looked up, more startled, if possible, than when I first saw the snake; and there stood the gentleman, our neighbour! He met my eye with a half-smile, coloured, bowed, and turned away; then turned back to where I still stood, looking like a great stupid school-girl, I suppose, and politely inquired if I were hurt if I were much frightened. I don't wonder that he coloured, and turned away. I thanked him, stuttered out that I was not at all hurt and very little frightened, and ran into the house. Once there, I thought what a nice opportunity it would have been for me to send the lady some roses, not have any. Yes, I daresay she feels just as I did, and if I were like some people, I could give her some without any trouble; but I am so awkward, so invariably embarrassed, just when I want to be most at my ease. If she would only walk out alone! The gentleman is always close at her side, and offering her every little attention, supporting her steps, and watching every motion, every look, with the most anxious tenderness. But if he were not with her, I think I could gather and give her some of my flowers without that foolish embarrassment that is always so vexatiously in my way. Some roses she must have, never-and-and—well, I don't know what, but theless. My mother has always told me she never saw any one with such a genius for blundering as I. Well, I tell her I know it, but how am I to help it? I am sure my blunders vex and mortify me as much and as often as they do any one. I was walking slowly out toward my favourite seat this morning, with a long stick in my hand, following the course of the rills, and trying to fancy myself a shepherdess. All at once a All at once a large snake glided from under the very hem of my dress. Hissing violently, and coiling itself up at a little distance, it began shaking its tongue at me. Before taking time to think, I screamed-a regular steam-whistle scream, it seemed to me, when I thought of it afterward. I was instantly angry with myself-for much as I hate a snake, I do hate this youngladyish fashion of screaming much worseand looked about for something to kill it. Of course there was nothing to be found -nothing ever is to be found when it is wanted - and my father has been too proud of his tasteful yard not to keep it neat to the very extreme of Quakerism, so far as Quakerism can be brought to bear upon nature, and yet leave it natural. The stick in my hand was long and slender, forked at the end, and without stopping to think twice, I imprisoned my enemy between the forks. It was so slender that it bent, and I could only hold the snake in its place; to think of killing it was out of the question-and if my stick should break! I felt startled and angry with myself, and confused, and ran up to my room to cry. Of course, I was no sooner fairly enjoying my tears, than my mother must want something, and come and find me, and ask what I was crying about, and laugh at me for being so silly. I wish she wouldn't always ask me what I am crying about; I would rather tell without being asked. And I wish she wouldn't laugh at any of my foolish scrapes, and tell me 'her tears are too precious to waste so.' The lady was walking alone this morning! I suppose her companion was afraid he should see me, or afraid he shouldn't see me-or more likely he didn't think of me at all! I would rather not be thought of at all, than to be laughed at. But I must be careful, or I shall discover that I have been writing nonsense. I ought to be very happy that I have been able to give pleasure to an invalid. I have not learned her name yet, but I was very much struck with her beauty, as she stood looking so delightedly at the roses, and thanking me so gratefully. I think she will be a very pleasant acquaintance. She informed me that she was just recovering from an illness of six months. How tedious it must have been. I thought I should die of weariness when I was only confined to my room for six weeks. Lilian (what a sweet name!)Lilian was walking alone again this morning, and I gave her some more roses, and she told me her name, and I told her mine. I think we had quite advanced from acquaintanceship to friendship, and almost to intimacy, when a voice close to us made me start, and Lilian, turning, introduced me to her brother, Ernest I Raimond. We had been chatting so All this passed in a moment, and the echo of my foolish scream had scarcely died on the air, as I stood there watching the impatient writhings and hissings of my captured foe, when a man's heel was suddenly placed on its head. busily that I did not hear his approach; and the suddenness of his appearance, and the introduction, gave me no time to run, as I probably should have done. I was able to perceive that his colour rose, but that was all; I had more than I could do to take care of myself, and get my face cooled down to an endurable degree. It felt as if I had dipped it in scalding water. Some kind of an apology I must have made, though I cannot now tell what I said. Lilian looked inquiringly at her brother, who informed her that he had the pleasure of killing a snake for Miss Ada the day before yesterday! 'Indeed! neither of you told me anything about it,' said she. I rallied myself, and replied, laughingly, 'Miss Lilian, I am very fond of praising myself, so, if I had behaved in a creditable manner, you would certainly have heard of it.' 'I don't see what better you could have done,' laughed Lilian, after hearing my version of the affair. 'I think I should have called for aid myself, when I found my own resources insufficient.' 'Had I known your call was involuntary, I think I should have kept away,' remarked the gentleman, mischievously: 'but it was certainly very urgent; and I believe, on the whole, that I agree with you-you were decidedly ungracious, considering the services I performed.' I had already forgotten that I was with entire strangers, and replied, without thinking, 'I beg you will forgive me for making you blush so outrageously as you did.' To which I received the grave response, 'No, I did not blush: it was but the reflection of your own face you saw, and what colour do you think it was, a moment since? It is well, indeed, for you to talk of blushing to a grave, elderly person like me.' I suppose he is about twenty-five. 'Indeed,' I retorted, 'I was too old to blush ten years ago;' another of the silly speeches I so often make, to wish unsaid again as soon as I am alone, and have a chance to think. They are both very polite; and I shall never be able to tell, when in their company, whether my remarks are witty or simply silly. I was frightened, when I came into the house, to find how long I had staid talking with them; for we had much chatting and laughing after what | I have recorded was said. am glad, on the whole, we are to have such pleasant neighbours. My roses are all gone; I gave them to Lilian each day while a bud remained, and each day had the pleasure of seeing the colour brighten on her cheek, and a growing elasticity in her step. But now-I am to lose her. She told me to-day that they were going to Saratoga for a few weeks, and we shall probably be gone back to the city when they return; and who can tell what may happen before next spring! I burst into a violent fit of tears when she told me (another foolish habit of mine! If it had not been for those tears I might ———————), and ran into the house. I saw him coming down the walk as I turned away. He would have laughed at me, if he had seen them, as my mother always does. I am glad my father has not such sharp eyes. I shall not want to visit the old apple-tree any more, if I cannot watch for them. I was in my usual seat this afternoon, indulging in a few comfortable tears, and thinking of-Lilian, when I heard a step behind me. I was sitting with my face to the thicket; and a hasty glance showing me who was coming, I sprang to the ground and ran. Not far, for longer steps than mine pursued me, and I was arrested midway to the thicket. 'Ada,' he exclaimed, what are you running away from me for?' I was trembling violently, and was strangely embarrassed. I felt the quizzical glance which was regarding me, and could not look up to meet his eye. But I did not dare to let another tear fall, so I held on to them, and made no answer. He must have thought I was faint, for he put his arm round me, and after a moment or two, whispered, 'Ada, I love you.' This remark was certainly unexpected, and put an end to all tendency to cry. Nay, I felt the corners of my mouth drawing back, in spite of myself. 'I love you, Ada,' he repeated, looking intently at my eyelids; 'cannot you love me?' he added, after a pause. 'No,' I answered, looking him full in the face for an instant. But the vexatious man, instead of letting me go, and walking calmly by my side, as I struggled to walk toward the house, or turning and going back into his own yard, only put his other arm about me, and drew me closer to him, repeating my answer. Vo,' bending down and kissing my lips; 'no, you don't care anything about me,' kissing one eye and then the other. 'Mr Raimond, you are crazy,' I exclaimed, trying with all my might to push him away; 'I shall call for some one to come and put you in a lunatic asylum.' . As loud as you called for me, once upon a time?' he relentlessly demanded, pushing my head back, and looking in my eyes. I think you had better. Here, Lilian,' lifting me almost from my feet, as he turned toward his own house and met his sister, 'take care of this naughty, | crazy sister of yours; I have business with her father.' And he left me there in the dear girl's arms, and disappeared. When I came in to tea, my father pinched my cheeks, and called me a runaway, and asked what I meant by stealing the heart of a rising young man like Mr Raimond, the son of his particular friend (I never knew before that he had any particular friends); and my mother quietly remarked that she hoped I had done up all my crying for the future. The trip to Saratoga is postponed; and when they go, I am to go with them. SCHAMYL, THE CIRCASSIAN The following account is given of the storming of Akhulgo, a mountain fortress, during the war in the Caucasus, in July, 1839: hurling it with a wild shriek down the abyss, leap after it.' Akhulgo was taken, and the carnage that followed repaid the hungry Cossacks for their long delay. No mercy was asked, and none would have been given. But among the dead, Schamyl was not to be found. What miracle had saved him again? After a long search he was discovered, with some of his Murids, lodged in a deep chasm of the rock overhanging the river, to which there was no access but by the rope that had been drawn up after them. As the Russian leader was intent upon capturing Schamyl, living or dead, he stationed a guard of horse and infantry on both banks of the river. Then it was that the three companions of Schamyl performed that act of unsurpassed heroism and devotion, which will cling to the memories of future generations. They knew that, if they were all made prisoners, it was probable that they might be ransomed and returned, but that their leader must inevitably be lost to them for ever. They agreed to give their lives to save his. One dark night, the Russians upon the watch saw a raft put out from the cave, and lowered down until it floated upon the river. A man then let himself down upon it; a second form descended, and at last a third, dressed in the white robe of Schamyl, cautiously followed. Immediately the guards, having remained silent until now, rushed forward; the Cossack cavalry plunged into the stream; the infantry skirted the shores; a moment-and the three men upon the raft were shot or stabbed with a thousand weapons. But to the inexpressible vexation of the Russians, on examining the faces of the slain, it was found that neither of them was that of the terrible Schamyl. They discovered too late that, while the attention of the whole troop was directed toward the three men, the real Schamyl, the one object against whom the whole expedition had been prepared, had lowered himself quietly down from the cave to the stream, and swam uninjured to the opposite shore. At last the storming began. Three terraces, rising one above the other, were the foremost obstacles to be overcome by the Russians; and of the fifteen hundred men who made the first assault, only one hundred and fifty were able to retreat in safety. The third charge carried the first and second terraces, and then came the tug of war. The firing ceased. With the bayonet, the shaska, the dagger, hand to hand, they strove and wrestled together. There was no noise save the cries of victory or of agony. The smoke rolled up like a curtain from the face of the rock. High up the cliff, the Circassian women, in the last extremity of despair, with bared After the loss of Akhulgo, the Iman breasts and hair streaming over their shoul-exerted himself to gain from the Russian ders, poured down volleys of stones upon the heads of their advancing foes. 'I saw a woman,' says an eye-witness of the scene, 'suddenly grasp the little child that clung to her garments; I saw her dash its head to pieces against a projecting rock, and | general some terms of pacification. The latter would hear of nothing but unconditional surrender. Schamyl then passed, like another Peter the Hermit, across the mountains, preaching to the Tcherkessians in the Turkish language, and endeavour ing to arouse them to their common danger. But he failed to overcome their private jealousies and the blood-feuds of race and family. General Sass at that time commanded on the Kuban. His policy was to meet the wily natives on their own ground: to oppose cunning by cunning, and to employ the system of espionage which they had used so successfully against the Cossacks; to fall upon them by night; to delude them by feigned retreats, and never to attack them when an attack was expected. Once he pretended to have died, after a regular course of sickness; and when the Tcherkessians had assured themselves of the truth of this report by a view of his splendid coffin, covered with the well-known hat and orders of the general, and had returned to celebrate the propitious event by an appropriate jubilee, by night, the ghost of the general, at the head of a most substantial column of soldiers, stole across the Kuban, and came down upon them 'like a wolf on the fold.' This man was a perpetual terror to the northern races. Children grew quiet at the name of Sass. He was superseded in command, however, by Williamenoff; who, in 1837, proceeded to break the spirits of the mountaineers by words such as these: 'Russia has conquered France, put her sons to death, and made captives of her daughters. England will never give any aid to the Circassians, because she depends on Russia for her daily bread. There are only two powers in the universe-God in heaven, and the emperor upon earth; and though the arch of heaven should fall, there are Russians enough to hold it up on the points of their bayonets.' But to the eastern Circassians this trumpet was blown in vain. They looked up to their hills, and laughed to scorn the paper bravery of the Muscovite. The blood that was shed at Akhulgo washed out their petty jealousies. The eloquence, the daring, and, above all, the miraculous escapes of their leader, and the success that always followed in his steps, made the mountaineers regard him with a veneration little short of idolatry. Schamyl was their messenger from God. He proved himself not altogether unworthy of their simple homage. Deep in the forests of Itchkeria he again took up his position. He surrounded his person with a bodyguard of one thousand of his hottest enthusiasts. He divided the region over which his influence extended into districts, and appointed one of his Naibs governor over each, whose duty was to make regular reports to his master, as the great head of the government. He established a system of posts for transmitting the earliest intelligence of the enemy's movements, and raised a standing army of five or six thousand men. All males, from fifteen to fifty years old, were trained continually in horsemanship and the use of arms, ready to defend their homes in case of attack, or to follow their leader in his hostile expeditions. Of ten families, one furnished the man; the remaining nine equipped him for service. Honorary orders were bestowed as the meed of the faithful; and medals, stamped with poetical inscriptions, were hung upon the breasts of the brave. When Schamyl moved abroad, his guards walled him in on every side. When he retired for prayers, thousands waited outside of the mosque in reverent silence. Then Mahomet appeared to him in the form of a dove, whispered sweet encouragement in his ear, gave him new commands, and revealed fresh mysteries of the faith, all of which he rehearsed with his wonderful eloquence to the multitudes that thronged to welcome his reappearance. YOUTHFUL FRIENDSHIPS. In youthful minds there is commonly a strong propensity for particular intimacies and friendships. Youth, indeed, is the season when friendships are sometimes formed, which not only continue through succeeding life, but which glow to the last with a tenderness unknown to the connections begun in cooler years. This propensity, therefore, is not to be discouraged, though at the same time it must be regulated with circumspection and care. Too many of the pretended friendships of youth are mere combinations of pleasure. They are often founded on capricious likings, suddenly contracted, and as suddenly dissolved. Sometimes they are the effect of interested complaisance and flattery on the one side, and of credulous fondness on the other. ware of such rash and dangerous connections, which may afterwards load you with shame and dishonour. Remember, that by the character of those whom you choose for your friends, your own is likely to be formed, and will certainly be judged of by the world. Be slow, therefore, and cautious in contracting intimacy; but when a virtuous friendship is once esta Be blished, consider it as a sacred engagement. Expose not yourselves to the reproach of lightness and inconstancy, which always bespeaks either a trifling or base mind. Reveal none of the secrets of your friend. Be faithful to his interests. Forsake him not in danger. Abhor the thought of acquiring any advantage by his prejudice or hurt. HOME FINDINGS. 'My dear Ellen, when will you endeavour to cure yourself of this disposition to untidiness? Just look what a room! A dirty handkerchief in one corner, a pair of old slippers in another; your drawers half open, with strings hanging out of some, and corners of tumbled garments peeping from others; your wash-basin full of dirty water, with the soap melting and wasting at the bottom of it; and your towels lying about, wet and crumpled, instead of being spread out neatly on the horse to dry. And-really, Ellen, you are too bad!-here is your best black dress pushed into this bandbox, all in a heap, and the crape full of creases. Oh! child, you will never be fit for anything. What a state of disorder your mind must be in, to judge by its outward manifestations!' Ellen, during this well-deserved lecture from her orderly and careful mother, sat lounging in an easy-chair by the bedside, affecting to be too much absorbed in an interesting book to hear half the reproofs addressed to her. At length she looked up with a languid air. 'I wish, mamma,' she said, fretfully, 'you would not trouble me about such trifles. I have just got to such a beautiful part of this tale, I must see how it ends. Do, dear mamma, just go into the parlour, and I will tidy away all in good time. After all, it is only a bedroom. No one ever sees it; and what does its appearance signify? One cannot spend one's whole life in keeping things neat.' 'For your own sake, Ellen, you should like to see them so. Some day or other you will sorely repent this disorderly turn. Now, do, my dear child, pay attention to what I say, and rouse yourself from that absorbing book. The morning, when active duties have to be discharged, is no time for dreaming over fictions, however beautiful. You know that we cannot afford to keep two servants, and you do not consider how much your carelessness adds to Sarah's labour, unless, indeed, when your mother makes up for your deficiencies.' Ellen made no reply, but throwing down her book with a half-groan, as much as to say, 'Oh! mamma, what a very dreadful bore you are!' sulkily began to effect sundry reforms in her littered apartment. Mrs Leece, satisfied to see that she had at length roused her daughter to a partial performance of her duty, left the room, and proceeded to the kitchen to give orders for dinner. Time went on, and Ellen, absorbed in a species of dreaminess and sentimentality that caused her to despise what she called trifles,' which term included all the small but necessary decencies of life, became more and more slatternly. Conscious of neglected tresses, trodden-down slippers, and stockings out at heels, she invariably disappeared when callers were announced; and thus it happened that she missed one caller whom she would have given worlds to see-namely, a young lieutenant, a friend of her brother's, and an old acquaintance of her own, who paid a hurried visit to Mrs Leece, on his way to his new quarters in the north. On this occasion, Mrs Leece followed her daughter up-stairs, where she found her before the glass, frantically endeavouring to get herself in order, to appear before a dashing young fellow, who had a critical eye for dress, and would have detected any deficiency. 'Come, Ellen, make haste,' said the mother. 'Henry Wilkins has inquired for you, and he has not long to stay. It would seem so odd if you did not come down to see him: you used to be such good friends.' 'I am making all the haste I can, mamma. Do look me out some clean stockings; they are in that drawer. Oh dear! there is not one without a hole in it; and I remember Henry used to be so particular, and he sees everything. Go and keep him amused, dear mamma, while I mend a pair. By the by, did you see my new slippers? I think I left them in your room last night. I will put on my clean lilac muslin. Oh dear! I shall never be ready.' Ellen's efforts were in vain. It took her so long to make herself unexceptionable in appearance, that the lieutenant's time expired, and he was forced to go. Just as she hastened down-stairs, the street-door closed behind him. She |