"Society!" she said, flashing her dark and fierce eyes upon me,"Society! do you think I care for that phantom of folly? Let me be in or out of it, it is nothing to me.-But, sir-Sir George, pardon a woman's weakness! your friend Arthur Russell is all that I can praise, what he has done for me, what he has offered to do for me, shall never be erased from my soul; he-he, my seducer, has deceived me, cheated me, dishonored me, robbed me, insulted me! by him my father's grey hairs have been, indirectly, brought to the tomb earlier than nature would have demanded; directly by his hand fell my only brother, but then he exposed himself in that, life against life; he has done to me all that can hurt or grieve the heart, all that can humble or crush the feeling of woman; and still I love him! I love him, Sir George, as I loved him the first day I confessed it under the winning lustre of his false, false eyes."

She wept. I could not restrain my tears, though I made a strong effort.

And yet," she continued, "I tried to check all recollections of my love; and in part I succeeded. I was beginning to be reconciled to my lot, such as it is, and to forget-oh, no! but not to think of what had been. But now the wound is opened afresh, and my heart is torn again from its nest of quietude. I told you he was my cousin it so happened, that in the days of my delusion, I gave him an interest in some estates of which I was to be mistress when I came of age. How I had the right to do so, or how he had the power of converting that right, whatever it might have been, into money, I do not know-I do not care. If it had been my heart's blood, I should then have given it him. Why do I say then? I feel I should do it now: aye! after all-after all, I should do it again! But my father died, leaving his property in such a manner as to come into the hands of the lawyers, and it is absolutely necessary that I should appear. O that the estate was sunk at the bottom of the sea! I care nothing about it, I loathe its very name! I have not thought of it for many a long year. And now, I must meet him-aye! and alone."

"You distress yourself," I said, "without much reason, dear Mrs. Russell. If you meet this gentleman, it is on business. There will be attorneys, and barristers, and all the regular people of the law."

No, no! it is quite necessary, on account of one thing in my father's will that no person should be present at first, but ourselves. It is a matter that none out of the pale of the family must know."

Even so, still it is business. You will talk of family affairs, deeds, wills, bonds, stamps, obligations, and so forth, with all the technicalities of law. There need not be any reference to other events." "O, sir, sir, sir! that I could think it! I alone with him-I under the glance, within the influence of the magic of that voice, and talk of nothing else but the technical matters of the law! O that I could!”

"Why, Mrs. Russell, you should muster a lady's pride. Without wishing to speak more harshly of him than you have spoken, I think the gentleman's conduct to you has been such as to call up any other feelings than those of regard or respect, far less love. If a

man had behaved to me with so much insolence, putting all other matters out of the question, I should be far more inclined to kick him down stairs than to receive him with even ordinary civility."

I

"You never loved, Sir George,-you never loved as a woman. have mustered that lady-pride of which you speak; I have thought of all the wrongs I have suffered,-I have thought of the slight with which he insulted me, the shame he has wrought me,-I have thought of his meanness even in the matter of the money, -I have thought on my dead brother and on my broken family; I have thought on the unutterable kindness, goodness, gentleness, generosity, the unwearied love, the self-sacrificing devotion, of this dear, dear gentleman with whom I live. I have contrasted it with the cold and calculating selfish heartlessness of the other; -I have summoned pride, anger, contempt, disdain, revenge, remorse, to my assistance;-and, God pity me! I feel assured that all will be defeated by one perjury-breathing accent, one softened look of practised falsehood. Well shall I know that they are perjury and falsehood; but can I resist them, when I know that they are assumed for me?"

"He is unworthy," said I, " of such affection; he is—"

"Hush!" she said; "that is Russell's knock. I must clear my eyes. Do not say anything to him of my strange discourse. It was on that business he went--to have the papers ready for the lawyers: he is himself, you know, at the bar. It should have been done on the first day of term, it is now the fifteenth, but I put it off day by day. O that the morning appointed for my meeting him -it must come soon, perhaps to-morrow,-O that that morning found me dead!"

She left the room. Russell returned in good humor. "It was a troublesome job," said he, "about which I went; but I think I have smoothed it. The matter is not worth talking about, nor would you know anything of the parties if I told you. However, I think you will be glad in general to hear that a great scoundrel, and a most heartless scoundrel to boot, will get a trouncing, if some people's scruples can be got over. And I am pretty sure, too,that even without exposing those feelings to pain, it can be done. He is a ruined man to-morrow, as sure as fate!"

"Who?" I asked.

"A person," said Russell, darkening, "of whom you know nothing; but a scoundrel. A month cannot pass over, without his being driven to the pistol, as an escape from the hangman. But where is Jane?"

"She left the room only as you came in."

"Pardon me-I must see her."

In a few minutes she returned, paler than Carrara marble, in company with Russell. She cast her eyes on me as if to say, Forget our conversation," and, at Russell's request, sate down to the piano, to sing, with sweet and unfaltering voice, the romantic ballads and melodies of which he is fond, as if there were nothing in the world to agitate or distress but the poetic sorrows sung in the melting notes that thrilled from her melodious tongue.

WAYLAC.

MY NIECE'S ALBUM.-No. I.

MYTHOLOGY MADE EASY!

DEAR Minny, mine is but a musty old Muse,
And knows nothing graceful or fine,

Such as flows from the soft Seraph quills of Sky blues

In the Gem or the Annual line.

If you wish for a tale of a horse with five legs,
Or a dolphin in boots and cock'd hat,

A Jew boil'd alive, or a doll that laid eggs,

I could hit it off rather more pat.

Or, supposing we try a short touch at the lore
Of the bearded old Romans and Greeks ?
Then muster your nerves for the horrors in store,
And imagine that Hercules speaks.

"Sing row-de-dow dow-de-dow, dub-a-dub-dub,
Tol-de-rol lol-de-rol-lol!

Here I come with my club, some dragon to drub,
Tol-de-rol lol-de-rol-lol!

When, a baby in arms, I came first to the scratch,
With the snakes who attack'd me in bed,
The biters were bit, and met more than their match,
For I throttled and pitch'd them out dead.

My voice was like thunder, my fist was like steel,
And the nurses all dreaded my gripe,

If they cribb'd but a grain from my infantine meal,
A peck-loaf and a bushel of tripe.

I have made my teeth meet through an oaken joint-stool

In my pets, as a two-year-old boy;

At four, I was cock of the country free-school,

But learning was never my joy.

So I grew up a youth of a practical taste,

And very soon felt in the mind

To knock down the monsters who laid the land waste, And the Ogres that gobbled mankind.

The Nemean lion made havoc and rout,

Eating shepherds and sheep far and wide;

But I gripp'd him, and squeez'd his tough chitterlings out, And tann'd me a coat of his hide.

The boar, Erymanthian,-'twas precious tough work
To bring him to bay in the wood;

But I stuck piggy-wiggy, and turn'd him to pork,
And his sausages-oh! they were good!

And Cerberus also, the three-headed brute !-
Who was house-dog and pet to Old Nick,-

I unkennell'd and whack'd him, and tamed him to boot;
And taught him to carry my stick.

I twisted the tail of the mad bull of Crete,
Jump'd astride him, and gallop'd him dead;
I trapp'd the famed stag with the gold horns and feet,
And show'd him for sixpence a head.

I clean'd out Augeas's yard, a vile slough
Wherein his best cows had got stuck;

But the hunks never paid me a farthing, I vow,
Pretending I wasted his muck.

I sprain'd both my wrists, and was half stunk to death, And was cheated at last by my friend,

But I learn'd, what I'll hold with my very last breath, Dirty work never pays in the end!

I bagg'd the great Rocs upon Stymphalus' coast,
Who could swallow a mammoth for lunch;
Truss'd a couple and tried them by way of a roast,
But I found them too stringy to munch.

The Thracian King, Diomed, also I threw
For a feed to his cannibal stud;

And Geryon the bandit, I settled him too,

Who would laugh as he suck'd up your blood.

My nerve was most tried by the Hydra, a brute

The most singular under the sun;

For, as fast as you cut off its heads, they would shoot At the rate of a dozen to one.

Iolaus, my tiger,-a staunch little trump,

As I dock'd off each head in the lot,

Made it hiss a new tune while he sear'd the raw stump With a frying-pan heated red-hot.

The Amazon Queen, (for young girls will be rash,)
Of all men, must needs challenge me:

I whipt off the girdle that held all her cash,
And spank'd her well over my knee.

I hocuss'd the Dragon, so watchful and grim,
Who slept with one eye wide awake;
No use were gold apples to dragons like him,
And what a prime swag they did make !

I now could afford to get settled in life
As a squire, and gainsay it who durst;

So I laid in my cellar, and married a wife,
But I had to fight hard for her first.

This was well, and I ought to have "let well alone," But as bigamy then was not reckon'd

A legal offence, in a whim of my own

I married one day wife the second.

Young men, be advised, and don't envy a Turk,― At least, I'll be shot if I do :

One spouse was no tax, but 'twas wearisome work With the quarrels and freaks of the two.

At last, set on fire by a phosphorus shirt,

By way of a conjugal jest,

Like a rocket I flew up to Heav'n at one spirt,
And there got a quiet night's rest.

Divorced by the circumstance,-fortune be praised!—
I forgot my sad recent mishap,

And espoused pretty Hebe, the day she was raised
To be barmaid of Father Jove's tap.

Now I hunt after land and sea-monsters no more,
Though from habit I carry Drub-dragon,
And enjoy myself much in the veteran corps,
For Hebe ne'er stints my full Flagon.

At any spare time, to avoid getting fat
And keep up my appetite's edge,

I spar against Mars, whom I floor with a pat,
Or give Vulcan a turn with the sledge.

By the way, a right honest good fellow is that,
The comfort and joy of my life,

Each night tête-à-tête we carouse, smoke, and chat,
But Hebe sha'n't visit his wife.

I could tell you much more that befel me before
I was finally laid on the shelf:

But I'm one of few words, and long yarns are a bore,
Especially tales of one's-self."

Thus spoke a good fellow, the stoutest of men:

If you wish to continue the stave,

Take, Minny, your pen, and consult brother N.
That Grecian experienced and grave.

Whate'er you may light on in Lempriere's page,
You may thus with small trouble condense,
And inscribe your joint work to the rising young age,
As "Mythology made Common Sense."

MUSIC IS SWEET!

BY MRS. CORNWELL BARON WILSON.

MUSIC is sweet, at evening's close,
When pale mists skim the azure sky,
In some lone spot, where to repose
It hymns the Day's soft lullaby!

Music is sweet! when stars shine bright,

Like angel eyes, through heaven's blue screen,— When pearly dews weep tears of light,

As Zephyr sighs, the leaves between!

Music is sweet!-when friends throng round,
It adds new charms to Pleasure's spell,-
When kindred links the heart have bound,
And young Hope rings Life's bridal bell!
But, oh! most sweet, when Love's soft tongue
Breathes through its notes the magic word,*
Like fabled harp by Houri strung,

By blessed spirits only heard!

* Alluding to a Mahomedan superstition.