of her intellectual gifts, her exquisite beauty, her inimitable grace, his heart sunk within him, for how could falsehood dwell with so much perfection?

"Ask Grace Leydon!" continued Captain Sabretash; "ask Grace Leydon if I have told you a word more than the simple, unvarnished truth."

"How may I believe the one when thus compelled to doubt the other?" asked the Colonel.

"Doubt Grace Leydon!" exclaimed his companion, "why you might as well doubt the existence of the sun in heaven. She is all truth-all purity. Surely you must have seen enough of her vestal-like life to know that if ever there was a true-hearted woman upon earth, it is she. If Rose Somers had but half the mental graces and moral virtues of her cousin Grace, she would be an angel."

Colonel Middleton did ask Grey Leydon; but not till long afterwards. His decision of character forbade him to grieve over an unworthy object, and the moment Rose ceased to be the noble-minded being he had imagined her, he ceased to cherish his affection for her. An interview, characterized on his part by grave earnestness and sad remonstrance, and on hers by flippancy and heartlessness, terminated all intercourse between the beautiful Rose and her high-minded lover. In less than three weeks after the rupture between them, Baron de Stutenhoff had the satisfaction of leading to the altar the "belle of the season;" but long ere the honey-moon was over, he learned to his great chagrin, that the anticipated riches of his bride were to be found somewhere in the vicinity of his own large estates in dream-land. A quarrel was the immediate result of the discovery, and while the noble Baron betook him to the life of a Chevalier d'Industrie," travelling from city to city, the brilliant Rose was compelled to return to her mother's dull country residence in the character of a deserted wife.

Colonel Middleton did ask Grace Leydon; after he had learned that she was the true author and owner of the gifted volume which Rose had falsely claimed, after he had awakened from his dream of beauty to a sense of purity and sincerity, after he had learned the value of a truthful spirit and a loving heart, he asked Grace Leydon to share his future lot in life, and she became his wife-his happy and noble-minded wifecarrying into the home of her husband the talents and the virtues which had been the solace and resources of her hours of loneliness.

APRIL, 1842.

B B

266

BELLS..

"How many a tale their music tells."-Moore.

THE distant bells! the distant bells!

I hear them faint and low,

And Fancy, with her magic spells,
Is waken'd by their flow;

The billowy sounds. so deeply fraught
With memories of the past,

Stir many a sad and pleasing thought,
As on the breeze they're cast.

The school-day bell! the school-day bell!
It speaks of boyhood's birth,

And of those sunny days so well,

Of free and joyous mirth:

The hour of bright, unfettered glee;

The heart's fresh spring and bloom
Thrown by, alas! unheedingly,
For years of darker gloom.

The merry bells! the merry bells!
They're ringing o'er the land,
As Freedom with her trumpet tells
Glad news from strand to strand;
Of Victory, of triumphs proud,
That cheer a nation's breast,

And Peace, what calls the warrior crowd
Again to quiet rest.

The vesper bell! the vesper bell!

Of the soft twilight time,

'Tis mingling with the wave's light swell

Its hushed and gentle chime.

The curfew of the dying day

The herald of the night

Ah! many a soul hath wing'd its way
With that last fading light.

The sabbath bells! the sabbath bells!
With sweet and solemn sound,
Through the green fields and quiet dells
Bring holy thoughts around;

And thousands breathe the pious prayer,
In answer to their tone,

Pure incense! wafted through the air
To heaven's eternal throne.

The tolling bell! the tolling bell!

How mournful is the heart

When strikes that slow and measured knell,
Earth's strongest ties to part!

But yet though sad that requiem note

Its melancholy strain

Is the last link when spirits float

To their own homes again.

1

THE ABBEY CHAPEL.

A FRAGMENT.

THE Vesper prayers were said, and the last hymn
Sung to the Holy One. In the dim,
Gray aisle, was heard a solitary tread,
As of one musing sadly on the dead-
'Twas Julio. It was his wont to be
Often alone within the sanctuary;
But now, not so-another; it was she!
Kneeling in all her beanty, like a saint
Before a crucifix; but sad and faint,
The tone of her devotion, as the thrill
Of a moss-burden'd melancholy rill.
And Julio stood before her ;-twas as yet
The hour of the pale twilight-and they met
Each other's gaze, till either seem'd the hue
Of deepest crimson; but the ladye threw
Her veil above her features, and stole by
Like a bright cloud, with sadness and a sigh !

I'VE a secret to tell thee, but hush! not here-
Oh! not where the world its vigil keeps:

I'll seek, to whisper it in thine ear,

Some shore where the Spirit of Silence sleeps ;
Where summer's wave unmurmuring dies,

Nor fay can hear the fountain's gush;

Where, if but a note her night-bird sighs,

The rose saith, chiding him," Hush, sweet, hush!"

There 'mid the deep silence of that hour,
When stars can be heard in ocean dip,
Thyself shall, under some rosy bower,
Sit mute, with thy finger on thy lip;
Like him, the boy, who born among

The flowers that on the Nile-stream blush,

Si ts ever thus-his only song

To earth and heav'n still "Hush, all, hush!"

APRIL brings with it its usual mélange of spring and winter toilets; the heavy part of the latter is indeed laid aside, furred cloaks have disappeared, muffs are rarely seen, but the boa keeps its place, and the shawl or wadded mantelet has replaced the cloak. Shawls are indeed likely to be very much in vogue during the whole of the spring, and thanks to our Gracious