed—but there's no | the way. harm in trying. My companion is something “What light is that, Ebony ?! of a rover like myself, when he's awake, and “Public house dare, massa." it was agreed that we should employ one of "Good, we shall be there directly." the sable cicerones and see where he would lead And we were there directly-emerging from us. Accordingly, a six foot, woolly-header was the wood upon an open place, we found ourhailed

selves upon a road near the river's bank, and, “Ebony!"

as we afterwards learned, at the spot where “Here, massa,” answered the gigantic stick one end of the railroad bridge ought to have of sealing wax, as he sprang towards the plat rested, and did rest before the recent flood carform.

ried it away. In the middle of the road a pile "Is there a public house near here, Ebony?" of pine logs were blazing away, sending a bright

“Yes, massa, two, close down here, cross de glow along the surface of the ground and a swamp. Go dere, massa ?”

dense column of black smoke upward into the "Can you show us the way ?!!

welkin darkness. Wrapped in a coarse blan"Oh yes, massa, I knows him like a book." ket, the person of one of our fellow passengers,

“ Lead on then.” We set out in an atmos- who had got the start of us in search of the phere of pitch and ague, and dove into the public house,” was lying quietly by the side forest.

of the burning logs, having taken shelter there "Ebony!"

from the swarms of tormenting insects---on