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ance.' I asked this with a due reverence in

my manner.

She answered with a patronizing, sentimental smile. "The truth is, my dear, men enjoy the chains that are hidden by the flowers that love twines around them."

"You think, then," I said, "that when men call themselves the slaves of the fair sex, it is no figure of speech, but sober reality.”

"Men," she said, "have a right to govern by the law of the land; and in all externals are, and should be, masters; they are the visible, the acknowledged head."

"Woman, then," I said, "if she is only cunning, is the real, man the apparent, head of the family."

"No, no," said Mrs. Lovell; "I am afraid, my dear, you are a little heretical upon this subject. But Mr. Lovell and I early came to an understanding with regard to these matters; and I think that I owe the unparalleled felicity of my married life to adhering strictly to these principles."

I asked a lady the other day, who knew them intimately, whether they seemed happy together. "O, yes," she answered; "you never hear a debate, not even a discussion, between them. He is almost always in his study, and she always

in the drawing-room. They treat each other with the most profound respect, and each goes on in his own course, as freely as if the other was not in being."

It is a shame, at this moment, dear Amy, when your mind is occupied so entirely with other things, to send you a letter filled with such nonsense. I wish you could see my beautiful little Willy. I have no right to any thing so angelic. O, why was I ever obliged to leave you? Bless you! Heaven bless you! Still remember and love your old playmate. Come what will, let me still be your dear FANNY.

A few weeks after her return, Amy wrote to her cousin :

Dear Fanny,

O, if I could only talk with you, instead of writing, I have so much that I want to say to you! and when one heart's is so full, words are so inadequate ! "Begin," you will say, "and tell on, just as the children do; " and so I will.

I told you, in my last, that we were to be married at church; and so we were. My friend, Miss Treville, who was present, says there were not many people there. I thought, beforehand,

that it would be very disagreeable to me to have any but my most intimate friends present; but I had no idea of the absorbing nature of the emotions I should experience. I was perfectly unconscious of the presence of any human being except my husband. The church might have

been full, and I should not have known it. A deep, unutterable, religious calmness took possession of my soul. It was the most holy, the most perfectly blissful moment of my whole life. I saw nothing. I heard the prayer as not hearing it. There was a more perfect prayer rising silently and unbidden from my own heart. A strange, unearthly influence seemed to be upon me, when I felt the pressure of Edward's hand, and realized that we were one, for time and for eternity. The first thing that brought me to this world again was the audible sobs of friend Ruth, who was quite near me, and the consciousness that Edward was leading me out of the church to the carriage. Before I stepped in, I gave the dear soul my hand, which she squeezed in such a way as to put it beyond all doubt, that I was yet in the body, and still subject to its infirmities. I could hardly help wringing my hand with pain, as soon as I was in the carriage.

If

you

had been with me, you would have highly enjoyed a scene that took place between

Ruth and Jerry, the day before we were married, I was in the kitchen, trying to persuade Ruth that a colored crape gown, which Edward had brought for her from Canton, would do for her to wear at my wedding.

"They say, ma'am, that it is a bad sign, to go to a wedding in any thing but white; and though this gown I'm fixing up is rather short, yet, at meeting, nobody will see my feet; and I shall feel better in it, I know."

But, Ruth," I said, "I did not think you were so superstitious."

"And I am sure, Miss Amy, I am not superstitious; but there are some signs that always do come true. Now, when scissors stick into the floor when they fall, I always expect a stranger; and I never saw any good come of singing before breakfast, or going to a wedding in a dark gown; and as for a bride to dress in colors, I think it would be nothing more nor less than a tempting of Providence."

Just then, Jerry entered.

"Did not I tell you?" said Ruth.

"Look

there at my scissors sticking up in the floor, and there is Jerry."

Jerry came up to me, in his peculiar, fidgetty way, expressing his great joy at seeing me, and at Mr. Selmar's return, and presently said, “Well,

I suppose your head is in such a whirl, Ruth, that you don't want to answer a question I came to ask you. Perhaps I had better not stay

now."

"He that is dizzy thinks the world turns round," replied Ruth. "I don't care much, Jerry, for your staying at any time; but I'm not so busy but I have time enough to answer any of your questions. It does not take much wit to answer them, you know."

"I wanted to know what time I might come to-morrow," said Jerry.

"Better come to breakfast, Jerry," I answered. "Mr. Selmar has a present for you, that he brought from China, and will be glad to see you, I know."

The poor fellow was so delighted, that, in going out, he stumbled headlong over a chair, and actually fell sprawling on the floor. Ruth burst into a hearty laugh, and cried out after him, as he was trying hard to escape her, "Better slip with the foot than the tongue, Jerry."

Miss Treville tells me that Ruth's appearance was very droll at the wedding. She put on the white gown over a dark skirt, and, in the strength of her faith that her feet would not show, wore dark stockings. I did not see her, or I should have taken care that she was properly dressed.