pearl of health in the cup of tears, but read these letters, and you will not wonder so much; then burn them, and let all trace of my folly vanish from the earth.' She died, Cousin Harry-I saw the grave close over one of the loveliest and gentlest of human beings, and, when time had softened my first grief, I read the papers entrusted to me. Your changing color tells me you know whence they came. You are right-they were your letters-letters filled with protestations of tenderness, concealed under a flimsy veil of platonism and friendship. It had been another of your 'pleasant flirtations;' amusing to you, no doubt, but fatal to her. world, and that was my Cousin Harry. You were then an invalid, and when change of air was recommended to you, it was sought in my mother's house, where you were treated as a son and a brother. I was then just seventeen, a child-like, unsophisticated girl, with a heart full of warm feelings, and a mind totally unsuspicious of deception. I fancied I loved you as a brother, and had you not breathed into my ear the language of passion, I should have continued to look upon you as such. You first taught me that there were affections stronger than the ties of blood, and from that moment my nature was changed. I thought of you by day-I dreamed of you at night-every thing I did was with reference to your "The death of my mother soon followed that of my approbation-every word I uttered was moulded to your friend, and I was left alone on earth: I had no relative model of elegance. To please you, became the aim of save he who had forgotten me. General Baynton loved my whole life, and you knew it, for I was too guileless me for his daughter's sake; he sought to adopt me that to conceal my sentiments from such a practised eye as I might fill her place, and be the prop of his old age, yours. Do you remember our parting-my passionate but the world-the fashionable world, Harry, would grief, and your tender remonstrances? well, that is past. not allow such an innocent connection. There were You had taught me to love you, Harry, but you had venomed hints, vague insinuations, a shrug of the shoultaken care not to commit your honor to my keeping.ders when the plan was spoken of, or a raising of the You had not actually talked to me of marriage, there-eye-brow when we walked out together, which galled fore you were a man of honor; there is no penalty my proud spirit. To ensure me a peaceful home, the inflicted on him who only breaks a heart. Nay, do not noble-hearted old man at length offered me his hand. interrupt me, I have not yet done. Had I been living I understood and appreciated his motives; the world in the gay world, I might have sought forgetfulness amid sneered at his adoption of a daughter, but could not the dissipations of society, but I was simple and country blame his choice of a wife, and with the most tender bred; I could not dissimulate-I lacked the worldly filial regard for him, I became his bride. For five wisdom I have since acquired. I waited long for your years I had the satisfaction of knowing that I contribureturn, but at length I fell into an illness, which brought ted to the happiness of one of the best of God's creame to the brink of the grave, and change of scene was tures; but alas! I could only smooth his passage to the deemed necessary for me. We were not rich, and, as grave." economy forbade us to seek a costly abode, we found a home in this part of the country. A pretty cottage, close to the grounds of Baynton, received us, and it was there I first became acquainted with Mary Baynton, the invalid daughter of the General. Our acquaintance quickly ripened into friendship, for Mary was, like myself, an orphan, and as her sole surviving parent was her father, she needed womanly sympathy even more than I did. Naturally of a feeble constitution, Mary was gradually sinking under the insidious attacks of consumption, and I was not slow in discovering that she looked upon death without the terrors so natural in one of her youth and beauty. My own past experience-for I had grown wise from suffering-led me to conjecture the cause. She had bestowed her affections unworthily, and, with a romantic sensibility too often found combined with weak health, she cherished a hopeless attachment which was wasting her very life. On all other subjects, there was perfect confidence between us, but on this sheral to the soil. Respect for lofty excellence, esteem for was silent until a few days before her death. I had attended her through her painful illness, and watched the struggles of her enfeebled mind, as well as the pangs of her suffering frame. But it was not until she had striven long that she could put away the thoughts of earthly love; then, when life was fast ebbing in her young veins, she gave me a packet of papers. Read them, after my death, dear Kate,' said she read them, "And can you not forgive my past errors, dear Kate?" asked Wilder; "cannot the devotion of my future life make amends for the unstable fancies of my youth?" "Cousin Harry, when I burned the letters which my unhappy friend entrusted to me, I burned with them all traces of your pretended affection for me. I watched them as the flame crept over the sonnets, the notes, the withered flowers, the lock of soft dark hair, once so fondly preserved as memorials of my sunny days; and even as the fire consumed them from my sight, so did the burning shame of your treachery efface all trace of my early folly from my heart. I shall never love now as I could have done, had you never crossed my path. Reason and judgment tell me that it is wisest and best for woman to surround herself with those duties which Heaven seems to have alloted her, and I do not mean that the indurating lava which has laid waste my heart, shall close over all the fresh-springing feelings that are natu noble qualities may lead me into a second marriage, but not one spark of early affection lies hid beneath the ashes of my early hopes. Harry Wilder, I once loved you with all the intensity of a first affection, but you may take my confession as the strongest of all proofs, that I love you no longer. There is no tenderness in my look-no faltering in my voice-no resentment in my heart. Indifference, perfect indifference is all I can that you may pity as well as condemn me. I know that now feel for the being whom my fancy once clothed with you think I have wickedly and foolishly dissolved the all the attributes that could adorn humanity. The only feeling of woman's weakness, which still lingers about || my heart, is the pleasure I now experience in listening to your tardy avowal of love, and in rejecting your offered hand." Spring had scarcely unfolded her tender buds, when the mortified and vindictive suitor received a packet from his latest ladye-love.' It contained a large piece of bride's cake, and two cards tied with silver riband. The bear'--the 'unlicked cub' had won what the elegant Harry Wilder had sought in vain; and the noble qualities of heart and mind which distinguised that eternal parson Lee,' had made him the happy husband of Cousin Kate. MY UNCLE, THE COLONEL, WITH THE STORY OF Mr uncle, the colonel, was a handsome bachelor of forty, and a lustre over, and lived in hired “lodgings A COMMISSION, [WITHOUT A SEAL.] walking the streets he would shy away from the path of GIVEN TO A LADY ON HER FIRST PILGRIMAGE TO NIAGARA. BY GRENVILLE MELLEN. "The ladye then said to the bard she should doubtlesse essave FAIR lady! when beside the vasty fount I stood within that bow-and, as I bent And, Lady, thou hast whisper'd me thy foot And wear it in thy palaces. For thou Shalt not find death within that shadowy home Live, a new Undine of thy tributary waves! an elderly personage of the sex, and almost leap into the gutter if he unexpectedly met a pretty black-eyed maiden. Boarding-schools were his horror. He would go round three squares to avoid passing one, and an advancing group of misses of "sweet sixteen," tripping laughingly along to school, would drive him down the first by-street. "Stewart's," in Broadway, was his terror. Once his way was blocked up there by a bevy of beauties, chatting, and ever taking leave, and stopping to chat again, again to take leave. His first impulse was to turn back, but three lovely girls were coming directly behind him! He would have darted into the first store, but it was thronged with ladies! In despair he waved his gold-headed cane to an advancing omnibus. It drove to the curb-stone. His foot was on the step, his hand upon the side of the entrance. "Go on!" cried the freckled-face ticket-boy. My uncle, at this instant, made a desperate and successful leap backward. There were five females and three babies in the omnibus! "Stop! the gem'man's out!" cried the boy, pulling the bell. "No, go on! He don' wan' ride-he's flunk!" growled he, as Jehu whipped up his high-ribbed steeds. My uncle succeeded in gaining the Park side of Broadway, and eventually in reaching his lodgings. Of all things, he most disliked to have a pretty woman look at him with any attention. Thrice he changed rooms on this account. In the first instance, in the front window of the house next to his own dwelling, there was for ever seated a young lady, not very pretty, but very vain and bold, before whose unwinking eyes he had to run the gauntlet from the moment he closed the street door 'till he got out of sight, and from the moment he came in sight, 'till he was safely sheltered with the door closed behind him. He bore until the first of May, and then finding that family were not going to move, moved himself. From these rooms he was driven by a saucy, laughing, handsome chambermaid opposite, who, it seemed to him, had nothing to do but to look out of the upper windows into his own, and watch him whenever he went out or came in from the street. In the end she drove my uncle away, and so he came to Liberty Street. Nearly opposite his rooms was a row of ware-houses, from the sheet-ironed plated windows of which he had no danger to apprehend; and the mayor and one of the aldermen living within a door or two, he felt he had nothing to fear. It is true, since occupying these rooms, he had once caught a glimpse of the face of a very pretty girl between the Venetian blinds of a window which startled him not a little (for he had, as he thought, previously well surveyed the neighborhood) but not discovering her a second time, his apprehensions, which had began to take the alarm, subsided. Venetian blinds made him nervous! He felt, while walking through those streets mostly composed of private dwelling-houses, as if passing between masked batteries. It was sufficiently dreadful to be stared at openly by female eyes, but the bare idea of being the object of concealed glances, he could with difficulty endure. It put him into a perspiration. My poor uncle, the colonel! It was constitutional with him. His heart, too, was large and generous-the best woman in the world would have been honored and happy in its love. My unclo had a great horror of being suspected of being a rogue! With the exterior of a respectable middle-aged gentleman, slightly distinguished by the high air of the "old school," possessing a handsome fortune, and holding a highly honorable position in society, he was, singularly enough, constantly in fear of being taken for a pickpocket, a counterfeiter, or, more latterly, for a defaulter. He never met "Old Hays," without suddenly turning pale, and looking so very like a rogue, that were it not for the undoubted gentlemanly air and address inherent in him, and not to be mistaken, he might have had the honor of cultivating that gentle-. man's acquaintance. Once, indeed, to his utter consternation and vivid alarm, the High Constable fixed on him his keen, penetrating glance with such a look of suspicion, that my uncle did not leave the house again for several days. He never passed the Egyptian tombs; nor sailed by Sing-sing or Blackwell's Island without a sinking of the heart. In travelling, this apprehension of being taken for a rogue was most active. At one time, he used to wear a costly watch, a massive gold chain across his vest, a diamond broach, and a rich signet ring, all of which, in the cars, or on steamers, he anxiously displayed, so that no one might suspect him of need, and of having a design upon their pockets. But having learned that such lavish display of jewelry was characteristic of finished rogues, and that the gamblers at Vicksburg might have been hung in the gold chains they wore about their necks, he at once laid them aside, and henceforward was as destitute of ornaments as a Methodist divine. Lucklessly, this amiable sensitiveness of my uncle, on one occasion, was seriously tried.He was passenger on one of the North River night boats from Albany to the city, when, just before her arrival, at seven in the morning, a gentleman on board announced the loss of his pocket-book, containing bank notes to the amount of eight thousand dollars. My uncle was on the promenade deck when the rumor reached him. He became as pale as death, and looked on every side as if seeking a way of escape. The boat was brought to, men were posted at the various avenues of the boat, a police officer was sent for, and an individual search of the passengers began! At length the searching-committee ascended to the upper deck. Besides my uncle, there were five or six other gentlemen there, one of whom, a well-dressed gentleman of high-toned manners, observing his pallid looks, approached him as the search was going on below, and said, sympathizingly, "My dear sir, I see by your countenance you have the pocket-book, but I will not betray you." "I, sir-I-God forbid. No, sir-no!" gasped my uncle. "I see how it is with you, my dear sir; but don't let them search you. They have no right to search any gentleman." "Search me! Suspect me-ME, of being a pickpocket! I have feared this all my life!" "Take my advice; do not let them search you." They shall not search me! no! I, Colonel Peter Treat, a pickpocket, sir! I will blow out my brains? I pick a pocket for eight thousand dollars, sir! I have checks for twice that sum in my own pocket-book! See there, sir!" and my uncle, with the energy of despair, fear and grief, took out his pocket-book and displayed them. I, a pickpocket, sir!" He returned his book to his pocket, and buttoned up his coat. "They shall not search me!" he said, resolutely. "No, sir. It were as well to be guilty as to be suspected. What is a man's fair character good for if it will not protect him from insult at such a time as this ?" said the stranger, indignantly. "True, sir! You speak very truly, sir. I like your sentiments, sir. I should be happy to know you better, sir! There is my card, sir-Colonel Peter Treat, sir! -, Liberty Street." No. The searchers for the lost pocket-book soon afterwards 'ascended to the upper deck, and the stranger walked carelessly towards them as if intending to pass by them and go down. 'Stay, sir, if you please," said the captain of the boat. This gentleman here has lost his pocket-book, and that it has been cut from his pocket is plain, because the lining of the pocket is also cut out. Of course we cannot suspect you, sir; but every gentleman among those who are strangers to him, will certainly wish to place himself above suspicion. I need not, therefore, ask you, sir, if you will permit yourself to be searched." "I had the vanity to suppose, sir," said the stranger, smiling blandly, "that my personal appearance and address would have been a garantee for my honesty. Is that your pocket-book, sir; or are the contents yours, sir?" he asked, turning his back towards my uncle, as he took out and opened a large red pocket-book. No, sir." "You may search me farther, officer," said the stranger, with complacency. The search of his person proceeded, and then the captain, Gil Hays, the officer, and the loser, passed on to the others, while he disappeared below. My uncle, in the meanwhile, by his evident desire to avoid them, attracted the sharp eye of the officer, who, from his very singular conduct, set him down in his heart as the pick- || pocket, and kept his eye upon him. He hurried over the search of the remainder, and walked towards my uncle, whispering in an undertone to the gentleman with him, "He has it on my life!" His pale face and rigid features, on which sat mingled despair and resolution, were certainly very much against my uncle. The fatal moment to which his spirit seemed, for years, to have looked forward, had now arrived. He sat like death as they approached. “Your pardon, sir but we must be allowed to search you," said the captain, with far less courtesy than he had used to the other for most convincingly was my uncle's appearance against him. "Are you the captain of this boat, sir ?" he demanded, with the pride of a true but sensitive gentleman at such a crisis. "Certainly. I trust you have been guilty of no rudeness. It is Colonel Treat, descended from an old revolutionary family, a noble and honorable gentleman, but with some peculiarities. Will he suffer himself to be searched ?" "No." "Then let him pass, Mr. Hays. He has not the pocket-book no more than you or I have. It is his very high but mistaken sense of honor that leads him to repudiate even suspicion." The other gentlemen bore the same testimony to my uncle's honorable and worthy character, and the captain politely apologized to him, and saying that he was satisfied from testimony of these gentlemen, that he was innocent, left him. Still my uncle's pride was wounded. He was not satisfied because more weight was placed in his friend's assurance than in his own appearance. It was his favorite theory that a true gentleman can travel the world over || without a letter of introduction. He was inconceivably mortified to find the talisman fail him here. The boat was, soon afterwards, moored alongside the pier, (the pocket-book yet unfound,) and the passengers dispersed in every direction to their hotels and homes. On my uncle's arrival at his rooms, he shut himself up, and paced the floor an hour before he could reconcile himself by coolly surveying the circumstances to the sus "I am, sir. And for the honor of it, must take the liberty to see that its character does not suffer through rogues. Will you suffer yourself to be searched, sir?" "Searched! Rogues! Sir, I will not be searched. I am no rogue! No, sir! Am I not a gentleman ? Do I not look like one? Have I any gold chains, rings,|| or diamond pins about me? Look at me, sir! I am a gentleman of honor and respectability. As my friend, who just left me, remarked, what is character if it will not protect its owner at such a time? Sir, I am indig-picion he had incurred. At length he became more nant-I am grieved! I shall never feel that I am a gentleman after this, my birth and character not having been sufficient to protect me from suspicion." composed, cast himself into an easy chair, and lighted a segar to seal that composure. But at every seventh whiff he would remove it from his lips, and repeat with indignant, surprise, "Suspect me of having the pocket My uncle spoke with feeling. His pride of character was wounded. The officer, nevertheless, was inexora-book!” ble, and would have forcibly searched him, when the loser interfered. "I am satisfied," he said; "the gentleman has had injustice done him, and I shall not let the search proceed." My uncle breathed again. His pride of character was spared. He could yet respect himself! "But, sir, I am not satisfied," said the captain, and my uncle's heart sunk below zero. "The honor of my boat has been injured, and must be redeemed by the proof that you have really lost a pocket-book. This is no trifling matter, sir." At one of these ejaculations he thought of feeling to see if his own pocket-book was safe. He placed his hand on the outside of his coat over the usual repository. It was not there! Quicker than lightning he felt the other pocket, and a glow of pleasure chased away the paleness of his cheek. 66 'How could I have put it in that pocket. Ah! doubtless when I took it out to convince that gentlemanly stranger. I liked the sentiments he expressed. They are those of a man of honor and a chivalrous gentleman. He, now, is one of my true, well-bred men! His address is a passport to the best society, and to the "I will not sacrifice my self-respect by letting any confidence of all well-bred men. There is a free-masonry man search my pockets for the honor of twenty steam-by which one gentleman will recognize another. I should boats, sir," now spoke my uncle resolutely. Hereupon, the captain was about to search him vi et armis. when several New-York gentlemen who had heard the dispute from below, made their appearance on the upper deck. One of them was president of the bank in which my uncle's funds were deposited, and the others, men of name and note, knew him personally, and were well acquainted with the eccentricities of his character. They saw, at a glance, how things stood. “Ah, colonel,” said the president of the bank, smiling and extending his hand to my uncle, "so they have got you under this searching ordeal!" be happy to know him. I should ask no introduction. Yet I now remember he suffered himself to be searched. But he seemed to be in a hurry to go down, and perhaps had no time to resent their impertinence. If that captain were a true gentleman, I would call him out and make him apologize for the insult upon me. Suspect me of having the pocket-book!" As he repeated this he put his hand in his pocket to change his pocket-book to its customary pocket, and was passing it from one hand to the other without seeing it, when something unfamiliar in its size and touch, caused him to glance at it. He looked aghast! It was "So you know this passenger?" asked the captain, not his own pocket-book! For a moment he sat gazing aside. upon it immoveable. A sudden suspicion-a horrible idea-a fearful misgiving flashed upon him. He tore it open with nervous fingers. It contained rolls of bills. With forced composure he took them out one after another, and counted them. There were eight rolls, each containing a thousand dollars! There was the name:-Russel R. Russel, written upon the leather. He now remembered having heard the loser, on the boat, called Mr. Russel. With silent horror and despair, such as my uncle, only, could suffer at such a discovery, he rose up and approached his bureau. On it was an ornamented mahogany case. He opened it, took out a pistol, and deliberately commenced loading it Not a word had he uttered. Not a single exclamation had escaped him. He only sighed from time to time heavily It has been seen that there was much simplicity of character about my uncle. He assuredly now believed that he had, tempted by the devil, in some absent moment, picked Russel R. Russel's pocket. Now, after all that had passed when they would have searched him, after the honorable testimony of his friends, what could he do but blow out his brains? This he now resolved to do. He at length completed the loading of the pistol, and laid it down. Then taking one of his cards, he wrote in pencil upon it, time to rekindle the flame of his wrongs. The door was burst open and in rushed the head of a human current which reached to the street. My uncle stood in the centre of the room with folded arms, the discharged pistol at his feet, and in his eyes, a look of calm desperation. "Take me! I am the man!" he said in a deep tone that checked their advance. An officer forced his way through the crowd, and glanced with a quick scrutinizing eye about the apartment. He then took up the pistol. Discharged! Where is the man he has killed?" "Surely, sir," interposed the landlady, "he has killed no body, but liked to killed himself, the poor gentleman, and one of my regulerest paying lodgers too! It would ha' been a pity! Thank the Lord he is safe and sound.” "So, sir! There has been no murder committed then," said Mr. Hays, glancing a second time about the corners of the room and then looking into the muz zle of the pistol as if he would fain read there “ dark tale of blood." some "No, sir, no murder. But bid these go-bid these gazers go-I cannot bear the gaze of human eyes! Bid them go," he whispered hoarsely, "and I'll tell thee by say "I do believe I am innocent of this thing, as I am an honora-what has been done!" ble gentleman. How it came into my possession, I am as ignorant as the child unborn. P. TREAT." He laid the pocket-book and card together upon his table, and took up his pistol and cocked it. He paused a moment to commit his soul to God-for my uncle was too courteous and esteemed himself too much on his breeding, to rush rudely into the presence of his Makerand then placed the muzzle of the fatal weapon against his temple. A shriek at this moment pierced his earshis hand trembled-the ball shivered his mirror into a thousand-and-one-pieces, and the smoking weapon fell at his feet: It was his washerwoman! 66 My uncle sternly waved her away, but she would not leave! He put her out and locked the door against her. The shriek and report of the pistol alarmed the household, and raised the neighborhood. The house was beseiged from the street and his rooms assailed from within. In the street, the rumor flew that a murder had been done. In the house, every soul believed that the Colonel had killed himself. The mob sent for police officers, and the landlady screamed for hammer and tongs." What was my uncle to do? His desperation had wound his resolution once up to the suicidal pointbut the defeat of his object had let it run down a degree or two. He looked at the pistol, stretched forth his hand to take it up and then slowly drew it back and shook his head. He felt his resolution was no longer up to the killing point. The cord had been drawn to its tension and was suddenly relaxed! It would have required precisely the same force of causes as at first to reproduce the effect. If my uncle had had time given him, he might, by going over the whole affair, possibly have again worked himself a second time, up to the critical point below which no man can require sufficient nerve to blow his brains out. But the sovereign people without and the sovereign landlady within, would give him no The officer stared, and then cleared the room, ing no murder had been committed. The crowd soon dispersed from within and without, and my uncle was left alone with the police officer. "I will tell thee what has been done! Do you remember me?" asked my uncle in a low impressive tone, bending his face close to his. "Certainly I do," answered the man who never forgot a face, the eyes of which he had once looked into. "You did not search me!" "No." "Ha, ha!" laughed my uncle wildly. "Ha, ha!" "What am I to understand by-" "You did not search me-no-no! I would not be searched. No, no! Ha, ha, ha!" Why, dear sir, you are ill," said Hays, kindly; you had best lie down. "Lie down! You did not think I had it!" "Had what?" "The pocket-book," answered my uncle, bringing his lips close to the officer's ear and speaking in a tone as if he feared the walls would hear the communication. Alas, my poor uncle! his reason was leaving him. "The pocket-book!" "Ay, sir, the pocket-book," shouted my uncle in a voice of thunder. Look there, sir!" And he stood for an instant pointing with a rigid finger and ghastly visage towards the table. The officer took up the pocket-book with hesitation which was instantly followed by an exclamation of surprise as he read the name of Russel R. Russel, on the leather band. It took him but an instant to count the sum it contained. The whole of my uncle's present conduct he now attributed to guilt. Without giving him any eredit for his confession, he went up to him as ho still stood pointing to the table rigidly and stiffly with a |