man. The image of Winklereid, with its effeminate awkwardness—tall, slouchy, book-worn, irresolute, and conceited-rose to her imagination, and suggested a similarity in their follies and their fates. Seeking each the reputation of intellect at the cost of nature, they were falling fast into solitariness and contempt-she among men, he among women: the judgment comes from the opposite sex. And now, more grieved and heart-broken than ever, she hears the full rich voice of Harry Eustis joining in delicious harmony with Clara's. There was a profound stillness; the leaves of the vines that crept into her window seemed to impose silence upon Asteria, and cruelly reproached the loud pulses of her heart. In a remote corner of the parlor, among a few of her last hope of winning the admiration of a of his intimate friends-all male-sat the tall and pensive Mr. Thomas Winklereid-a name suspected by the gossips to have once been Wrinkleweed. His forehead was high and bald; his head "intellectual," said the women; his chin "a nullity," said the men. Winklereid was a poet; stooped, quoted, and did not dance. He dressed in black, and with care; but his pantaloons-by fault of some conscientious tailor who studied the ideal more than the customer -fell badly out at the hips and knees, while the sympathizing coat made two large folds in the small of the back. Winklereid knew that much study and small exercise had "wearied his flesh," and he endeavored to supply that loss by sentiment. His voice was nasal, slightly; he talked She recognized the words, which in monologue, excusing himself by the example were English, and the air, a composition of Moof Madame de Staël; his family were proud of zart, expressing, note by note, that blending him; he was a Bostonian, but not of the order of the pure and sensuous which has raised this of the garter. Asteria and Winklereid conversed Shakspeare of music to the throne of song. often on high themes, and they were supposed Every chord of the harmony pierced her sou! by credulous gossips to be affianced. Other with the anguish of departed hopes. She seemwomen, especially little girls, avoided Winkle-ed to stand alone upon the shore of eternity, reid. By one of those odd mésalliances which happen only among young men, Winklereid and Harry Eustis were sworn and intimate friends. The one, a gentleman in all but learning, admired the vast acquisitions and full conversation of the other; while the learned man stood in secret awe of the beauty and strength of his friend, whom he esteemed ruder as he was younger than himself. The error, and consequently the respect, was equal and mutual. Winklereid fell into a brown study while Clara sang; for it was his cue to be profound and absent "when he heard sweet music." Harry, on the contrary, with a face glowing with delight, sprang forward, almost knocking Winklereid off his seat, and gave the fair singer his thanks and a well-turned compliment, blushing meanwhile at his own boldness. His learned friend thought it necessary to follow, and the delicate Asteria, mistress of all social movements, came quickly after. It was a group of four. The calm eyes of the younger woman met the glances of each, as she turned upon her seat to receive their friendly praises, and at once all were struck damb: the lightning of envy paralyzed the heart of Asteria; the modesty of youth subdued the noble mind of Harry; and the horror of false and feeble shame imparted to the tall figure of Winklereid the stiffness of a weird anatomy. Asteria was the first to extricate herself by withdrawal. Winklereid, pale with conscious awkwardness, followed Asteria. The eyes of the whole company were attracted by the beautiful embarrassment of the pair who remained. Their eyes met for an instant, and the sympathy of modest shame allied their hearts so powerfully, the lookers-on were struck with surprise at the strange resemblance that passed into their features. The night was lost for Asteria: she felt the irresistible power of youth, and retiring to her room, wept for an hour over the failure and would willingly have passed the gulf. The prospect opened only of a friendless, unrespected maidenhood, falling year after year into utter neglect. Then did she curse the learning that had impoverished her heart and left her without the woman's dowry. For an hour of pure, unthinking love she would have given all her wealth, and life into the bargain. Violent emotions are of brief endurance. The exits of the passions follow swift upon their entrances. The proud but beneficent soul of Asteria soon overcame the weakness of the hour, and the well-schooled woman of the world adapted herself to the crisis. Having washed the tears from her eyes, she drew a choice selection of music from a port-folio, and returned with it to the drawing-room. Coming softly behind Mr. Cecil, who stood observing and reading the emotions and conduct of the pair before him, who were still singing, she placed the music in his hand. It had been chosen with tact, and he acknowledged it with a smile. The guests crowded around the singers, forgetting the littleness of their own passions in the hope of still higher enjoyment. "Music," says a great but sentimental observer, "restores each one to himself." It does more: it gives us all to each other. Manners are the language of the interior soul. In a gesture or a look the whole of life is summed up. More especially in the air of leisure and refinement, when at evening we are abandoned to the social feelings, the interior life develops itself; sociality is triumphant; the heart subdues the head, and the greatest mind yields to the weakest acting in the sportive service of the passions. Asteria had learned, too late, the open secret of youth; and, by a violent change in her life, vainly endeavored to retrieve the error. By every kind of flattering attention, delicate compliment, and judicious praise she had striven with the heart of Harry Eustis, solely for her own sake. It was a general passion. She distinguished him from others only as the man who would at once satisfy her woman's ambition. She had successfully hidden her purpose. By situation and opportunity—not needed by the young and beautiful-and by the superior tact of throwing forward the finest features of her character and the most attractive graces of her person, strove to awaken in him the emotion of love. Like all young men of free habits and a simple nature, he had been powerfully drawn by this mesmerism, and floated down the stream without thought or calculation. Winklereid, pining in secret for Asteria, was noticed by her only as a companion for the intellect, and treated like a book, taken down, as it were, for perusal, and laid by with a mark at the page. Ignorant, like most scholars, both of himself and others, the sudden success of his friend Harry moved him to despair. If Harry went forward, Winklereid must retire. It was his fate, and he wore it, as children in the wicked old dame schools wore the withering fool'scap, in sullen and timid misery. The two singers received the applauses of their friends with unaccountable composure, seeming hardly to hear them. The great, calm eyes of Clara Cecil wandered over the admiring group around her until they rested upon those of her father. His countenance, even while he conversed, was sad and severe; he was observing Harry Eustis, whose glances wandered, returning furtively a thousand times to the face, hands, and form of Clara. Asteria, who saw all, divined what was passing in the minds of Harry and the father, but Clara was to her impenetrable. The woman who unconsciously triumphs over another in love is to the conquered inscrutable as a sovereign. In the younger woman there was no flutter, no vanity, no simper, not even a blush. Asteria could not fathom this profound energy. A passion too powerful for the least expression-and which so surrounded and enveloped her being, it colored all things, but was itself invisible-had risen upon the soul of Clara Cecil. But the secret force of her nature suppressed its manifestation. Again the circle closed around them, and Asteria made an effort to join her voice with theirs. The purity and force of the younger voices made hers seem harsh, and forced it into a feeble relief. Her shame and grief increased to such a choking pitch she could not continue: the listeners looked significantly at each other; and others shrugged their shoulders at Winklereid, who sat by an open window cooling his intellectual forehead against the stars. He dreaded what was to follow, the fatal and avenging waltz, which, when all else fails, is sure to punish the laggard and the awkward. Winklereid could not waltz. In point of fact, our learned friend was not a waltzing man; nature had given him a pair of long and pensive legs, which he had withered by inaction and sedentary labor. His hillock knees, weak ankles, and heel-poised foot, forbade the thrilling pleasures of the dance. As teria, on the contrary, waltzed passably, and the arm of her partner around the slender waist was like a hand clutching poor Winklereid by the throat. Music of the harp and violin sounded from the portico; the sliding-doors of the long suit of rooms were thrown back; and in a moment two exquisite figures, in all the splendor of youth, joy, and the unspeakable graces which a secret love imparts, moved into the floating circles of the waltz. The manly and powerful arm bore up the graceful girl, who, with downcast eyes, moved around him in an ether of delight, like a fair satellite around its sustaining orb; or, rather, she moved in her even maze like a swan circling on the waters of a pool. The rich dark curls of her handsome partner, his lustrous eyes suffused with emotion, the serious sweetness of his mouth, and his firm, easy motion, attracted all eyes and touched all hearts. By a strong revulsion of feeling, with a mixed impulse of generosity and spleen, Asteria, not without a secret pity, contrasted the noble figure and free air of the now-inaccessible Harry with the scholarly ungainliness of Winklereid slouching in his melancholy corner. Let us say what we will of the darker and more revolting forms of grief, there are none more bitter than those of social vanity disappointed and set aside. At length supper was announced. Men of learning, who can do nothing else, can at least eat, and even help others, in their happier moments. Winklereid made a desperate sortie from his awkward corner. Chance, always the enemy of the learned, placed him in an evil moment by the side of Clara, who thought, of course, he intended to lead her into the supperroom. The big drops stood upon his brow when he saw the error. He turned away, and offered his arm to Asteria. Here, too, fate was against him. Mr. Cecil was near, and, seeing only the first movement of Winklereid, gave his own arm to Asteria. An emotion of still greater pity touched the heart of the generous woman (is not charity great, I might almost say divine, even in the ball-room?). She gently disengaged her arm from Mr. Cecil's, giving him a look which he understood, and placed it in Winklereid's, which trembled with pleasure as she pressed it with her slender and somewhat bony fingers. As they entered the crowded supper - room they saw Harry Eustis pouring wine into a glass, which Clara held out to him. He raised his eyes to hers, which met his with penetrating rays of love, and unconsciously poured the wine over her hand. "How awkward Harry is!" whispered Winklereid, with a laugh. Asteria, regarding Harry attentively, saw him take a handkerchief from Clara; and after he had taken her hand in his own and delicately pressed away the moisture of the wine, he put the handkerchief quickly into his bosom. "I do not think so!" replied Asteria, with a sigh. Winklereid felt something chill him, which he could not comprehend. It was now late in the evening. The moon had risen, and poured a flood of silver glory over | exhausted, and nearly dead, upon the sandsthe warm and odorous landscape. Clara and her father, with a few who preferred conversation, went out under the vines of the portico. Asteria and Winklereid joined them. The rest of the company were dispersed in groups and pairs through the garden and the orchards. Harry had returned only a few weeks from a long and adventurous voyage. Cecil, who was himself a voyager in his youth, questioned him about foreign lands, and drew Harry into a narrative of adventures. By equal attractions, but different in character, the two young women listened with silent interest to the richly-colored stories of the bold and handsome raconteur. Mr. Cecil, who sat with Asteria and Winklereid in the shadow, observed the countenances of Harry and of Clara without being seen by them. When he saw the usually pale features of his daughter flushed and brilliant, even in the pale light of the moon, as the racy narrative of adventurous courage flowed over her imagination, the anticipating tears of a second approaching deprivation moistened his eyes, and raised a transient feeling of hatred against the man who had already deprived him of the hitherto exclusive affection of his daugh then, a solitary being, wandering along a wide, inhospitable shore-the rage of hunger, ill appeased with bitter berries and slimy musclesclimbing up the rocks day after day to descry a sail, which goes away, lessens to a speck, and disappears-lying down to die slowly of hunger, as it seemed, yet planning, even then, the actions of his future life, what voyages he would attempt, and then, oh then! has he drawn from his girdle the remains of a torn and wetted little book which Clara had given him when they were both children, and smiled over its stained, grotesque pictures in the midst of that awful interview with death-the hands of Clara grew cold, and a deep pallor overspread her face and bosom. Her father needed no other signs to assure him that a powerful passion had taken possession of his daughter's heart. ter. A true union between fitting natures is the ideal of art; nature seldom indulging herself in a perfect group. Let the pedant scholar love the pedant maid, their union is not more sure because a harmony of imperfection draws them together. Let brilliant manhood seek never so ardently the completion of its graces, the rare and happy marriage of true souls" only one time in a thousand puts the final hand to the beautiful design. A third time the ambition of the fascinated Asteria rebelled against her heart. She despised while she loved and pitied Winklereid, and shuddered at the contrast between the scholar and the man. Her will vibrated between love and pride. Clara's inferiority in knowledge, in years, and, as Asteria herself thought, in feature, raised an emotion of hatred, which sank into fear and shame when she observed the almost miraculous beauty of her face, while listening to the brilliant conversation of Harry Eustis. Winklereid stood silent in the shadow, a figure of abasement. The listless and dreamy tenor of his life rose before him like an avenging demon. His powerful brain turned with gnawing remorse upon itself, and he became great even by the excess of his misery. The young girl seemed to him a powerful being, adorable and superior, but whom it would be profanation for such a wretch as he to love, almost to look upon. Holding her father's hand closely pressed between her own, Clara unconsciously made evident to him what was passing in her heart. At a moment of peril, when Harry described the situations of a shipwreck-torn from the vessel by a violent sea, and falling headlong into a gulf of waters-then rising and clinging to a spardashed upon the rocks-then dragged away by the withdrawing wave-thrown at last, bruised, VOL. XXIV.-No. 140.-R The struggle between love and pride which tortured the soul of Asteria rose to its height when her experienced eye detected the evidences of emotion in the apparent quietude of Clara. She averted her eyes from the wretched Winklereid, whose feelings toward Harry became abased and slavish. The hidden generosity of his pedant nature, so long obscured by the metaphysical egotism and hollow vanity of sentiment compelled him to fall prostrate, in thought, before this courage and cheerful hardihood as before a sovereign power. His thoughts were new to him. He was heated by passions and chilled by shames and fears for which he had no name. He felt that every word from the lips and every glance from the eyes of Harry Eustis tore away some shred of Asteria's regard. Winklereid was the unconscious subject of the law that makes love follow force, and gives beauty a prize to valor. The music had continued in a soft and pleasing strain, the best accompaniment for conversation, but it jarred upon the nerves of Asteria; her soul repelled it. To Winklereid the sound of the harp and violin, light and sweet, were unmeaning, tinkling notes, mere vibrating strings and wires, and the players a company of bores. To Clara it was inaudible; she heard nothing but the voice of Harry Eustis; even her father's voice, that always compelled attention, seemed to grow weak and retire into the distance. To Harry, the half-conscious victor of the night, the music was a triumphal noise of clarions, sounding the note of favor and success. Asteria would have silenced the music; Winklereid could not have found courage to give the order through inability, just then, to look a common fiddler in the face; Harry would have sent his purse and a dozen of wine to them, had he been able. The wine, the dance, the songs; the dim recollection of moments of solitary anguish in the desert, and of the hopes that attended even his darkest hours of danger; the beautiful eyes that rested steadily but innocently upon his own, and, above all, the young, glorious passion, springing triumphant in his heart, inspired him with Ulyssean eloquence, seemingly grieving and secretly ex A kis past. Touching incidents At a little distance, on a turn of the linden Tortune and greater sufferings of brave walk, you might have seen a solemn pair-lovls were interwoven in the narrative, ating, but grieved and sophisticated; niggards of wich Asienia wept hysterically, and which had the little remnants of love they had left, and rence to move even the guarded mind of Mr. eking out the dearth with sentiment. WinkleCred. But no moisture dimmed the eyes of his reid, trembling at his own boldness for having her, the secret pride of her nature rebelled taken the delicate but rather dryish hand of abit pathos, rendered ineffectual, too, by the Asteria between his own-disgusting the innopowerful steadiness of a new passion. It was cent genius of night and love with frigid declathe man she admired, not his sufferings or his rations and stiff incoherencies. sympathies. At the close of the conversation Mr. Cecil withdrew, leaving the young people to themselves. Asteria, shrinking she knew not why from the touch of Eustis, placed her arm in Winklereid's, and they went out into the moonlight followed by Clara and Harry, who gradually increased their distance from the others, until they found themselves alone in a broad avenue of lindens leading to a summer-house. The heart of Clara expanded and grew strong when she found herself alone with her hero. He, on his part, was enveloped, as it were, in a magical cloud, beyond which he saw and remembered nothing. The heavens came down to him; he could have touched the stars with his hand: he wished to yield utterly to the enchantment, and lead thenceforth a life of dreams. He wondered at himself for having described, or even alluded to the past. He plucked a rose, and Clara, without movement or comment, allowed him to place it in her bosom. Her acquiescence astonished neither. Already, without speaking, they understood each other: it was the rise of a natural affinity that needed no explanation, and that must continue always. Though they had been separated since the childhood of Clara, it seemed as though they had been life-companions. Each had achieved a silent victory, and each became the willing servant of the other by the instincts of the soul. She followed his movements, and he hers, with a touch of air; a breath of guidance was sufficient. Here was no forethought, no scheme, no action, no test nor trial: the primal atoms rushed together by irresistible affinity-thenceforth making one power. The sensuous nature followed the spiritual, but was wholly subdued by it: there was a two-fold election. It was as the sunlight suddenly unfolds the flower that the manliness of Harry confirmed the womanhood of Clara. The timid race of contemplative lovers are overwhelmed by an ignorant perplexity; but the love of Harry Eustis was like a young heir taking possession of a grand inheritance. He trifled with his situation with her; teased her patient ear with idle questions; was more like a boy than a man. Under this treatment her proud heart bounded with pleasure, and the two sported and laughed like children in the moonlight among the roses. Such were the Eve and Adam of the first nature, and not the tall clay monsters of precocious wisdom, fit company for theological angels, painted by the glorious ped ant. Harry, recognizing no existence but his own and Clara's, stood with his arm tenderly drawn about her waist, and holding a fire-fly before her eyes: she, with her hand upon his wrists, looking alternately at the lambent flashes of his burning eyes and the sleepy gleams of the fly. Our solemn pair, pacing il penseroso, came almost in contact with their friends, not perceiving them till close at hand. They turned upon their steps and walked sadly away. "Poor Winklereid!" sighed Asteria to herself; and "Poor Asteria!" almost whispered the conscious pedant. The imperfect nature of each stood aloof, and played Minerva to the tender passion; Thought is the mother-in-law, who must not cross the threshold of young affections. Be thou never so fair and excellent, divine Thought! thou art here, in the rose gardens of true love, an intruder and a demon. Away: I hate thee!" "To marry," thought Asteria, "a pedant!" But the soul of Clara was already wedded, and she thought-nothing. "God help me!" said Winklereid to himself; "I am doing a mad thing." But in the spirit of Harry there was only the triumph of a brilliant delight. Connected ideas would have seemed dry and silly, even painful. Winklereid pressed his suit with increasing boldness; for he perceived in Asteria an agitation which he ignorantly mistook for the joyous and smiling love, whom fools have painted so forlorn. All the retrospect of her life rushed through the bright and powerful imagination of Asteria, and with deep anguish she confessed to herself that the fatal hour of decision had arrived. She must now choose between the life of a woman, or the death in life of a lamented maidenhood. She refused poor Winklereid once and again, and it was not until she saw tears of real agony coursing down his hollow cheeks that pity began to struggle fiercely in her heart with pride. His expression was that of abject terror; to be refused was the crash of doom: "he would walk lonely and solitary the remainder of his days." She relented and gave him hope. At the moment when Harry, seeming half serious half in jest, had kissed the lips of his cousin, which sprang naïvely and kindly to meet the delicious salutation, Asteria allowed Winklereid to press his cold and sallow mouth to her hand. Soon he ventured upon her cheek, and, to his own amazement, found his arm encircling her delicate waist. There let us leave them, and draw the curtain upon the pedantic struggle between sentiment and sensuosity, between vanity and Winklereid has won his Asteria, con nature. quered for him by powers unseen, but in which | som with such violence that he fell over upon he had small part. The two pairs shall hence- the floor. Of course a scene ensued. Poor forth be as they desired; but differently in the Brummagem was not much hurt, but his shirtway of life. The one perfect and beautiful-front, waistcoat, and face were dripping with glorious to look upon, and yielding the rich and claret, which gave him a bloody and horrible solid fruit of beauty and of strength; the other, appearance. loving always, but with a struggle and a fear, growing quickly old, and giving back to nature, in return for their meagre and feeble love, children of no mark, without force or promise. Think we never so finely, Nature will have her The quiet-looking stranger, and it was he who had hurled the bottle, proved to be the late Duke of Osune, one of the first grandees of Spain. The Duke had been educated in England, and spoke the language perfectly. He was going to Naples, where his family had been Viceroys while Naples was a dependence of Spain, and where they still have immense possessions. Osunes are one of the wealthiest families of Spain. It is said that they can travel by land from Madrid to Naples, and yet sleep every night in their own house. The Nothing further came ofthis adventure. Brummagem washed himself, changed his clothes, and -apologized. It is to be hoped that the lesson was not thrown away upon him, although the claret was. sionally you fall in with one who sails under false colors, and would readily pass for an Englishman if he did not declare himself. How tray one. I remember once traveling something like a fortnight with an Englishman whom I had picked up at Brussels, and who took me for a countryman of his own. Nothing for a while occurred between us that required or even suggested an explanation. One day, after I had been making some remark, he looked at me intently, and exclaimed, I once made the voyage from Marseilles to Civita Vecchia, the port of Rome, in a French Government steamer. She was crowded with If a person desires to avoid hearing unpleasant passengers of all nations. Among others there things, he had better let it be known of what was a very garrulous Englishman of middle age, country he is when he falls among strangers. who soon informed all who cared to listen that Americans are generally unmistakable, at least he was from Birmingham, had never been out to each other and to Englishmen, by their featof England before in his life, and was now goingures, dress, accent, and language. But occato spend the winter in Italy for the benefit of his health, being a martyr to dyspepsia. Nothing in his appearance indicated ill health; he was a large, florid-complexioned man. Before dinner-ever, very slight indications will sometimes betime of the first day he had made the acquaintance of most of the English and Americans on board. At table I had a seat a few removes from him on the same side; between us were three or four of his countrymen or mine. Nearly opposite to him was a very quiet, simply dressed, but distinguished-looking gentleman, to all appearances an Englishman. His complexion and hair were light, he wore his beard à Anglais, and his clothes were of unmistakable London cut. He seemed quite alone, and, so far as I observed, did not speak with any one. During all dinner-time Brummagem rattled away like a perfect magpie. At length he got to expressing his opinion about different nations in a way that made me very nervous lest he should get himself into trouble in so mixed a society. Of course, according to his creed the English were the gods on Mount Olympus, so superior in all respects to poor Continental mortals that any comparison, except of the latter among themselves, was ridiculous. The French were this, that, and the other. Fortunately the Captain, who sat quite near him, at the end of the table, did not understand English. The Germans were worse than the French. The Italians were worse yet. "But of all the blackguards," he went on to say, "that can be found in Christendom, the Spaniards are the greatest." Hardly were these words out of his mouth when bang from the other side of the table came a bottle of red wine, striking him upon the bo “It isn't possible you are a Yankee!” "What makes you think I may be one," I asked, with a smile. "Only because you just now pronounced a word in a manner that I never heard it pronounced in my life except by Yankees. You said often, sounding the t, instead of ofen." There is another word which is a sure test. Englishmen pronounce "nephew" as if it were written nevew. Americans as if it were written nefew. I was very much amused once with a little circumstance that occurred to me in a voyage down the Danube. The boat was small, and there were only about half a dozen civilized passengers among us, not including a Russian Prince, who was decidedly barbarous. Among them were a Mr. and Mrs. Ps, a young English pair of good family and large fortune, who were on their way to the East, and a Mr. T P-, a youth just from Oxford, whom I had met at Vienna, and son of a former Lancashire member of Parliament. Mrs. Ps was a very nice little woman indeed, full, however, of good-natured aristocratic prejudices against |