and eternity, your faithful friend, and some day, if God so pleases to put his seal on our union, in life and death, in pleasure and pain, your devoted and tenderly beloved husband,

"PAUL PETTERSON."

"P. S.-I here add, that I enclose a little bag to be worn upon the bosom against sea-sickness,

which I have obtained from Mrs. Carlander.

"May heaven preserve you!

"Be careful not to take cold!"

NEW FRIENDS-FIRST IMPRESSION.

DURING the first part of the voyage Rosa was almost wholly occupied by the memory of the friends and circumstances which she left behind; and the grey, misty weather increased the melancholy state of feelings occasioned by separation.

But when the vessel had entered upon the fifteen miles extent of rocky sea, the famous Skärgård of the Swedish coast, where thousands of rocky islets and peninsulas throng the entrance to the harbour of Stockholm; when its ever-changing panorama revolved around her with new scenes and objects, and her astonished gaze wandered from fir-crowned cliffs to islands beautiful as the legendary islands of the blessed, from fishermen's small red huts to the stately white castle; when new, captivating scenes opened and closed around her

again to recede and give place to others; when at length the beautiful harbour of Stockholm opened, like a wide embrace, before her, with its royal castle, its statues, bridges, and towers, her mind then unfolded itself to new impressions, and her heart throbbed joyously with the new life which here met her so richly and beautifully.

The metropolis of a country, whether it be called London, Paris, Berlin, or Stockholm, always plays a principal part in a young girl's imagination, that is to say, when she is from the provinces.

It is the home of the monarch and of art; there the whole glory of the world must be assembled together. There life must be like a festival, and nothing be wearisome or troublesome; there she must find what she has darkly sought after; what her heart needs! She comes, and most frequently finds not that which she expected or sought after. She was a rose in her own home; in the parterres of the capital she is only a little meadow flower, which nobody notices; well for her, if she be not reckoned merely a weed. The butterflies with shimmering wings do not alight upon her; they look out for

more splendid flowers, and she may amuse herself by observing how they flutter about these. The pleasures which she takes part in, often leave a thorn in her heart, and she may have abundant experience of the possibility of life being very dull even in the capital.

Such is the case with many who come hither to find happiness or pleasure. But our Rosa did not come merely for that purpose. Besides, she was defended from the danger of shipwrecked hopes by her higher love, as well as by her resolve to learn by experience, let it be of whatever kind it might. She advanced, therefore, with a brave heart to meet the coming time.

She stepped on shore, carrying her father's stick in her hand.

"It must be a Gothland fashion for ladies to walk with staffs," thought Rosa's cousin, Baron Axel Norrby, an elegant young man, who came to meet her with his mother's carriage, but who, after the first salutation, and the first inquiries which courtesy demanded, did not trouble her with many words.

"She takes the stick with her into the carriage," thought he. "These Gothland blue-stockings must be dangerous ladies to come in contact with.-No; I shall take care and not come too near!-I wonder whether she always walks with that stick ?—I wonder what she means to do with it? Ladies who imitate and adopt the manners of men are the most insufferable fellows I know. I have half a mind to ask her for what she means to use her stick; but then she would answer with a Greek or Latin quotation,—a scholar in a quilted petticoat, and who walks with a stick-Usch! Nay, my lady mother! Daraus wird nichts. I would rather be excused!" And Baron Axel gazed negligently up to the roofs and yawned.

"My cousin does not take any pains to be polite," thought Rosa; and, somewhat wounded by his elegant, depreciatory manner, she was as silent as he. "He can as little endure me now as he could when we were children!" Again mused she, and this first unfriendly impression was painful to her. But she almost forgot it in the extreme kindness and cordiality by which she was received by her