young enthusiasm, was preparing to mount the sharp ascent; she did not unravel the mysterious roads by which the summit of that hill was attainable; but she spoke so cheerlessly, so hopelessly of life, so discouragingly of men-that Alice, as she listened so young in years, fancied she was from that hour older in experience.

How often amidst her young studies the grave volume had fallen from her grasp; and she had so gently thought of life,-so ardently thirsted to see more of it,—so longed to converse with the free-heartedthe blithe how she longed to see the sons and daughters of fashion and pleasure in their gay gilded halls of mirth!-she felt as an alien from their presence, and a secret fount of vanity told her she was so well adapted to add a bright star to the spangled hemisphere of beauty.

The mother's words slightly damped the

young girl's ardour, she thought less blithely of fashion and pleasure; but she never could, she thought, mistrust men,—not, at least, if they were all like Lord Cunnington.

Meanwhile the nobleman was a constant

guest at the cottage; he knew not why he kept his fair friends unknown to his amiable wife; but there was so much beauty,-so much artlessness in both, that Lord Cunnington feared, even his high-minded wife might hardly believe that no sentiment, save bonds of Christian sympathy, cemented the strangely-formed acquaintance. Sometimes he half determined boldly to ask a few questions, but the very approach of any inquisitorial discourse brought vivid blushes to the usually pale cheeks, and tears to Mrs. Lemington's mild eyes; and as few men, without strong reasons or hardness of heart, can bear to gaze on woman's sorrow, the nobleman turned the

conversation, and was as far as ever from

attaining his object.

Mankind is naturally insatiably curious; some writers accord most curiosity to the female sex; let us, je vous prie, bons lecteurs, make a compact, and say, "men are as bad as women."

Perhaps, in affairs of the heart, man is more disposed to satisfy his curiosity by exalting rather than debasing woman; whilst the fair sex, when judged by the uncertain curiosity of its fellow-sex, is too often illiberally censured.

The pages were for ever sealed, those pages Lord Cunnington longed to read in the book of Mrs. Lemington's heart; but to do the nobleman justice, never had he harshly judged her; the severest comment his liberal heart had ever made, was that some women are habitually taciturn and constitutionally romantic.

But the fearful inroads of melancholy had done its deed-the lovely features slumbered in death-Mrs. Lemington was more, and with her was her secret buried.

No longer did false scruples of delicacy keep Lord Cunnington silent; and his Christian-minded, his high-souled wife, as liberal as himself, gently chided the delinquent for keeping a secret from her-chided him with a smile, and forgave him with an embrace, accompanied by the words, "Silly, silly fellow, to think I could be jealous-jealous of Lord Cunnington's virtuous heart!"

If the reader remembers Lady Cunnington's first conversation with Alice Lemington, he must recollect that Lady Cunnington knew more of the orphan than did her lord, but she had some reason for her secrecy; and when the young girl refused Augustus Cunnington, Lord Cunnington, his father, had said coldly, "She had wisely done."

Yes, he had said it from the depths of his heart; he had exposed the only weakness which filled it, his never wavering love for ancestral pride; but now all was changed.

The man reared in pomp from the cradle, fostered in wealth, surrounded by power; the man around whose brows parliamentary fame had placed its never-dying laurelwreath; the man who had merited public eulogium, and shared the friendship of the noblest of the land, he was now in those boasted ancestral halls, but not in the pomp of his greatness, he was suffering, perhaps dying; the buzz of the busy world was heard dimly through the channel of the public papers, which strewed his room; but prostrate in strength, weakened in spirits, every thought of pride was changed. Of what avail, he thought, would pride be beyond the life which seemed every moment