"I believe," she continued, "that the true Christian may enjoy a degree of peace, which almost deserves the name of rest, even in this life. It is not so much the fault of the world as of our own hearts, that we are so tossed about by contending interests, and worn by paltry cares and vexations. If we first love God, and then the creatures he has formed after his own image, we shall be able to regard the world, of which they form a part, without either attaching to it the importance that is felt only by servile minds, or the contempt which is assumed along with a pretence to superior wisdom; but if we first love the world, we shall find neither time nor ability to devote our thoughts to the author of it; and, however faithful our service may be, we must still look to the world for our reward, and to a jealous God for our punishment.

“Let me warn you, my dear friend, against too great a sacrifice for the sake of pleasing. It is an amiable desire which leads you on, but you must have learned by this time the utter impossibility of gratifying all the wishes of all your friends; and there is an economy of time and thought which is necessary in order that we may husband our powers for more useful purposes. Nothing can look more like virtue at first sight, than to spend all your time, your thoughts and talents, in the service of others; but may not these valuable faculties and possessions be frittered away in things of very trifling importance, when they might, with just the same degree of kind and generous feeling, be more bene ficially employed?"

The evening was now growing late, and, as hour after hour passed on, Helen became more grave and silent, until her cheerfulness entirely gave way, and she could speak on no theme but one.

"My friend," said, she, "you are with me now for the first time in my hour of weakness -the midnight hour-when my brother has not returned!"

She was pacing to and fro in her narrow apartment, and I had no consolation to offer,

except a few empty words of hope that he would soon be here.

"He will, I doubt not," she answered"but how?"

I had never beheld him except as a man of dignity and refinement, and was unable to picture him, even to my imagination, in any other character.

"We are all that are left of a fallen family," she went on," the last of a blighted name; but this would be nothing if my poor brother could but lay down his head at night with the blessing of Heaven upon his slumbers.

The midnight hour was now passed, and Helen was still pacing to and fro with weary and irregular steps. Her hollow cheeks had grown more pale and haggard, from the want of natural repose; and her dark eyes more bright and flashing, with the fever burning in her veins. Her long raven locks had been thrown back from her forehead, as if to lighten the burden of her brain; and it might be with a slight touch of impatience, arising from her disorder, and the many, many times she had paced the floor at the same hour of night, when no eye was upon her save that which seeth in darkness as at noon-day.

Oh! were it possible for man to penetrate the recesses of woman's heart, to know all her fervent love, her deep anxiety, her burning hopes, her aching fears, her devotedness, her zeal, her forgetfulness of self, he would surely sometimes tear himself away from that fellowship which is not of the heart, to mitigate her anguish, and snatch her from a premature but lingering death!

The brother of this incomparable woman came at last-and how? We heard the tread of many feet, and one rude laugh, before the bell was wrung with a violence that made us start; for Helen had been so careful that all the inmates of the house should be asleep, and unconscious of what might pass, that we had spoken softly and seldom for the last hour. She now took up the lamp in silence, and beckoned me to follow. I did so, and received it from her hand when we had reached the door, which she unbolted as

quickly, and with as little noise as possible. I had seen her a few moments before, languid, weary, and almost helpless as a child; but she now stood in a commanding attitude before the jovial crew, who controlled their boisterous mirth at her presence, while she received her brother, reeling from their arms, steadied him along the passage, and up stairs, without a word, except to tell me to bar the door and remain below; and if my sister should call, to go quietly, without waiting to see her again.

with such a look of love and pity as I imagine ministering angels wear, when they go forth upon their errands of mercy.

Soon after this I heard the sound of carriage wheels, and, in a few moments, was listening to my sister and my cousin, relating the various amusements, literary and intellectual of the past evening. "How differently the same evening may be spent!" thought I, and was silent.

Had the brother of my friend been a man of generally depraved conduct, or dissolute manners, the fatal spell which bound me to

The woman who continues to love the man whom she has seen intoxicated, proves, beyond a doubt, one of these two factseither that she has no true sense of what constitutes the dignity of the human mind, or that her love is love indeed.

It was not long before Helen returned, still pale; but now that her faint hopes were over, and she had nothing more to fear, calm, patient and resigned, with the active assiduity of an affectionate nurse, she stirred the fire, and made ready some refreshment, as if he for whom she prepared it was worthy of her tenderest care; nor was I forgotten in her solicitude for him. While waiting for the boiling of the water, she turned towards me, and holding out her hand-"My poor friend," she was beginning to say,—but we both knew it was no time for words; and the next moment I felt her tears upon my cheek. "When will you be able to find rest for yourself?" said I.

She smiled, but made me no answer. "Dear Helen, you cannot drag on life in this manner."

"I have existed in this manner for two years," said she; "you see I have a great deal of strength left;" and so saying, she took up the coffee, and smiled as she passed me,

been broken on the first discovery that such was his real character. But he was at this time the victim of one vice only, into which he plunged in a sort of desperation, brought on by his altered circumstances, and his want of right principle to bear them with fortitude; and this vice had not yet been long enough in operation to produce the natural and inevitable consequence of vitiating the whole heart, of extinguishing every hope, and expelling every laudable desire. He had his seasons of penitence, of which I was not unfrequently a witness;-his visitations of agony and remorse, in which he would appeal to his sister and to me for that encouragement which I, at least, was unable to offer. But Helen had looked upon the vicissitudes of life with a deeper sense of the merciful dealings of providence than I had. As we journeyed through the wilderness together, she was to me like a blessed messenger, who brought tidings of wells of water when I was faint and despairing.

To

"You see," she would often say, "my brother has not yet lost his love of virtue. you I need not point out the delicacy and tenderness of his regard for those whom he is able to respect."

"While this remains," I replied, "there is hope."

"There is hope to the very last," she answered. "There was hope for the thief upon the cross, when he appealed to the crucified Jesus; and there is hope for the sinner in his dying hour. I own my spirit faints within me at every fresh instance of ingratitude and

alienation of the heart from God; but I know that he continues to be merciful, and that when we are weak and powerless to assist each other, he has often his own wise and gracious means, inscrutable to the understanding of man, by which he calls back his wandering sheep, and appoints his servants at the eleventh hour."

With this melancholy attachment, kept alive by alternate hope and fear, still praying upon my heart, I dragged on a comfortless existence; but so great was my proficiency in the art of managing my countenance, my voice, and my whole demeanour, that I could still laugh with the merry, sigh with the sad, argue with the contentious, sentimentalize with the poetical, reason with the profound, and trifle with the gay; indeed I could accomplish all the business of life (for of mine this was the business) without betraying the real state of my heart and affection. There was one thing, however, I could not do-I could not sit down with a confidential friend, and talk over in perfect openness and freedom, some of the topics which had been wont to interest me most. Here I was at fault; and consequently some of my friends thought me less agreeable than formerly; and no wonder; for to be generally pleasing in society, it is necessary that the heart should be free from absorbing care; and what cause can be so productive of care, perplexity, and distraction of thought, as an unfortunate and ill placed attachment?

may seem childish or romantic to dwell thus upon the continuance of a passion, proverbial for its lightness and buoyancy; but there are hearts from which, though the cause may be forgotten, its melancholy effects will never be effaced.

As I was one day sitting under the dispensation of a long story, told for the twentieth time by an old foxhunter, a note from Helen Grahame was put into my hand. I affected to receive it with perfect indifference, and folded it in my fingers, with my head turned towards the sapient narrator for full five minutes longer. At last, after help ing him to laugh, as I had often done before, at what he called a capital joke put upon the village schoolmaster, I took an opportunity of escaping, and opening the note in my own chamber, read as follows:

"Come to me as soon as possible, and bring a physician with you, for my brother is dangerously ill."

A slight line was drawn through this, and another sentence hastily added:-Come alone: the physician must not find you here."

With trembling steps I hurried on to see my friend, and share in her anxiety, however deep its cause might be. I found her watching beside her brother, whose flushed countenance, burning hand, and wandering eye, bespoke an alarming state of irritation. A dangerous fever was pronounced to be his malady; and all the little consolation I enjoyed, and which Helen was too generous to deny me, was that of providing, out of the liberal allowance with which my father indulged his children, those comforts and necessaries that would otherwise have been be

It

true affection," she said, "as to deny you this gratification; especially as my own recources, depending upon my daily labours, are now cut off. I once enjoyed the happiness of giving; and from what I remember of it, I know that you are more blest than I in receiving."

The fear of exciting suspicion prevented

"I prayed (for I was not naturally selfish) that this might be accomplished, even if I myself were struck out of the account, and if it should be effected without any instrumentality or participation of mine.

Well may it be said of the human heart, that it is deceitful above all things, when it can deceive us even in prayer. I thought, at the time, that I should not only be satisfied, but happy, if my prayer was granted. I was tried, and the weight of my disinterested zeal found wanting.

In the course of a few weeks my friend was restored to peace of mind, and her brother to the full possession of his mental powers, though still much reduced and enfeebled. Helen told me almost in an ecstacy of joy, that he had often requested her to read particular passages from the Bible to him during his illness. She had sometimes feared this might be only the wandering of delirium; but we both now observed that his conversation, though he spoke seldom, was much altered.

I was left alone with him for a short time one evening, when he addressed me very seriously, requesting that I would not question him as to the state of his mind and feelings.

"I cannot bear it now," he added. "I have passed through a great deal besides the agony of disease; and I would not willingly have my thoughts interrupted."

My friend and I now rejoiced in secret and alone, and the gratitude with which I

CHAPTER VII.

GRAHAME was restored to health, and to a better government of his mind and conduct. I still continued my short but frequent visits; for debility, and the want of any useful employment, with a distaste for the company of his former associates, kept him a close prisoner: I therefore made sure of finding himand finding him all that I could desire he should be. Was it so? Alas! while the cup of joy which my friend partook of was filled without alloy, there were certain drops of bitterness in mine, which I could neither describe to another, nor reconcile to myself. While the feelings of Grahame towards his sister were animated with fresh warmth and gratitude, there was something in his behaviour, imperceptible it might be to one who did not love, but oh! how changed to me! It might be nothing more than an alteration in the cadence of the voice, every tone of which had established in my heart its own distinct and peculiar echo; or the averted eye, which told too plainly, what no one else could understand-the chain of sympathy broken, and broken for ever. But I had nothing to complain of. I could not tell the friend of my soul that her brother's voice was changed, and that he did not look at me as he was wont: nor was the change so marked as to entitle me to ask for an explanation.

It was not long before my friend told me that her brother's altered views had stimulated him to seek some regular employment, by which he might become a more useful member of society. I thought he might have first mentioned this to me; and when I found that my father was the person he had chosen to consult respecting his future proceedings, I felt doubly pained at being thus completely excluded from his confidence. Still as there never had existed between us any kind of engagement, beyond what was implied in a mutual acknowledgement of regard, I could not, in common delicacy, demand what I had never before doubted was my right.

My father communicated to my sister and myself together the first intelligence I heard, that he had agreed to find employment for Grahame in the bank; “for," said he, (and I inwardly blessed him for the words) "I firmly believe him to be an altered man; and his talents for business, if he will but use them, no one can doubt."

I felt my face beginning to tell its burning secret, but I had a ready way of extricating myself from all such emergencies; and after tying up a drooping rose, which had suddenly attracted my attention in the adjoining green-house, I returned when my cheeks were cooler, and assured my father that Helen Grahame's description of her brother was so favourable, that I did not think those who trusted him now would find him unworthy.

"I wish it may be so," observed my cousin Jane. "I should be very careful how I trust ed him."

My sister spoke more kindly, and begged my father, if he thought it would be any support to his better resolutions, to extend his confidence so far as sometimes to invite him to the house.

My hand trembled as I gathered up another rose, and I almost forgot the cloud which had lately overshadowed me, in the happiness of this moment.

of my sister, he was admitted occasionally into our family circle on terms of social intercourse. At first, I felt solicitous to conceal the degree of intimacy which had once been ours; but my apprehensions of detection were quieted in the manner I should last have desired. Had any thing of this nature been betrayed, it would have been on my part only; and I must have been miserably deficient in female delicacy and tact, had I not been willing also to forget what no longer appeared worthy of being remembered.

Once, and once only, was the subject alluded to between us. I had completed a gift, which he had himself asked of me, in days which I will not call happier, but in days when I believe I was less wretched. This gift I presented to him one day, when we were alone. He received it, I thought, with some emotion; and, addressing me once more by my name, (that sound so full of meaning,) "Caroline,” said he, “I am unworthy of this. My love has been shaken by a tempest. If it has now neither leaves, nor flowers, nor fruit to offer you, blame me not. I owe you much, and I feel that I am not ungrateful.”

"Name it not," said I. "To see you changed in heart and conduct is all I ever asked as my reward. Continue thus, and I shall be "-the happiest of women, I would have said-but my heroism forsook me, and I turned away to hide my tears.

Caroline," said he, and he laid his hand upon my arm for the last time, with a look which owed its tenderness to pity-" amongst the heavy burdens which have lately rested on my conscience, is the stern duty of telling you "

"Say no more,” said I.

"Thank you, for wishing to spare me." "It was myself I wished to spare," added; and he paused for a moment.

"You need not tell me, Grahame, that you love me no longer. It is sufficiently evident to one who can think and feel.”

"But I must tell you the cause.

With