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by both; and notwithstanding the entreaties and remonstrances of friends and relatives, the separation took place.

Thus was a long and apparently happy union suddenly broken. A ridiculous dispute about the future destinies of three sons, who were yet by no means in the world, had broken a tie which should have been for eternity.* And yet both the count and countess belonged to the better class of mankind, and had no faults worse than the frailties to which all are subject.

"Did you call the story amusing?" asked Louisa, sorrowfully; "it has made me very sad. I can easily comprehend how unhappiness and disagreement can affect excellent people ; but as you have made me fearful and anxious, can you not encourage and comfort me? What a fate to lose my husband's love!"

"What do you mean?" asked her aunt.

"Ah! my dear aunt; could I always remain young, I might then be certain of my husband's constancy."

"You are still in error, my beloved child; for even if you should remain beautiful, and blooming, as you are to-day, your husband's eye would become so accustomed to your loveliness, as to view it with indifference. And yet familiarity is the greatest enchantress in the world, and one of the most beneficent faëries in our home. She knows no difference between the beautiful and the ugly. The husband grows old; familiarity prevents the wife from perceiving the change. On the contrary, should the wife remain young and beautiful, and the husband bceome old, the consequences might be unhappy; for the old are sometimes jealous and exacting. It is better as it has been ordered, in wisdom and love, by the Almighty Father. If you should become a withered old woman, and your husband remain a blooming youth, how could you expect to retain his heart?"

* Something kindred with this, is the story of two Irish peasants, who, in that maudlin state where a little difference of opinion goes a great way, were occupying a position under a hedge, by a meadow-side, one pleasant summer night. They were very chatty and loving, until one chanced to remark, I wish I had as much land as I can see sky;" to which the other replied; "I wish I had as many cattle as I can see stars, this blessed minute." "Where would you put them?" asked the first, with some asperity, "I'd put 'em on your land, sure!" "Not by a sight! I'd like to see you after trying that game!" A regular fray soon came off; and when, with bloody noses and cracked crowns, they paused to recruit their wasted strength;" Now where's your land?" said the one;" and where's your cattle?" asked the other. The storm of passion subsided at once, as the ridiculous absurdity of the quarrel flashed upon them.

"Alas! I know not!" sighed Louisa.

"I will tell you," continued her aunt," two things, which I have fully proved. The first will go far toward preventing the possibility of any discord; the second is the best and surest preservative of feminine charms."

"Tell me," said Louisa, anxiously.

"The first is this: demand of your bridegroom, as soon as the marriage ceremony is over, a solemn vow, and promise also yourself, never, even in jest, to dispute, or express any disagreement; I tell you, NEVER!—for what begins in mere bantering, will lead to serious earnest. Avoid expressing any irritation at one another's words. Mutual forbearance is one great secret of domestic happiness. If you have erred, confess it freely, even if confession cost you some tears. Farther, promise faithfully and solemnly, never, upon any pretext or excuse, to have any secrets or concealments from each other; but to keep your private affairs from father, mother, brother, sister, relations, and the world. Let them be known only to each other, and to your God. Remember that any third person admitted into your confidence, becomes a party to stand between you. They will naturally side with one or the other. Promise to avoid this, and renew the vow upon every temptation. It will preserve that perfect confidence, that union, which shall indeed make you as one. Oh, if the newly married would but practise this simple duty, this secret spring of connubial peace, how many unions would be happy, that are miserable !"

Louisa kissed, fervently, the hand of her aunt, and said: "I see it all. Where there is not this implicit confidence, the pair remain, even after their marriage, as strangers. They cannot understand each other; and without mutual confidence, there can be no real happiness. And now, dear aunt, what is the best means of preserving female beauty?"

Her aunt smilingly answered: "We cannot conceal from ourselves that we love and admire what is beautiful, more than what is not; but what peculiarly pleases, what we really call beautiful, is not hair or complexion, form or colour. These may please in a picture or a statue; but in life, it is the mind, the soul, which displays itself in every look and word, and charms alike in joy or sorrow. This, too, is expected from, and alone renders worthy of love, a beautiful exterior. We find a vicious man hateful and disgusting, even if polished and elegant in manners and appearance. A young female, who would retain the love and admiration of her husband, after the

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charms of person which had attracted him have vanished, must keep bright, and in constant play, the graces of the mind, the virtues of the soul. Wisdom and prudence do not always increase with years, while faults and passions generally do. Virtue, however, cannot change. It is the same throughout eternity; unalterable, like its divine author. If, therefore, you would preserve your union inviolate and happy, upon earth, and be re-united to the beloved one in heaven, keep your heart with all diligence;' so shall you retain that spiritual beauty, that more perfect loveliness, which your husband will love and admire, long after the cheek has faded, and the form lost its symmetry. I am not a hypocritical devotee, nor an old woman, dead to all the pleasures and enjoyments of life. I am but seven-and-twenty. I enter with avidity into the pleasures and feelings of the world: but I say to you, there is no other security for enduring happiness."

Louisa threw her arms round the neck of her aunt, and kissed her tenderly.

MY MOTHER'S GRAVE.

"Full many a bosom knows and feels,
Left in the flower of life alone,

And many an epitaph reveals,

On the cold monumental stone!"

It was a mild evening in spring. The green grass, which is so refreshing to the eye at this season, was just appearing, and the early violets shed around them a faint perfume. The last rays of the setting sun, ere they bade farewell to earth, were lingering around the gilded spire of the little temple of God. The bustle and confusion which had marked the day, and the various sounds which are familiar to the ear of the rustic-the echo of the woodman's axe, the merry song or loud laugh of the husbandman-faded gradually, until a faint and drowsy hum was all that reached the ear. Nature was preparing to draw around her the robes of darkness, and to indulge a sympathetic rest with man. Who is there that cannot feel the influence of this impressive hour? Who can indulge one evil thought,

when all around is so holy? A tender melancholy steals over the soul, and the powers of memory seem to awaken, and act with renewed strength and vigour. The clouds which once darkened our horizon, again arise, but they are divested of their gloom; they again cast a shadow, it is true, but it is a shadow congenial to the soul.

"This is the hour when Memory wakes

Visions of joy, that could not last;
This is the hour when Fancy takes
Her survey of the past.

"She brings before the pensive mind

The hallowed forms of other years,

And friends who long have been consigned
To silence and to tears."

Yes; when do more tender associations cluster, than at such an hour? Where, than at the grave? At whose grave, than that of A MOTHER? When we forget all else, seldom can we forget her. Hers is the last, last "hallowed name" ever blotted out from the seared heart; and while it remains, there is HOPE; for it is the inspiring watch word, at which a host of emotions start up, and rally to the rescue of virtue. It is as a germ from which when all goodness is departed, there may still spring up and flourish a luxuriant after-growth of the affections. She indeed never proves recreant to her love; and if we forget her, our right hand should forget its cunning. Like some angel spirit, she bends over the couch of sickness, and as her soft hand is impressed upon the brow, and her soothing accents whispered in the ear, as if by some magician's spell, the burning fever appears to slacken, and the limbs toss no more in agony. Or if the hand of disease is heavily laid upon her child, and he must die, she softens the pillow of his woe, and as he feels his mother's burning tear upon his cheek, he is enabled to enter with a more courageous step, and with a serener spirit, upon the "dark valley of the shadow of death." There is nothing in nature so enduring as her love. No affection can surpass it. No time can erase it. It is unlike all other loves. That of man to woman may be equally intense; it may weave an enchantment around him; it may engross his soul, and tinge with a delicious sweetness all the springs of his existence. Perhaps it has been fanned into life by the mere charms and blandishments of external beauty, and so may decline and perish with them. However pure, perchance, and strong, may be the stream at first, it may easily be turned aside, and the waters of bitterness mingle with it.

It is unlike the affection of a father. That may feel equally,
MARCH, 1840.

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but it is less expressive. A tearless eye directed to his dying child, a word of sorrow and of pity, and he represses his rising feelings, and returns again to his business with the world. But she is ever present. The sylph-like form, the care-worn cheek, the soft, bird-like accents of her voice, impart a charm to her affection, and cause it to take a deeper root in the heart. Her love commences with the first pulsations of existence, and follows on through every change of fortune. Not so with a father's. For if a son has rebelled against him, blasted his hopes of promise, and "wasted his substance in riotous living,' he proudly resolves that he will banish him from his thoughts for ever, and that he who has proved so ungrateful as a son, shall never more enter his doors. And henceforth there is no return for the wanderer. For though drugged with the world's bitterness, he comes back in tears, and with brokenness of heart, ejaculates: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son;" how few are willing to receive the returning prodigal; to " go forth to meet him ;" to "fall on his neck and kiss him," or to "kill for him the fatted calf." The unrelenting fiat has gone forth, which makes him an alien from the halls of his father, and from the home of his youth. Dejected and penitent, he seeks in vain to enter the paternal doors. We have seen instances of this vindictive spirit and cold repulse. There are many, many thus irretrievably lost, when they might have been snatched as " brands from the burning.' How unchristian is it!-how fearfully different from that model of perfect charity, prescribed by the Saviour of mankind!

But can a mother forget her child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb?" Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms, can never alter her unalienable love. She neither fortifies herself with pride, nor steels her soul with resentment, nor shuts up the avenues of pardon, nor casts away the memory of the ungrateful. But regarding with a sorrowful recollection the days that are past, she mourns over hopes blasted, and a treasure lost; and indulging in no severe upbraidings, and no bitter taunts, she lets the wound bleed. And if ever he is made to feel his error; if, like the dove which left its only place of safety, after wandering over the waste of earth, and finding no refuge for a troubled spirit, he returns once more whence he so unkindly departed, she opens the deserted ark of her affection, and regards the olive-branch of peace. Oh! holy spirit of maternal charity! Beautiful

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