grounds that occupied the interval. Beyond this, going far away into the horizon, until it blended with the sky, there was an indistinct and wavy-mountain outline. On the west and south, villas of every architectural variety-cottage, gothic, and Venetian, diversified a fine country of hill and valley, always undulating and always varied. On the east, were the "mighty waters," coming up in breakers of snow-white foam, and covered with a thin curtain of silvery dew. There were many gallant vessels upon it, but two were especially remarkable; one upon the horizon, the other in open sea. They stood out upon the waters, as genii of the deep, girdled by the red rays of the sun, that seemed gathering up the train of his glories into one intense ball of crimson. Their sails, their cordage, their yards, their whole, was a sheet of bright flame moving majestically over the ocean, and recalling the description in holy writ, of the Spirit

animating the waters. We looked stedfastly as the bright vision moved onwards, gradually sending forth a fainter radiance, until, at the last, its borrowed light disappeared, and it faded into darkness.

"Such is the brightest life!" said my companion; "such its progress and

such and so sad must be its termination!"

"Of the visible world that is true," replied I; "but of the spiritual, it conveys no type. The soul of man puts not forth here the brightest beams of its splendour. Shall they not shine out more freshly and more fairly in higher and happier spheres? The action of the nobler faculties will there be sustained

and permanent. Obscurity, and perplexity, and fear, will have terminated; and man, rescued from ignorance and guilt, will exist a being worthy of his divine original."

"That is a glorious prospect," she said, her eye kindling as she spoke, and the

intenseness of its expression gradually increasing during her subsequent pause. "To feel that the veil, which, at present, the most gifted vision cannot penetrate, will then be drawn aside, and the system of eternal Providence revealed to the adoring mind, is of itself an incalculable blessing; and the hope-the certain hope of it is sufficient to support our race in a pilgrimage through darker and more painful paths than this earthly one.

How must a spirit, late escaped from earth,
The truth of things new blazing in its eye,
Look back, astonished, on the ways of men!"

"I have observed, on more than one occasion," said I, "your partiality to Young. Since I have penetrated a little into the mystery of your mind, I am not surprised that you delight in his lofty aspirations. What would bribe you, Miss Hastings, to relate to me somewhat of the history of that mind ?"

"You shall have all the information I am able to give you on so poor a sub

ject, without incurring the expence of any bribe whatever," she replied. At the first, she spoke coldly, as under constraint; but as her recollections carried her back into other scenes, and the realities of the past came into the present, her sense of egotism was absorbed by enthusiasm. "I can remember a very early inclination to the society of the knights and damsels of romance, and an antagonist distaste to the fine gentlemen around me, whose trim garments were, sooth to say, very tame compared to the dazzling armour which clad those giant heroes who were ever before my mind's eye. This was the taste of my very, very young heart, Sir William, and disappeared as the love of nursery legends vanishes. Then came on the fondness for scenery, and landscape descriptions, and feelings of nature too full to clothe themselves in adequate language, and unconsciously assuming the tone of poetry. At this epoch, all creation began to exhibit itself to me

in new hues and forms. I understood Shakspeare's rich perceptions of nature, his gentle touches bringing home to the heart the reviving freshness of green trees and smiling skies, and murmuring brooks, and glittering moonlight, amidst all his most rapid outpourings of passionate feeling and fiery enterprize. And then, too, I first loved to walk beneath the starry cope of the night-heaven, sprinkled with stars numerous as the golden grains of sand on the sea-beach; but sonnet and love-elegy were not adequate to the elevated and mystical tone of feeling which engrossed me then. I read, by that sacred light, the sublimest strain of the royal Hebrew poet; or the grand resignation of him of Uz, that most afflicted and most patient of men; or the denunciation of Isaiah, and his joyful calling to the far distant isles, 'to rejoice and be exceeding glad;' or the impetuous energy of Ezekiel; or the tenderness and prolonged mourning of the gentlest of the