mingled with their congratulation well-timed raillery of his timidity. Recovering his self-possession, he parried their attacks skilfully, and apologized to his wife with the adroit courtesy of a well bred man; and she, with the happy facility of habitual vanity, not knowing what his emotion meant, believed it meant something flattering to herself.

Redwood now entered on the career of politics. His wife was the bright cynosure of the fashionable world; and both were the envy of those who form their childish judgments by externals, forgetting that the most brilliant hues are reflected by empty vapours. Mrs. Redwood survived her marriage but a few years, and left at her death one child, Caroline, whom she consigned to her mother. The child was accordingly transferred to the care of Mrs. Olney; and conveyed to Charleston, S. Carolina, the residence of that lady, who evinced her grief for the death of her daughter, by lavishing on the child a twofold measure of the indulgencies and flatteries that had spoiled the mother.

Mrs. Olney's notions of education were not peculiar. In her view, the few accomplishments quite indispensable to a young lady, were dancing, music, and french. To attain them, she used all the arts of persuasion and bribery: she procured a french governess who was a monument of patience; she employed a succession of teachers, that much enduring order, who bore with all long suffering, the young lady's indolence, caprices, and tyranny. At the age of seven, the grandmother's vanity no

longer brooking delay, the child was produced at balls and routes, where her singular beauty attracted every eye, and her dexterous, graceful management of her little person, already disciplined to the rules of Vestris, called forth loud applauses. The child and grandmother were alike bewildered with the incense that was offered to the infant belle, and future heiress; and alike unconscious of the sidelong looks of contempt and whispered sneers which their pride and folly provoked. At fourteen, Miss Redwood, according to the universal phrase to express the debût of a young lady, was "brought out," that is, entered the lists as a candidate for the admiration of fashion, and the pretensions of lovers. At eighteen, the period which has been selected to introduce her to our readers; she was the idol of the fashionable world, and as completely au fait in all its arts and mysteries, as a veteran belle of five and twenty.

Mr. Redwood had received the noblest gifts of his Creator: a mind that naturally aspired to heaven, and sensibilities that inclined him to all that was pure, and good, and lovely. The worldly advantages he possessed would have been the means of happiness to a vulgar, or even an ordinary character; but they had no control over a spirit that could not endure to be limited to the objects of selfish gratification, to bound its desires and pursuits within the earthy prison-house. After a few years, he wearied of the toil and strife of political life, resigned its honours, and embarked

for Europe, from whence, after having worn out two or three years in a vain effort to escape from the demons of restlessness and ennui, he returned to his own country to seek happiness, where none but the good find it, at home. He was surprised with the ripened beauty of his daughter, but most severely mortified to find her just what he ought to have expected from the influences to which he had abandoned her. He had never felt so strong an affection for the child as would seem to have been natural. His indifference to her mother, the circumstances that preceded his marriage, and perhaps the child's resemblance to the parent, accounted in part for this want of affection; and the carelessness that was the result of it was to be expected from one governed more by casual impulses than principle.

Mr. Redwood hoped it was not too late to repair his fault. He perceived that his daughter possessed spirit and talents not quite extinguished by her mode of education and life; and for the purpose of breaking off all unfavourable associations, and removing her from the influence of her doating grandmother, he resolved on a tour through the northern states.

Mr. Redwood hoped too that this jaunt might lead to the accomplishment of a project which he had long secretly cherished; a union between his daughter and Charles Westall, the son of his earliest friend. He had transferred to the son the strong affection he bore to his father; and though

he had not seen him since his childhood, he had from report, and from an occasional correspondence, conceived the highest opinion of his character. Time and philosophy had failed to subdue Mr. Redwood's ardent temperament: he still pressed on with eagerness to the accomplishment of his wishes, flattering himself all the while that he had ceased to be the dupe of the promises which the future makes to the inxperienced and the hopeful.

Mr. Redwood and his daughter had made the fashionable tour, that is to say, had visited the lakes, Niagara, and the Canadas, and had turned their course towards Boston, when the unfortunate accident which has been mentioned put a stop to their progress, and deposited them for a while at the house of a respectable New-England farmer.

As the day closed, on which Mr. Redwood's journey had been so suddenly suspended, the fullorbed moon rose above the summit of the highest hills that border the eastern shore of Champlain. Not a vestige of the storm remained, not a cloud stained the clear vault of heaven, and the scene looked the more beautiful as contrasted with its recent turbulence. The vapour, was condensed on the low grounds, and instead of impeding the rays of the "bright queen of heaven," looked as if she had sheltered some favourite spots with a silvery mantle; and the broad lake, glad to be relieved from the stern shadows that shrouded it, smiled and dimpled in the rich flood of light that fell on its bosom, and reflected in its clear mirror the pasture-hills, covered with social herds, that descended to its margin; and the water-loving willow, the chesnut with its horizontal branches and pendent blossoms, and the little trig-birch that shadowed its brim. The location of the farmhouses planted here and there on the surrounding hills was marked by the tall Lombardy poplar, which through our country-towns is every where