running over your fragmentary life;-half moody,half pleased,-half hopeful.

You come back stealthily, and with a heart throbbing with a certain wild sense of shame, to watch the light gleaming in the cottage. You linger in the shadows of the trees, until you catch a glimpse of her figure, gliding past the window. You bear the image home with you. You are silent on your return. You retire early;—but you do not sleep early.

-If you were only as you were:-if it were not too late! If Madge could only love you, as you know she will, and must love one manly heart, there would be a world of joy opening before you. But it is too late!

You draw out Nelly to speak of Madge: Nelly is very prudent. "Madge is a dear girl," she says. Does Nelly even distrust you? It is a sad thing to be too much a man of the world!

You go back again to noisy, ambitious life: you try to drown old memories in its blaze, and its vanities. Your lot seems cast, beyond all change; and you task yourself with its noisy fulfilment. But amid the silence, and the toil of your office hours, a strange desire broods over your spirit;-a desire for more of manliness, that maniiness which feels itself a protector of loving, and trustful innocence.

have

You look around upon the faces in which you smiled unmeaning smiles:-there is nothing there to

feed your d..xning desires. You meet with those ready to court you by flattering your vanity-by retailing the praises of what you may do well,-by odious familiarity, -by brazen proffer of friendship; but you see in it only the emptiness, and the vanity, which you have studied to enjoy.

Sickness comes over you, and binds you for weary days and nights;-in which life hovers doubtfully, and the lips babble secrets that you cherish. It is astonishing how disease clips a man from the artificialities of the world! Lying lonely upon his bed, moaning, writhing, suffering, his soul joins on to the universe of souls by only natural bonds. The factitious ties of wealth, of place, of reputation, vanish from his bleared eyes; and the earnest heart, deep under all, craves only-heartiness!

The old craving of the office silence comes back :— not with the proud wish only-of being a protector, but -of being protected. And whatever may be the trust in that beneficent Power, who chasteneth whom he loveth,' there is yet an earnest, human yearning toward some one, whose love-most, and whose duty-least, would call her to your side;-whose soft hands would cool the fever of yours,-whose step would wake a throb of joy,-whose voice would tie you to life, and whose presence would make the worst of Death-an Adieu!

As you gain strength once more, you go back to Nelly's home. Her kindness does not falter; every care and attention belong to you there. Again your eye rests upon that figure of Madge, and upon her face, wearing an even gentler expression, as she sees you sitting pale and feeble by the old hearth-stone. She brings flowers-for Nelly: you beg Nelly to place them upon the little table at your side. It is as yet the only taste of the country that you can enjoy. You love those flowers.

After a time you grow strong, and walk in the fields. You linger until nightfall. You pass by the cottage where Madge lives. It is your pleasantest walk. The trees are greenest in that direction; the shadows are softest; the flowers are thickest.

It is strange-this feeling in you. It is not the feeling you had for Laura Dalton. It does not even remind of that. That was an impulse; but this is growth. That was strong; but this is-strength. You catch sight of her little notes to Nelly; you read them over and over; you treasure them; you learn them by heart. There is something in the very writing, that touches you.

You bid her adieu with tones of kindness that tremble; and that meet a half-trembling tone in reply. She is very good.

-If it were not to late!

A

IV.

MANLY LOVE.

ND shall pride yield at length!

-Pride! -and what has love to do with

pride? Let us see how it is.

Madge is poor; she is humble. You are rich; you are a man of the world; you are met respectfully by the veterans of fashion; you have gained perhaps a kind of brilliancy of position.

Would it then be a condescension to love Madge! Dare you ask yourself such a question? Do you not know,-in spite of your worldliness,—that the man or the woman who condescends to love, never loves in earnest?

But again, Madge is possessed of a purity, a delicacy, and a dignity that lift her far above you,-that make you

feel your weakness, and your unworthiness; and it is the deep, and the mortifying sense of this unworthiness, that makes you bolster yourself upon your pride. You know that you do yourself honor, in loving such grace and goodness;-you know that you would be honored tenfold more than you deserve, in being loved-by so much grace, and goodness.

It scarce seems to you possible; it is a joy too great to be hoped for: and in the doubt of its attainment, your old, worldly-vanity comes in, and tells you tobeware; and to live on, in the splendor of your dissipation, and in the lusts of your selfish habit. Yet still, underneath all, there is a deep, low, heart-voice,quickened from above,-which assures you that you are capable of better things;—that you are not wholly lost; that a mine of unstarted tenderness still lies smouldering in your soul.

And with this sense quickening your better nature, you venture the wealth of your whole heart-life, upon the hope that now blazes on your path.

-You are seated at your desk, working with such zeal of labor, as your ambitious projects never could command. It is a letter to Margaret Boyne, that so tasks your love, and makes the veins upon your forehead swell with the earnestness of the employ.

"DEAR MADGE,-May I not call you thus, if