to try to comprehend the proceedings of women, he thought it best to say nothing.

On Albina requesting him to accompany her on her entrance, he gave her his arm in silence, and with a very perplexed face escorted her into the principal room. As be led her up to his wife, his countenance gradually changed from perplexity to something like fright. Alvina paid her compliments to Mrs. Fotts, who received her with evident amazement, and without replying. Mrs. Montague, who sat next to the lady of the mansion, opened still wider her immense eyes, and then "to make assurance doubly sure," applied her opera-glass. Miss Montague first stared, and then laughed.

Albina much disconcerted, turned to look for a seat; Mr. Potts having withdrawn his arm. As she retired to the only vacant chair, she heard a half whisper running along the line of ladies, and though she could not distinguish the words so as to make any connected sense of them, she felt that they alluded to her.

Can I believe my eyes?" said Mrs. Potts.

The assurance of American girls is astonishing," said Mrs. Montague.

She was forbidden to come," said Miss Montague to a young lady beside her. Mrs. Potts herself forbade her

to come."

"She was actually prohibited," resumed Mrs. Montague, leaning over to Mrs. Jones.

"I sent her myself a note of prohibition," said Mrs. Potts, leaning over to Mrs. Smith. I had serious objections to having her here:"

I never saw such downright impudence," pursued Mrs. Montague. This I suppose is one of the consequences of the liberty, and freedom, and independence that you Americans are always talking about. I must tell Mr. Montague, for really this is too good to lose."

And beckoning her husband to come to her, "My dear," said she, "put down in your memorandum-book, that when American married ladies invite young ladies to parties, they on second thoughts forbid them to come, and that the said American young ladies boldly persist in coming, in spite of the forbiddance."

And she then related to them the whole affair, at full length, and with numerous embellishinents, looking all the time at poor Albina.

The story was soon circulated round the room in whispers and murmurs, and no one had candor or kindness to suggest the possibility of Miss Marsden's having never received the note.

Albina soon perceived herself to be an object of remark and animadversion, and was sadly at a loss to divine the cause. The two ladies that were nearest to her, rose up and left their seats, while two others edged their chairs farther off. She knew no one, she was introduced to no one, but she saw that every one was looking at her as she sat by herself, alone, conspicuous, abashed. Tea was waiting for a lady that came always last, and the whole company seemed to have leisure to gaze on poor Albina, and to whisper about her.

Her situation now became intolerable. She felt that there was nothing left for her but to go home. Unluckily she had ordered the carriage at eleven o'clock. At last she resolved on making a great effort, and on a plea of a violent headache (a plea which by this time was literally true) to ask Mrs. Potts if she would allow a servant to bring a coach for her.

After several attempts, she rose, for this purpose: but she saw at the same moment that all eyes were turned upon her. She tremblingly and with downcast looks advanced till she got into the middle of the room, and then all her courage deserted her at once, when she heard some one say, "I wonder what she is going to do next."

She stopped suddenly, and stood motionless, and she saw Miss Potts giggle, and heard her say to a school-girl near her "I suppose she is going speak a speech." She turned very pale, and felt as if she could gladly sink into the floor, when suddenly some one took her hand, and the voice of Bromley Chreston said to her- Albina-Miss Marsden-I will conduct you wherever you wish to go"and then lowering his tone, he asked her "Why this agitation-what has happened to distress you?"

Cheston had just arrived from New York, having been detained on the way by an accident that happened to one of the boats, and finding that Mrs. Marsden was in town, and had that day sent several messages for him, he repaired

37

| immediately to her lodgings. He had intended declining the invitation of Mrs. Potts, but when he found that Albina had gone thither, he hastily changed his dress and went to the party. When he entered, what was his amazement to see her standing alone, in the centre of the room, and the company whispering and gazing at her.

Albina on hearing the voice of a friend, the voice of Bomley Cheston, was completely overcome; and she covered her face and burst into tears. "Albina," said Cheson, "I will not now ask an explanation; I see that, whatever may have happened, you had best go home." "Oh! most gladly, most thankfully," she exclaimed in a vo ce almost inarticulate with sobs. Cheston drew her arm within his, and bowing to Mrs. Potts, he led Albina out of the apartment, and conducted her to the staircase, whence she went to the ladies' room to compose herself a little, and prepare for her departure.

Cheston then sent one servant for a carriage, and another to tell Mr. Potts that he desired to speak with him in the hall. Potts came out with a pale frightened face, and said

"Indeed, sir-indeed, I had nothing to do with it; ask the women. It was all them entirely. It was the women that laughed at Miss Albina and whispered about her."

"For what?" demanded the lieutenant. "I insist on knowing for what cause."

"Why, sir," replied Potts, "she came here to my wife's party, after Mrs. Potts had sent her a note desiring her to stay away; which was certainly an odd thing for a young lady to do."

There is some mistake," exclaimed Cheston, "I'll stake my life that she never saw the note. And now, for what reason did Mrs. Potts write such a note! How did she dare-"

Oh!" replied Potts, stammering and hesitating, "women will have their notions; men are not half so particular about their company. Somehow, after Mrs. Potts had invited Miss Albina, she thought on farther consideration that poor Miss Albina was not quite genteel enough for her party. You know all the women now make a great point of being genteel. But indeed, sir, (observing the storm that was gathering on Cheston's brow) indeed, sirI was not in the least to blame. It was altogether the fault of my wife."

The indignation of the lieutenant was so highly excited, that nothing could have checked it but the recollection that Potts was in his own house. At this moment Albina came down stairs, and Cheston took her hand and said to her-"Albina, did you receive a note from Mrs. Potts, interdicting your presence at the party."-"Oh! no, indeed!" exclaimed Albina, amazed at the question. "Surely, she did not send me such a note."-"Yes, she did, though," said Potts quickly.-"Is it then necessary for me to say," said Albina indignantly, "that under those circumstances, nothing could have induced me to enter this house, now or ever. I saw or heard nothing of this note. And is this the reason that I have been treated so rudely-so cruelly!" Upon this Mr. Potts made his escape, and Cheston having put Albina into the carriage, desired the coachman to wait a few moments. He then returned to the drawingroom, and approached Mrs. Potts who was standing with half the company collected round her, and explaining with great volubility the whole history of Albina Marsden. O the appearance of Cheston she stopped short, and all her auditors looked foolish.

The young officer advanced into the centre of the circle, and first addressing Mrs. Potts, he said to her "In justice to Miss Marsden, I have returned, madam, to inform you that your note of interdiction, with which you have so kindly made all the company acquainted, was till this moment unknown to that young lady. But even had she come wilfully, and in the full knowledge of your prohibition, no circumstances whatever could justify the rudeness with which I find she has been treated. I have now only to stay, that if any gentleman presumes either here or hereafter to cast a reflection on the conduct of Miss Albina Marsden in this or in any other instance, he must answer to me for the consequences. And if I find that any lady has invidiously misrepresented this occurrence, I shall insist on an atonement from her husband, her brother or her admirer."

He then bowed and departed, and the company looked still more foolish.

"This lesson," thought Cheston, "will have the salutary effect of curing Albina of her predominant follies. She is

a lovely girl after all, and when withdrawn from the influence of her mother, will make a charming woman and an excellent wile."

Before the carriage stopped at the residence of Mrs. Marsden, Cheston had made Albina offer of his heart and hand, a d the oder was not refused.

Mrs. Marsden was scarcely surprised at the earliness of Albina's return from the party, for she had a secret misgiving that all was not right, that the suppression of the note would not eventuate well, and she bitterly regretted having done it. When hrdanghter related to her the story of the evening, Mrs. Marsden was overwhelmed with compunction, and though Cheston was present, she could not refrain from acknowledging at once her culpability, for it certainly deserved no softer name. Cheston and Albina were shocked at this disclosure, bot in compassion to Mrs. Marsden, they forbore to add to her distress by a single comment. Cheston shortly after took his leave, saying to Albina as he departed - Thope you are done for ever with Mrs. Washington Potts."

Next morning, Cheston seriously but kindly expostulated with Albina and her mother on the folly and absurdity of sacrificing their confort, their time, their money, and indeed their self-respect to the paltry distinction of being ca priciously noticed by a few vain silly heartless people, inferior to themselves in every thing but in wealth, and in a slight tincture of the soi-disaat fashion; and who, after all, only took them on or threw them off as it suited their own Convenience.

"What you say is very true, Bromley," replied Mrs. Marsden. I begin to view these things in their proper light, and as Albina remarks, we ought to profit by this last lesson. To tell the exact trath, I have heard since I came to town that Mrs. Washington Potts is, after all, by no means in the first circle, and it is whispered that she and ber husband are both of very low origin."

"No matter for her circle or her origin," said Cheston, "ia our country the only acknowledged distinction should be that which is denoted by superiority of mind and manners."

Next day lieutenant Cheston escorted Mrs. Marsden and Albina back to their own home-and a week afterwards he was sent unexpectedly on a cruize in the West Indies.

He returned in the spring, and found Mrs. Maraden more rational than he had ever known her, and Albina highly improved by a judicious course of reading which he had marked out for her, and still more by her intimacy with a truly genteel, highly talented, and very amiable family from the eastward, who had recently bought a house in the village, and in whose society she often wondered at the infatuation which had led her to fancy such a woman as Mrs. Washington Potts, with whom, of course, she never had any farther communication.

A recent and very large bequest to Bromley Cheston from a distant relation, made it no longer necessary that the young lieutenant should wait for promotion before he married Albina; and accordingly their union took place im mediately on his return.

Before the Montagnes left Philadelphia to prosecute their journey to the south, there arrived an acquaintance of theirs from England, who injudiciously "told the secrets of his prison house," and made known in whispers "not lond but deep." that Mr. Dudley Montague, of Normancourt Park, lants, alias, Mr. John Wilkins, of Lamb's, Conduit street, Clerkenwell, had long been well known in London as a reporter for a newspaper; that he had recently married a widow, the ci-devant governess of a Somers Town Boarding-school, who had drawn her ideas of fashionable life from the columns of the Morning Post, and who famished her pupils so much to her own profit that she had been able to reire ou a sort of fortune. With the assistance of this fund, she and her daughter (he young 1dy was in reality the offspring of her mother's first marriage) bad accompanied Mr. Wilkins across the Atlantic: all three assuming the lordly name of Montague, as one well calculated to strike the republicans with proper

awe.

'The truth was, that for a suitable consideration, proffered by a tory publisher, the soi-disant Mr. Montague had undertaken to add another octavo to the numerous volumes of gross misrepresentation and real ignorance, that profess to contain an impartial account of the United States of America.

From the Saturday Evening Post.

THE HEBREW MOTHER. Addressed to my esteened friend, Mrs. D. Paine, Athens, Pa.

Again she pressed her trembling hips upon
The cheek of her pale babe, and strove to hush
Its feeble wailings with her mournful voice;
Murmuring, in low, soft tones, the holy psalms,
Which she had loved so well in happier days-
Days that had left but their sweet memory,
To soothe her now. The noonday sun came down
With its accustomed brightness, through the leaves
Of the tall palin, and lingered on the brow
Of that fair dying child, as if to call

His pure young spirit from its darkened home;
Aud soft rich odours from the vales below,
Came up, with their delicious breath to cool
His parched and fevered lips.

What brought her there?
That young and lovely Hebrew, so aside
From the glad flowery paths of those whose forms
Were all too delicate to move in bowers,
Legs lovely than Engeddi's. Sure it was not
That the world's treasure, (that which buyeth friends.
And meteth out the giddy cup of bliss,

To those who revel 'mid the dross of earth,)
The burnished plate of Ophir had departed,
Leaving the wanderer cursed with poverty?

Ah, no; for her dark hair gleamed brightly forth
With precious stones and radiant pearls and gems.
Bright sparkling gems, of heaven's all varying hues,
And her white arms were girt about with bands,
Dazzling in their deep inwrought workmanship,
And silvery tassels decked her rich dark robe
After the gorgeous manner of her tribe.

What brought her there?
Alone, amid the hills of dark Judea,
With her young precious charge, and none to cheer
Her fainting spirits with affection's tone,
No hand to raise the famished sufferer from
Her wearied arms, or cool his raging thirst,
With the pure drops which she could never reach.
Where were the gay, the festive groups, in which
That fair-haired beauty moved, of late a star
Of the first magnitude, and he to whom
Her first pure love, her heart's deep troth was given,
The wedded of her soul, where, where was he?
Had he too left her in that trying hour,

To watch with curding cheek the failing breath
Of her fair first born son; to see him droop
And fade away, like a young spring flower,
Lacking nourishment, alone to close

His lifeless eyes, when death indeed should come.
And then in her deep hopelessness to bow
Her soul to its dark destiny and die?
A sound is heard,

A sad, low, mournful sound, and the dull wind
Is burdened with the rush of dying tones;
The long, shrill clash of sword with glittering sword,
Of sabre meeting sabre, the wild charge
Of raging chariots and the lengthened shout
Of fierce encounter; though so far away,
Break in discordant murmurs on the ear
Of Israel's pale daughter, and she turns
Her tearful eyes towards the red gleaming west,

Where still is seen, though wrapt in flame and smoke,
The far famed temple of the living God,
Standing unmoved amid the general crash
Of falling towers, as if the spirit, which

Once deigned to dwell between the golden wings
Of the fair cherubims, yet lingered there,
To frown defiance on the unhallowed crew,
Whose hands had dared profane its holy shrine.
A smile is on the gazer's quivering lip,
And her dark eye flashes unwonted fire,
As it's quick vision hails the holy scite
Of that stern edifice, her nation's boast;
Forgotten now are the protracted.i.is

Which she hath suffered since her exile lone,
Hunger and thirst and cold, and deep fatigue,
And those dread scenes of blood and cruelty,
Wherewith man proves the love his bosoma bears
To those whom God hath formed of dust the sanic.
Forgotten now the dark terrific hour,
When the shrill trumpet from the walls first gave
The signal of invasion, and there came,
Like an o'erwhelming deluge, hosts of men
In warlike guise, to raze the sacred gates
Of great Jerusalem. Forgotten is
Her beauteous home, in smouldering ruins laid,
Her murdered friends, decaying 'neath the piles
Of burning rubbish. Her young husband too,
His last fond look, his last impressive words--
All, all have faded from her memory,
Forgot, absorbed in one all-kindling thought,
The thought of that high temple of the skies,
Backward she flings her rich unbraided locks,
And raising aloft her weak and trembling hands,

The spirit of the chosen band of God

Breaks forth from her deep soul, in words like these:

“Away ye men of Rome,

Think ye to trample down

The Temple, which our father's reared,

The mighty of renown?

Away, for lightnings dwell

Within its sacred vail,

Aye, and a voice, whose tones would make Hearts of the stoutest quail.

Derist, fierce men of war,

Nor dare, one moment dare
Profane with heathen touch that shrine,
For holy things are there.

Ah, ye may bathe your hands
In choicest Hebrew blood,

And desolate with fire the spot
Where our fair dwellings stood.
And ye may fling your chain

Around our brave and free,

And lead our weeping daughters forth
To dread captivity.

Eut never may ye bring

To earth, our heavenward tower, Jehovah is its sentinel,

Rash men, ye lack the power.

Hush, hush my dying one,

For I would gaze once more Upon that glorious dome, ere yet My pilg image is o'er.

How beautiful it stands,

Like a proud spirit throwing
A lofty radiance o'er the field,
With shields and targets glowing.
Most beautiful! oh, would

My child, that thy dim eyes
Might see how deeply grand looks down,
That pillar of the skies.

Firm as the moveless hills

My nation's hope, art thou, Home of our holy statutes, none

Have power to harm thee now."

Exhausted drooped the wanderer's weary head,
Though her wan vision clong tenacious still
To it's great idol, thinking some miracle
Would work as formerly, deliverance sure.
Aye, and it did, but darkened sounds alone
Revealed what that deliverance was. She saw,
The Hebrew saw her last hope fade. She saw
The temple totter, fall, and heard the shriek
Of dying thousands, crushed beneath the weight
Of its red glowing timbers. Then she thought
On Him who prophesied that, not one stone
Should lie unturned in that polluted tower.
She thought on Him the hated Nazarine.
And the truth flashed on her benighted mind,
That He indeed had been the promised Shiloh,
Her nation's King, and they had murdered him.
Oh, it was agony; and in despair
She sank beside her lifeless child and gave
Her spirit to its Maker.'

NATURE.

39

JULIET.

The contemplation of the works of nature affords some of the noblest, purest pleasures of the human mind. Gazed upon as the workmanship of a great, and wise, and good Being, who can consider them without feelings of mingled admiration and awe. Even in the inferior parts of creation, among the little things of our own earth, how much do we find to call forth wonder at inspire delight. Animate and inanimate nature is full of beauty and astonishing displays of superior wisdom. How surprising the order and regularity of the crystal. So exact, that amidst a million of the same species, no difference in angle and form can be detected. How beautiful the little vernal flower! Its leaves seem touched by the pencil of an angel.

But let us rise still higher and take a wider survey. Let us gain some commanding eminence and look off upon hill and dale, and field, and forest, and stream. What a boundless variety, and yet all beautiful! Whose eyes are so dull--whose soul so insensible that he cannot gaze and admire with almost insatiable delight? Whose heart is not enlarged, whose feelings are not refined, whose pleasures are not multiplied, by mingling with, and contemplating the beauties of creation. It is here we seem to commune with ourselves and with our Creator in his works. It is here that is placed the first impress of our Maker's character. The mysteries of nature we should study, the loveliness of nature we should admire, as the work of the Almighty. And how easy thus would become our pathway

Here are still to be seen some remains of the shrubbery which he planted and cultivated with his own hands; and the natural seat which he was wont to occupy, is still pointed out to the passing stranger; and it is there that the corps of cadets have testified their admiration for his valour, and their respects for his virtues.

Written for the Casket. ODE TO THE LAKE OF THE WOODS. All hail to thy waters, lone Lake of the Woods, In the gloom and the grandeur of deep solitudes; How long undisturbed have thy waters been there, Thou lake of a thousand bright isles blooming fair? Thou source of a hundred bright streamlets and lakes, That leap to the ocean, and solitude breaks;

green,

How long have been blooming thy green sunny isles,
And who have been witnesses of all thy smiles?
Has time been thy talisman, marking thy years,
By the annual shedding of rivers of tears,
That flow'd from the cold rocky mountains afar,
From her snow-crested summits, and emptying there?
Hath the wild flower bloom'd on thy margin of
And shed its sweet honors, and blush'd there unseen,
And wasted its sweetness on the cold desert air,
For thousands of years, all blooming thus fair?
Hath the wild swan, and eagle, career'd o'er thy steeps,
And fear'd not the fowler, aud fearless of deeps,
Scream'd wild to the night air, lonely and shrill,
As echo has answered from valley to hill?
Hath the red warrior guided his light canoe,
O'er thy lone, silent waters, of varied hue;
And marked all thy eddies, and each curling bay,
Unbroken by ripples, that mirror-like lay?

Yes, all these through long ages of gloom, thou hast seen,
"Midst the changing of nature, unchanged thou hast been;
And time only hath marked with her annual floods,
Thy long lapse of years, dark Lake of the Woods!
Thou deep, inexhaustable, wonderons Lake;
Thou source of a hundred that ocean-ward make,
Whose dark swelling waters eternally roar,
As down the steep bed of Niagara they pour!
Thou wonder of millions-a watery chain,
That comes from thy bosom, and flows to the main;
No barrier can stop thee,-still foaming thy floods,
Still fed by the dark deep Lake of the Woods!
Thou divider of nations, that else had been one,
Then those dark deeds of caring had never been done;
And no blood had been shed by a brother or friend,
Which, naught but thy waters had made them contend!
Thou mother of lakes, in the cold north west,
Peace to thy waters, and calm be thy breast;
May the gloom that surrounds thee, and deep solitudes!
Be forever unbroken, lone Lake of the Woods!
Whitesboro, Sept. 10, 1832.

IRIS.

M. CASSIMIR PERIER.

M. Cassimir Perier was born on the 12th October, 1777, at Grenoble. The son of a rich merchant; he at an early age embraced the career of arms, and served in the Italian campaigns of 1799 and 1800,-in the staff of the military engineers. On the death of his father, however, he quitted the army, and devoted himself wholly to commercial pursuits. In 1802, he founded a banking establishment at Paris; and subsequently established a number of manufactories of cotton spinning, and sugar refining, and also steam flour mills, all of which were eminently successful, and contributed to the formation of the immense fortune which he leaves behind him. He first became known to the public in 1816, by a pamphlet against the foreign loan system, which was equally remarkable, for a lucid clearness of arguinent, and a profound knowledge of finance. In 1817 he was elected one of the Deputies for the Department of the Seine, and from that time until the Revolution of 1830, continued the firm opponent of every ministerial encroachment on the rights and privileges of the people. He particularly distinguished himself by his hostility to the Villele Administration, having himself supported almost singly the whole burden of the opposition to the famous budget of M. de Villele, which he disputed item by item with a talent and perseverance worthy of entering the lists with the illustrious financier to whom he was opposed. When M. de Polignac became President of the Council, the opposition of M. Perier assured a more violent character; he was pre-eminent among the 221 Deputies who voted the famous address which led to the fatal Ordonnances of July. When the Revolution broke out, he at once avowed himself the advocate of the popular cause, and opened his house as the place of Meeting of the Deputies who assembled to protest against the illegality of the proceedings of the Crown. Firmly, however, attached to the principles of constitutional opposition, and shrinking, therefore, from the probable effects of a revolution; he was one of the last to abandon the hope that his infatuated Sovereign would open his eyes to the gulf on the brink of which he was standing, and, by a timely revocation of the ordonnances, prevent the necessity of the extreme measure of an appeal to arms, and a consequent change of dynasty. When, however, these became inevitable, M. Perier attached himself firmly to the work of consolidating the new throne of Louis Philip, and re-assembling those elements of order and stability which the convulsions of July had scattered, but not annihilated. On the dissolution of the Ministry of M. Lafitte, M. Casimir Perier was called to the head of the Government, and immediately entered into the system of conservative policy, which he continued until the close of his career. The last time he took any important part in the debates in the Chamber of Deputies was on the 20th March; when he pronounced an eloquent defence of the conduct of Government with respect to the events of Grenoble. The last time he was pre