THREE DOLLARS PER ANNUM.

SELECT TALES.

THE WEDDING SLIPPEPS.

BY MISS RUSSELL MITFORD.

ONE of the shortest and dreariest days in January was drawing to a close. Snow had fallen some days previously, and glared upon the roofs of the houses in the irregular and picturesque old town of Belford Regis, and lay mixed with ice, and trodden into a sort of a wintry dust upon the highway; snow, too, was visibly hanging in the gray and gloomy sky, waiting only for milder weather-for the hour when the mild south-west would

steal upon the bleak north-east-to come down in a world of white, feathery flakes; and to cover the earth with its bright, level, uniform beauty. The streets, though not yet lighted, were almost deserted of carriages and passengers, except, indeed, the well-wrapt little boys and girls tripping rapidly from school, with cheeks almost as red as their red comforters, and the noisier and merrier troop of happy, ill-clad urchins who came frisking and shouting from the pond on the top of the hill, where they had been keeping the cold at bay by sliding and tumbling upon the ice, and pelting eac hother with snow balls; making, as it were, a playmate of the frost; and excepting careful servant maids, wending with cautious speed over the slippery pavement, laden with smoking dishes from the bake-houses; or hurrying pot-boys, or slower milk-men, rattling their jingling commodities up against the icy steps of the doors, or the iron railing of

the areas.

In a word, it was at the close of a winter's day, that the morning influx of customers having intermitted, the shopmen and apprentices of Mr. Morris, the greatest haberdasher in Belford, had retired to warm their fingers in their own apartment-preferring the bright fire of the open grate to the smoky heat of the stove-after returning to their shelves-nicely folded up the numerous articles taken down to gratify the fastidiousness or the caprice of lady customers, (for men, to do them justice, seldom give this sort of trouble) leaving in the dusky range of show-rooms, rendered ten fold more gloomy by the waving drapery which darkened the windows and swayed to and fro in the twilight, only two individualsa respectable looking elderly man, who, mounted upon a high stool, was seated at a very business-looking railed desk, employed in writing, by the light of a single taper, in an equally business-like, tall, thick book, bound in calf-skin; and a young man, particularly well looking and gentlemanly, whose likeness to the former sufficiently marked their relationship, and who stood at his side, pretending to be occupied in arranging a drawer of rich satin ribbons, which he was rolling and unrolling, and doing unconsciously his very best to spoil, in the eagerness of his appeal to his father's feelings.

"Yes, sir, it is but too true, and a thousand times has she urged the fact upon me-that poor Elizabeth is only a servant maid in the family of our good rector, Mr. Sumner. A servant she certainly is, but a most honest and trusty one. Mrs. Sumner was so struck by her intelligence and sweetness, above a dozen years ago, among the girls at the Green School, that she took her home to her own house, partly to attend and partly to play with her elder children. She shared their advantages of education-not indeed, the accomplishments which were

unfitted for her station, but those better and rarer advantages which regard the cultivation of the mind and the formation of the character; and Mr. Sumner's opinion of her has been proved sufficiently by his having, since the death of his excellent wife, and the marriage of his eldest daughter, committed the direction of his house and of his two younger daughters unreservedly to her charge. A servant she is, but one accustomed to the management of a large family, to the keeping of the most elaborate and correct accounts to the prudent and careful expenditure of money-so every thing, in short, that is most desirable in a tradesmam's wife. I speak now merely in a worldly point of view, and say nothing of the beauty, the sweetness, the grace and the modesty which make her an object of admiration wherever she appears."

"She has no money," replied Mr. Morris, suspending for a moment his pen over the book in which he had apparently been assiduously engaged in making various entries during his son's harangue. "She has no money!"

"Then her taste and skill in female apparel. You know, sir, how often you have said that if my poor sisters had lived, you would have added millinery and dress making to our business, and converted some part of our large premises up stairs into show rooms. How often I have heard you say that 'one branch of trade helped the other; and that our opposite neighbor, Mr. Welsh, would not be able to keep his shop open against us if it were not for his wife's caps and bonnets. Now, Eliza

beth's taste and Mr. Sumner's connexion-"

"She has no monǝy, Edward, she has no money." "Neither had she, sir, two years ago, when in consequence of Master Arthur's venturing upon ice too weak to bear his weight, I had the happiness of being of use to her and her charge. Mine is no love of yesterdayno concealed or clandestine attachment. We have met openly at the institution lectures; have walked together on summer evenings. Mr. Sumner, without any verbal recognition of our engagement, has often, after church on a Sunday, virtually sancsioned it, by smiling and significant invitations to accompany Elizabeth and the children to his house; nay, even you yourself, by your manner of speaking of her and to her, have led me to think that you considered her as a daughter. You are too keen an observer, too kind and faithful a father not to have seen the state of my affections, and I thought you too wise and too liberal to set a little paltry money in competition with the happiness of a whole life, or to wish me to break my plighted troth to one whom I so dearly love to one who loves me-to marry, I know not who, for the sake of adding needless pelf to our already flourishing fortunes. I had thought your only son was dearer to you than money. But I was mistaken; you hold my honor and my welfare at no higher price than this gaud." And he threw from him in bitterness of spirit the roll of ribbon which he had been so busily rolling and unrolling.

The pen dropped from his father's hand. "You are mistaken, Edward," said he, in a low voice, which was interrupted for a moment by a sound well known to te inhabitants of Belford-the deep, hoarse cry of "shoes! old shoes!" from beneath the window.

"You are mistaken, my dear son, not only in relation to my feelings, but my circumstances. The fortunes of

VOLUME 111.-NUMBER I.

the poor half-starved wretch who is calling 'old shoes,' through the winter snow, are more flourishing than are mine. Without your aid I am a bankrupt!"

Another hoarse, deep cry of "shoes! old shoes-shocs to buy-shoes to sell-old shoes!" gave to the agitated father the pause which his feelings required. His son was too much absorbed in astonishment and horror for speech; he could only listen in silent agony to a story which seemed to him rather like a frightful dream than a stern and waking reality. Mr. Morris continued:

"You were too young when your blessed mother died to remember her distinctly; and your poor sisters, gentle and amiable as they were, inherited rather her delicacy of constitution than her vigor of mind. Far above me in birth, in education and in cultivation, she was left destitute at the age of seventeen by the sudden death of her father, a dignified clergyman; and I owed the blessing of her hand ciefly to her desire to procure for her twin brother a home and a protector. Before our marriage she made me promise to treat William Arnott as my own younger brother, as my own eldest son; to be to him as a friend, a guardian, a father; and of this solemn promise she requested a renewal on her death bed. Heaven and you, my son, pardon me if I have kept it too faithfully!

Let me make short of this wretched matter, I placed him as clerk in a banking house in the city, where, as you know, he soon rose to be cashier. I and another friend of my family were his securities, and all seemed fair and prosperous. Three months ago he came to me in an agony of guilt and despair. He had been speculat'ng in the share market. He had embezzled a large sum belonging to the firm, and unless it were replaced by a certain day, his liberty, his character, life for never, he swore, would he survive the loss of reputationwere destroyed. Could I then hesitate? Even had I abandoned him to his fate, I was equally ruined, since the house would have come upon me and upon the friend who at my pressing instance had joined me as his bondsman, to indemnify them for their loss. The sum wasto a man in my station, enormous, exceeding by some thousands, the earnings of five and twenty years that I had passed in business. The deficiency was, however, raised for me within the stipulated time, by our friendly solicitor, Mr. Byrne, who happened to have, at the time, a client who was willing to lend the money upon my personal security, and this house, with the stock and the furniture. I gave him a bill of sale on all my effects; and was considering whether to break the matter to you, or to go upon credit, and leave the result to time, when Mr. Byrne made me, two days ago, a most unexpected overture from the friends of a young person with a portion of five thousand pounds, who, although informed of my difficulties, were yet willing to marry her to you, willing to pay off the debt, requiring nothing but a settlement of the rest of the money, and an arrangement, as to partnership, which I should have been too happy, under any circumstances, to enter into. I have never seen her-I do not even know her name; but she is, they tell me; young, well-educated and amiable a tho roughly good and amiable girl."

"Oh, my father, do with me as you like! But yet, Elizabeth, dear Elizabeth, dear, dear Elizabeth!' "You would rather, then, be poor and happy with her whom you love, so be it, my dear som. Go to your Elizabeth. See if she is willing to share your poverty; or else wait until some prospect may arise which may in some sort authorise your union. The unhappy man whose imprudence has been our ruin, spoke of a person whose defalcation had ruined him, and who might, who probably would hereafter make good the sums for which he was engaged. He has repeated this expectation in a letter which I received from him last week. But that hope is too vague to build upon. See Elizabeth-disclose to her, unreservedly, the position of affairs-I feel that with her, the confidence will be sacred-and then act as you see good. Put me out of the question. I am still strong and healthy, and capable of earning my bread as a shopman.".

"O father! never, never!' interrupted Edward, with a sharp and sudden revulsion of feeling. "Even if I were so undutiful, so unnatural, she would not consent, I know she would not. Often and often has she said that she felt our marriage would never take place; that it never ought to take place; that your son, the son of the most respectable tradesman in Belford, ought not to be united to a poor girl from a charity school. And now that the union can only be accomplished by depriving you of your home, by sending you out in your old age as a hireling-oh, she would never hear of it would never bear the thought!"

"Go to Elizabeth," repeated Mr. Morris, in a smothered voice, pressing his son's hand between his own, with an energy that betokened the struggle of his feelings" go and consult with your Elizabeth."

And as the shopman and apprentices came flocking in, and the lighted gas gave a glittering brilliancy to the rich and gaily decorated shop, radiant with shawls and silks and ribbons of a hundred varied hues and a group of customers, gay country ladies, who wished to choose an eveming dress by candle light, appeared at the doorhe escaped into the street with an instinctive desire for solitude, and almost unconsciously took the road to St. Michael's Rectory.

The lamps in the street shops were now burning, and showed, with a most striking effect of light and shade, the fantastic outline of the picturesque old town-the icicles hanging from the eaves, and the windows already covered with icy frost work. The pavement was again alive with passengers-men and women hurrying to the Post Office; sleighs and carriages gliding with a sort of dull, rumbling sound, along the snowy road; and a stage coach emptying itself of its freezing passengers at " Red Lion;" a man with periwinkles, and a woman with hot chestnuts, each so muffled, (the man in a frieze cloak, and the woman in a dread-nought coat, that) it would have puzzled an Edipus to decide betwixt the he and the she; one little girl lingering longingly in the wake of the periwinkles; two great boys burning their fingers in a bold attempt to filch the burning chestnuts-and other children rushing aimlessly along, shouting and bellowing as if to scare the cold. Men were thumping their feet upon the ground and buffeting their chests with their arms to restore the circulation; women were chattering, dogs barking, beggars begging, fiddlers scraping, bells ringing, knockers tat-tat tatting;-in short, all the noises of a wintry evening, in a country town, were in full activity.

from some uncurtained window that overhung the river. The snow lay in drifts upon either shore, marking the long perspective, and glanced upon the suburban cottages, and the distant country, edging into gentle uplands, hardly deserving the name of hills, that closed the prospect, strongly relieved, at the present moment, by the dark and dusky sky. In spite of his distress and preoccupied mind, poor Edward, who had probably, without knowing any thing of those rare gifts, the poet's feeling and the painter's eye, could not help stopping a moment on the centre of the bridge, to contemplate so fine an effect of chair oscuro, so striking and beautiful a picture, composed almost without color-by the nice contrast of light and shade.

chael's church every Sunday morning and afternoon, as regular as yourself. Jew! 'Tis an extrordinary compliment you idle folks pay to that tramping race, that, whenever you meet a body who takes care of the main chance, and turns an honest penny you call him a Jew. Well, Master Edward, you'll see that you'll come to me. for your wedding slippers." And so saying, Isaac shouldered his bag again, and left the path free.

At another moment, Edward would have smiled at the old man's acute observation of the direction of his glances in church, and his preserving endeavor to gain a customer founded on that observation; but his thoughts were too painfully divided between his father and his mistress his duty and his love; and during his rapid walk to St. Michael's rectory, he could only resolve to

While he stood admiring the scene, he was overtaken by the old man whom he had heard a short time previ- be guided in all things by the judgment and feeling of ously, crying, "shoes! shoes!" under the window of Elizabeth.

his father's shop, and whom he had passed just before, She received her lover with all the gentle self-posseswhile engaged in chaffering for some of his commodities |sion-the calm and serious sweetness, which characteriwite an orange woman, whose barrow was stationed at zed her manner, and which had been partly, perhaps, the end of the bridge.

This itinerant shoe merchant was, as I have said, well known to the inhabitants of Belford by the name of old Isaac; and from his name, his calling, his keenness at a bargain, as well as from his quick black eye, acquiline nose, and a greater proportion of beard than is usually suffered to adorn a Christian countenance, was gener

the cause, partly the result of the confidence placedin her by Mr. Summer. His father had, to suit his purpose, forced himself to advert to her situation and her origin in his conversation with his son; but Edward felt proudly that there was no trace of the charity school or of the servant's hall in this lovely woman who stood before him with a simple and unaffected propriety-in a higher rank

ally reported to be a Jew. He was a spare old man, of it would have been termed dignity-that would have the middle height, somewhat stooping, but with a pic- beseemed a palace! His distress was immediately visi

turesque and richly colored head, surmounted by an old slouched hat His patched and faded garments were well nigh hidden by two enormous bags, in which he carried the old shoes which he bought, and the new one, or soi disant new, for he was a great man at his avocation, and had the art to "gar auld shoon look maist as guid's the new "-which he sold.

"Buy a pair of warm slippers, master, on this cold night!" quoth Isaac. "Wedding slippers, fine enough for a lord,"

"Nothing this evening," said Edward, "Have 'em a bargain, master," persisted the man of the shoes.

"I am not in want of any," rejoined Edward, moving on.

"Wedding shoes, then-wedding boots. Must buy somewhat," continued the vender, pertinaciously keeping up with our friend's rapid steps, and thrusting before his eyes the articles which he named.

"I tell you that I want neither wedding slippers nor wedding shoes, nor any of your commodities," replied Edward with some ill-humor, endeavoring to escape from his pursuer,

to her, and her anxious inquiries served to introduce his

history.

"We must part, Edward; as to that there can be neither doubt nor question." said she, in a low, steady voice, whilst the tears trembled on the long fringes of her black eyes, and the rich color went and came on the finely turned cheeks and lips, which a sculptor would have been proud to model. "We must part. I have always known that it would be so-always felt, without suspecting or dreaming of this obstacle, that Mr. Morris would find an insuperable objection to receiving me into his family. I ought, perhaps, knowing that, to have forbidden your visits. But I was encouraged in my attachment by one whom I was bound to obey, and by whose orders I have acted in this business; and my own feelings led me but too readily into the error. Oh! if it were only for ouurselves, this poverty would be nothing!-Young, active, accustomed to exertion, it would be delightful to labor with you and for you-delightful to feel there is no superiority on your side, except that of your respectable connextion, and your manly and vigorous character. But, your father-your kind and excellent father! to tear him from his home, to send him in his old age to serve as an hireling-he, so long accustomed to respect and consideration! to banish him from his friends, his neighbors, his native town! We must not think of it. The sacrifice must be made. And you will find your happiness, dear Edward-we shall find

"Don't ye?" exclaimed Isaac, with a knowing twinkle of his black eye. "Don't ye? Well then, buy for the wants to come. I've set my heart upon having a bit of a deal with ye to night, and shan't mind bating a penny or two rather than balk my fancy. You shall have 'em under prime cost," continued Isaac, coaxing-our happiness in having done our duty." ly; "you shall have 'em for next to nothing. Do you have 'em? We must have a deal. You will see that you will be married sooner than you think of. Your time is coming. So you may as well buy the wedding slippers at once. What do you bid for 'em. Make an

offer.

"Not a farthing, Jew. I am in haste. You need not untie the bag. You have nothing that I would take, if you would give it to me. Let me pass on, I am not going to be married. I want nothing of you.".

Affectionate son as Edward was, and determined as he had professed himself to abide by the decission of his mistress, he could not forbear from combatting this resolution. She listened to him with sweet and mournful attention, as if willing to hear all he had to say; but her determination was unshaken. She had just asked

"Since we must part, dearest Edward, were it not wiser to shorten this pain?" when an odd looking little note was delivered to her.

"Don't be too sure of that, Master Edward Morris. You and I may come to a deal yet. Jew, Quotha! No

Elizabeth read the contents once, twice, thrice, and remained silent and perplexed, as if hardly comprehending the meaning.

"It is very strange!" exclaimed she, thinking aloud,

What can he want at this hour!"

"He!" exclaimed Edward, jealous (so strange a thing is a lover's heart) of her whom he was on the very point of resigning. "He!-what he? From whom comes that note?"

"From one who must be apprised of this event."

fully-she lighted a wretched candle, led the way into the next apartment and endeavored, with a little damp straw aud a few dirty chips that had evidently been long trodden under foot in some carpenter's yard, to produce in a small rusty grate from which the brick work was breaking away, something as nearly approaching to a

er so to absorb your attention at such a moment?"

Elizabeth paused an instant, and then said, gently"come with me and you shall know. Although we are doomed to part, to meet no more, you must always be among the most valued, the most cherished of my friends. I cannot afford to lose your good opinion. Come with me and you shall know all."

She tied on her bonnet, wrapped herself in a large cloak and then passed through the rectory garden into the church-yard. The fine old Gothic building, with its gray cloisters, its graceful porch, its towers and its steeple, rose in sombre grandeur from the grave-yard,

Edward, in the meanwhile, took a mournful survey of the wretched abode, contrasting as strongly with the appearance, the mind and the manners of the lovely woman who stood beside him, the beloved of his heart.The hearth and its assortments-the bit of old iron that served as a poker, the broken dust pan that officiated as a shovel, the pipkin upon two legs, and the lipless pint cup that did duty as kettle, pot and saucepan-this niggard and beggarly type of the rugged and scanty plenishing of the comfortless chamber. A joint stool, a rickety table and two tumble-down chairs, one of them garnished with a cushion, darned, patched and mended un

"I ought to have told you before," said she in a low voice-" only he whom it most concerns forbade the disclosure-and Mr. Sumner, I hardly know why, coincicided in his desire that although a charity girl, I am not, as you thought, an orphan. I have a father, a most fond and affectionate father, one whom I dearly love, and who dearly loves me. He is a poor but industrious man following a mean occupation; not so poor but that he makes me frequent presents, and is most kiud and generous to the widow in whose cottage he lives, and whom he mainly supports. Still I have always felt that he was not fit to be your father, uor to be connected so closely with a man so intelligent, so well educated, and so respectable in station as Mr. Morris. I always felt that something would prevent our union, aud so, alas! it has turned out."

By this time the clouds had so far cleared away as to admit glimpses of a keen and frosty moon, which shed a cold, pale, desolate light upon every object; dwelling with tenfold desolation on a hovel, whose rugged thatch and window stuffed with rags, as well as the brokendown state of the little gate, (ajar, perforce, since hanging by one hinge, it would neither shut nor open) that led into the narrow front court, betokened the most sordid poverty.

To to this court Elizabeth passed: aud knocking with, it seemed, a forced resolution, at a low door, in little better condition than the gate which formed the outer barricade, was immediately admitted by an infirm old woman into a dark and dismal kitchen.

"I look for your father every miuute, Miss Betsey," quoth the totteriug crone, "for 'tis past his time o' coming in; and if ye'll wait till I strike a light, we may walk into his room, and I'll kindle ye a bit o' fire; for you tender lassies that live in grand houses, cau't bear the cold like us peor folks can, who be used to nothing bet

ter."

And so saying, she fumbled out an old tinder box, and having with some difficulty cherished a spark into a flame for her old and withered hands and feeble breath

mug without a handle, a teapot curtailed of its fair proportions by the loss of half a spout, a tea-cup and saucer of different patterns, and two or three plates aud basins, all more or less cracked, and repaired, not very artificially, with putty and white paint. In one corner was the inmate's humble bed-a chaff mattrass, with one or two rugs of horse-cloth, much the worse for wear, in another the little pile of chips and rotten sticks from whence the fuel now smoking rather than burning in the chimney, had been selected; and in a third, a dingy heap of old shoes.

The old woman, satisfied with her labor, returned to her part of the dwelling. Elizabeth was the first to break the silence that succeeded her departure.

"This, Edward, is the abode of my father a father whom, in spite of all that surrouuds us-I have good reason to love. Does not the sight of this misery serve to reconcile you to the destiny that parts us? Such, at least, is the effect that it ought to have which it has on me. I am not fit to belong to your family. I never would have cherished such a thought. Strange that Mr. Sumner, knowing as he did, the whole truth, should have encouraged our attachment! Strange, most strange that till now, the name and existence of my father should have remained a secret! Well, my presumption is fitly punished, and you will turn with a freer heart to one more worthy to share your home and to possess your affections."

"Say not so, my Elizabeth! were it not for my paramount duty to my own most kind and excellent father, all that I see here would but supply a fresh motive for our union. All speaks of poverty and of industry, but not of crime. And, next to the joy of offering you a comfortable home, should I reckon that of securing one so near and dear to you from penury and toil. Oh! that I were now the free agent that I thought myself yesterday! Not another night should your father spend beneath this roof. If my wretched uncle could but know the misery that his wild spirit of speculation has brought upon us all !”

"If he could, Master Edward, I am minded that he'd rather cry old shoes than gamble in the share market," quoth our friend Isaac, advancing into the room, depositing, with considerable care, his two bags of shoes in their appropriate corner, and emptying, with equal readiness, divers rotten sticks, fir apples, and stumps of gorse, gathered during his day's travel-for apparently he had wended countryward-from the several pockets of his nondercript garments. "If these Stock Exchange

friends and kindred, mayhap it might go nigh to reform 'em," pursued Isaac. "So here you be, Master Edward, come to make a deal, as I prophesied; and ye ha' brought Bess wi' ye to clinch the bargain. So much the better Gie me a kiss Bess. So thou be'st come to help Master Edward to choose his wedding slippers-eh, my girl!"And the old man nodded his head with a knowing wink, and chuckled, "come to choose the wedding slippers!"

"Alas, my dear father, you little know," began Elizabeth.

"Alack and alack wench! No alacks for me, I do know all the story; ay, and a great deal besides, that neither of you know, wise as ye think yourselves. Come my good boy and girl, sit ye down here by the fire. Bess looks as white as the snow on the house-top; and thou Master Edward are not much better. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'll tell you all about it." And the old shoe merchant drew his two chairs to either side of his little fire, seated himself upon a stool in the middle, flung on fresh fuel, breaking the sticks with withered hands, jand did the honors of his little apartments with much hospitality. "Well, Master Morris, for all I cry old shoes about the streets, and my Bess, (heaven bless her sweet face!) was brought up at a charity school, it ain't altogether for the want of a bit of money. Many a year have I been hoarding and hoarding, to save her a portion; and I told her and Mr. Summer not to let out that she had a father, just for the pleasure for the surprise like. So in the mean time comes the affair of Master Arnott. Ay, better cry old shoes than go gambling in shares. So I happen to have the money, waiting for a good security-nothing like turning an honest penny-just when Master Byrne was wanting it for your father. So I lets him have it. Here's the paper,-that's what d'ye call it ?-the bill of sole. And I offered him my girl with £5000 to her portion; not letting out who she was. And here I've got a letter from him to Master Byrne, saying as how 'twill break your heart to marry her; not thinking, mind, that she's she. And I s'pose as how you are come to say that you won't have her, 'cause o' your father-eh? So she's refused o' both hands-ch, Bess? Well! I love a good father, and I love a good son; he'll be sure to make a good husband. And if Bess don't make thee a good wife, my lad, there's no faith in woman. So take her, and this bit of paper; that's four thousand pounds; and there's one thousand that I promised," continued he, going to one of his corner heaps, and taking a couple of bank notes, out of an old shoe; "and another that I give, 'cause of these two refusals. A good father makes a good son, and a good son 'll make a good husband.And I've heard to-day from a real Jew, who knows a great deal of what goes on on 'Change, that Master Arnott is likely to get his money back again. So now off wi' ye to Master Morris, and tell him the news. And, hark ye, my boy, don't forget to come back for the Wedding Slippers." Which last injunction he probably did not forget to fulfil.

Moral Cowardice of Society.

BY ORVILLE DEWEY.

Why is it, in fact, that the tone of morality in the high places of society, is so lax and so complaisant, but for want of the independant and indignant rebuke of society? There is reproach enough poured on the drunkenness, debauchery, and dishonesty of the poor man. The good people who go to him can speak plainly, aye, very plainly, of his evil ways. Why is it, then, that fashionable vice is able to hold up his head, and sometime to occupy the front ranks of society? It is because res