actions, Mentor can only advise, having no power to enforce obedience."

"And if the pupil prefer even the voice of reproof from such a Mentor, to all the praise or adulation of others, what step should then be taken to punish him?"

"I know of no other but to banish him from the presence of so unfit a tutor, and compel him to submit to the guidance of those more capable of insisting upon his obedience."

"Nay, then, rather than endure such an infliction as that, Telemachus will punish himself by masking his sadness in smiles." "Rather let reason guide you," replied the lady.

tent than the sorcerer's magic. To break that charm now would be to hurl me back from the height of happiness to the depth of misery. No, rather consider me a child again, if it secure my being near you and listening to you for ever. One word more. My mother has lately hinted a wish that I should leave home, and take my station in the world. She gives me my choice-the law or the army. For the one, I am wholly unfitted. In the dangers and excitements of the other, I may learn forgetfulness, if not find peace. I have now told you all, and I ask your counsel, which has always been so sweet to me."

While he was speaking, Helen, warned

"And cannot the voice of friendship have power to chase away your gloom?" asked the lady, while her eye drooped beneath the ardent gaze of her companion.

"Friendship!" echoed the youth. "How calmly you pronounce that word! Far above the weakness of human nature your self, your heart is equally serene in sunshine and in storm. Helen, it is that very superiority of mind, so different from the rest of the world with which I have mingled, which chains me in adoration at your feet. Do not interrupt me now. The mask must be withdrawn, and the sooner the better. I know what you would say; you would lavish upon me again your cold lessons of reason, prudence, and philosophy. You would make me a mere automaton-a creature of calculating policy, subject to the caprice of those who pretend to possess a right to control my feelings as well as my actions. I am your willing pupil in all else. But suffer me to indulge my own thoughts unmolested. Nay, hear me patiently now, and if the subject is painful, never more will I offend. My life had been a blank till you came and awoke me from my stupor to intellectual existence. The companion of the mother became the tutor of the son. With the precepts which have fallen from your lips, have been mingled a charm more po

retreated from the window, and sat with her face half concealed by the heavy drapery. The deep rich color of her cheek had subsided to a deadly paleness, as if the blood had retreated to a heart accustomed to still its emotions. The long fringed lashes, which shaded her dark hazel eyes, swept her cheek, for not once were they raised as she listened; but when he ceased, she replied, as calmly as to any trivial remark—

"You have told me nothing new, Clarence. Your mother has already informed me of her intentions with regard to your future position in life. She has also, with many thanks for what she terms a benefit conferred upon her, by assisting in your instruction in the languages, hinted that my residence here is no longer necessary, and that on your return from your three years' intercourse with the world, arrangements have been made for your marriage with Adelaide St. Clair, the niece of her late husband, your step-father, Monsieur Dumont"

She paused, for on raising her eyes to mark the effect of her words, she was terrified at the agonized expression of her auditor's countenance. He made a slight effort to raise the window, a few half-uttered words issued from his lips-he half rose, and then fell back and fainted.

There are situations in life, when we might find it as useless to attempt to confine

the impetuous torrent in its course, as restrain the pent-up feelings of the soul. Helen sprang to the side of the insensible youth, threw up the window, and heeded not the dashing rain as it swept over her, and bathed the pale forehead of the sufferer. With all the passionate eloquence which the tenderest heart of woman could inspire, she sought to call him back to life. But he soon recovered, and she was calm and cold as before, and simply begged his forgiveness for being so abrupt in her communication, supposing he had heard it already from his mother.

"And did you suppose I was a party to such an arrangement, Helen? This is the last evening I may spend under this roof, and I now declare, that if you cast me from you, I will enter the army, never to return again alive. Neither Adelaide St. Clair nor any other shall hear those vows from my lips which bind me to you. Here I swear""Stop, stop, Clarence! You know not what you are saying. Alas! it is necessary that we should part, when matters have become so serious. I shall leave Madame Dumont's to-morrow; and if my prayers for your happiness have any efficacy, you will, you must be happy, dear Clarence."

In vain did the youth implore her, by every tender epithet, not to leave him to despair. The tears of Helen fell fast upon his brow as he knelt before her, but her resolution remained unchanged. She used all the influence which had ever been employed over her docile pupil, to prove to him how idle and visionary were his present hopes; but the strength of mind with which she had armed herself was fast yielding to the persuasions of him she secretly loved; and the words were on her lips which would have sealed their fate as one, when the door opened, and Madame Dumont, the mother of Clarence, entered the apartment.

A long digression in the middle of a story is always fatiguing to the reader, or we should go back to the early history of the lady whose haughty step so unexpectedly interrupted the conversation of the lovers. Helen, although conscious of no wrong, felt

the color mount to her brow, and her whole frame tremble; while Clarence confronted his parent, the angry spot on whose cheek foretold a coming storm, more to be dreaded than that on which they had been gazing.

None but a close observer would have traced a resemblance between the stern, unbending features of the intruder, and the smiling, happy, innocent, artless face of the rustic peasant in the portrait we spoke of; and yet they were the same. Colonel Grahame had found this pretty flower blooming unseen in the wild forests of Normandy, and transplanted it to his lordly halls, to be the dispenser of wreaths to victors, and smiles to cringing slaves; but the untutored heart of the mountain girl grew lofty and overbearing in its new situation. She received the adulation of the multitude as her right, and trampled on the feelings of the humble without remorse. Her noble husband was abroad in the service of his country, and the young wife queened it bravely at home. He was cut off in the prime of life, yet crowned with glory's wreath, and bequeathed to his only son, Clarence, then a child of five years, an unsullied name and a rich inheritance. Mrs. Grahame mourned his loss for a year, and then accepted the hand of Monsieur Dumont, with whom she spent two years in Paris, and afterwards removed to the land of beauty and adventure, which drew so many to its shores.

Dumont died soon after their arrival, and his widow was so inconsolable as to meditate retiring to a convent. But society had too many charms, and the education of her son claimed her attention; she therefore launched again into the vortex of fashionable life, and drank in eagerly the breath of flattery, which is ever unsparingly lavished upon the possessor of wealth and the leader of fashion.

The beauty and intelligence of the orphan, Helen Williams, early caught the attention of the wealthy lady. Her father, Colonel Williams, in the second French war, 1755, was sent at the head of a regiment to join General Johnson, at the north, and was

killed in that year near the southern extremity of Lake George, leaving his motherless child portionless, and with neither friends nor relatives to receive her to their arms. Madame Dumont loved to patronize, when the object of her patronage was one possessing any qualities to call forth the admiration of the world, and the brilliant talents of her protégé drew crowds to her drawingroom, to laud to the skies the charity of the patron, and gaze with wonder at the fascinating object upon which it was lavished. But by degrees the eyes of the lady began to open to the mortifying truth, that the roses of youth had flown from her own cheek, and blushed in freshness upon the young face of Helen; that the voice of flattery, the eye of admiration, had changed their direction; and her heart grew hard as marble. The orphan girl began to learn that she was a dependent upon another's bounty, and the thousand petty annoyances which strike like adders to the bosom of sensibility, soon chased the sunshine from her brow.

"She had drunk of knowledge with a strength
As it were water to parching thirst."

But she must henceforth be

The spirit of her own peculiar world
Of passionate and illimitable thought."

The star of the drawing-room was consigned to the study, and the youthful Clarence, three years her junior, placed under her care for instruction in the languages, in which she was a proficient. We need digress no further to show that the wisdom and prudence of the parent were here at fault; but let us not anticipate, nor leave the stately lady standing in her wrath, like an avenging spirit, before the culprits.

They may talk of the power a monarch exercises over his subjects, a tyrant over his slaves, but the influence of a strong mind over a weak one is greater far than these; and as the calm, unquailing eye of Helen met the flashing one of Madame Dumont, the latter shrank from the contact. She came prepared to shower insulting reproaches upon her dependent; but while

she stood thus before her, in all the dignity of innocence and unblemished truth, she could not, dared not give them utterance; and when Helen, in compliance with the entreating look of Clarence, prepared to leave the room, she made not the slightest effort to detain her, but even moved aside to allow her to pass. The door closed upon the unhappy orphan, and the mother was left alone with her son.

And now the smothered flame burst forth. "This, then, is the result of my kindness," muttered the angry lady, throwing herself upon one of her splendid couches. "Thank fortune I have discovered the plot in time to prevent it;" and, turning to her son, "Clarence," said she, "the preparations are made for your joining the English army tomorrow. It is time that you acquire a name, and attain that position in life to which your birth and fortune entitle you."

"My dear mother," answered the youth, in a deferential but resolute tone, "you mistake my wishes altogether; I had never the least idea of joining the English army. America is my country; it was here that I first heard the inspiring notes of freedom; it is in her cause that my heart is interested, and under her banner that I intend to fight. What care I for empty titles, and the still more contemptible distinctions of fortune? The nobility and honors you speak of will find enough to court them. Give me only the nobler legacy which the sword of the patriot bequeaths to his sons."

Madame Dumont raised herself from the couch, and gazed upon her son in anger and astonishment. Never in his life before had he presumed to thwart her wishes. It was some time ere she could find words to express her rage.

"These are the principles, then, young sir, that have been instilled into your mind by your preceptress! this the use she has made of her privileges. I wonder that I did not sooner detect these deceitful doings; but it is not yet too late to remedy the evil. You, sir, prepare instantly to march with the troop about to join the army of Burgoyne. I