mind a lasting impression. When a child, she was a mystery to me; and as I became older, she was no less an enigma. She appeared to have no sympathies; yet she seemed, judging from her acts, to be attached to us all. If I deemed myself slighted by any of the servants, I had only to tell Aunt Alice, and without investigation or question, the offender was subjected to the severest reproof. If I was ill, I found my way to Aunt Alice's apartment, and received every attention which it was in her power to bestow. Nothing asked of her was refused, and she never tired of our importunities. Yet in all this, no feeling, no sympathy, was manifested; all was cold-without heart, without life. Yet she was roused to anger by the slightest opposition. Seldom indeed did she meet with it, but when she did, the storm and whirlwind were fit emblems of her wrath. These paroxysms lasted but for a brief space; and in the exhibition of them there was the same want of feeling, of vital passion, as in her calm moments. Passionless; possessing nothing like affection in her heart, with no apparent ties on earth; she seemed to regard everything around her like shadows on the wall: they came, they went-but they were shadows still, while she remained the same. Often have I crept close to her, as she wandered out on some of her long walks, and listened to the conversation she was holding with herself. This was sometimes in a foreign language, of which I knew nothing. When she spoke in our own tongue, her subject was generally of things long past, of which I could understand but little. I could perceive that she often kept up an imaginary conversation with two, and sometimes three persons, with great volubility; and I could in consequence very rarely make out a connected link of what was said.

Again I would steal unnoticed into her room, and listen as she recited strange events of history, which made my young

blood run cold, and my heart beat so violently that I was glad to discover myself, and ask some favor at her hands. At last I came to spend a great deal of time in her apartment; and Aunt Alice would relate to me, in the same passionless style, long-forgotten stories of our house; marked passages of history relating to it; and a minute and almost tedious narrative of historical events, relative to any subject I chose to start. These were always free from the ordinary gossip with which lovers of the marvellous are apt to lard their stories, and therefore produced the stronger impression. Of course Aunt Alice was familiar with the prophecy to which I have alluded; but she only spoke of it as an historical fact, and by no persuasion or artifice could she be induced to give an opinion of its application; neither would she listen to any from another person; so that my morbid fears found no relief from her. Treated with marked respect by my father and all the family; allowed to have her will in everything; this remarkable woman lived among us like a spirit from another world. She came and went unquestioned; continued year after year, pursuing the same round of strange employments; solitary and soulless; having apparently no sympathy with her sex, no feeling with her kind.

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V.

I HAVE always been disposed to deny that our early days were intended to be our happiest. True it is, that most look back to them with pleasure, mingled with feelings half of regret, half of sadness, that they are passed. The reason of this is, that those days are free from the anxieties which mature life is sure to bring. The man, pressed down with business, loaded with care, even though his coffers are filling with wealth, looks back upon his childhood as a green spot in his existence, while all around is drear and desolate.

And if business engross him not, if he knows nothing of the drudgery of acquiring riches, but lives for his own pleasure and amusement, how soon these pall upon him- - then he, also, sighs for the careless, thoughtless, happy feelings of early days, when time needed no destroyer, and the hydra-headed monster Ennui found no place of attack.

Is it a wonder that such as I have mentioned, the slave of pleasure as well as the slave of toil, should look away across the dreary waste of years, and seek to recall the past? But it is too late youth will not come back, and they have no talisman to compel it to return :

"Non enim gazæ, neque consularis
Summovet lictor miseros tumultus
Mentis; et curas laqueata circum
Tecta volentes."

When I hear friends conversing together of "good old times," closing their conference with, "Ah, well! those were happy days, sure enough; the happiest part of our lives, if we had but known it :" I feel persuaded that they have made

but a poor use of existence. What! has God made us with such rich preparatives for true enjoyment, such noble powers of mind and sense, and yet designed us to retrograde through life? Yielding us a few hours of questionable happiness at first, to be succeeded by days of weariness or wo? It is not so! Who would be contented always with such happiness? Who does not know that it is but the pleasure of animal existence; an existence gay indeed as the bird's, and like the bird's thoughtless too?

The man who wisely employs himself about things imperishable, must grow happier each succeeding day in time, and so on through the period beyond, which we call eternity. The goodness of God ordains this; the wisdom of God proclaims it.

1

My own childhood was peculiarly thoughtful; and the thoughtful child must of necessity be unhappy. Too young to understand the great mystery of existence, everything in life seems strange and inexplicable. A heavy burden hangs at the heart of such, and I felt its full weight. My greatest relief was in active exercise; for although not addicted to the ordinary sports which children love, I was fond of exposure and fatigue; and my constitution being robust, I could indulge in these without danger. Yet I was solitary, even in my associations. In hunting I took peculiar delight. At the early age of ten, I was the owner of a small gun and shooting apparatus; but I never took pleasure in scouring the country after a pack of hounds, in company with a score of noisy sportsmen, pursuing to the death a poor fox or hare. There was no excitement to me in leaping ditches, clearing hedges, or in a scamper across the plain; but I loved to take my gun, and without even the assistance of a favorite pointer, make my way to the great forest which lay across the Avon, before the sun rose, and spend the whole day in traversing it.

Not that I was eager for the reward of the sportsman.

Many a time has the woodcock crossed my path unscared, and often have I lowered my piece, raised against the life of the timid hare. I defy you, reader, to go out betimes into the green-wood, and catch the inhabitants just waking from their slumbers, and commence your bloody work, without some qualms of conscience against taking life so early in the day. The night, however, generally sent me home with a well-filled bag.

The wild-cat was often to be found in the most extensive forests. This animal was in size considerably larger than the domestic cat, while its teeth and claws were tremendous. With these creatures I waged a war of extermination. This was not carried on without risk, certainly. Yet I loved the hazard, and felt no hardship in the toil.

But after all, when the excitement of the chase was over, thought was once more in the ascendant. My father (erroneously perhaps) determined to give his children a private education, affirming that public schools and universities were alike destructive to mind, manners, and morals. So at home we were kept, and furnished with erudite teachers, who knew everything about books and nothing about men.

I had in all this abundance to foster the unhappy feeling which burned within. Thought, how it troubled me- - and I had so much to think about. But beyond all, the great wonder of my life was, "What life was made for?" I wondered what could occupy the world. I read over the large volumes in the old library, and wondered why men should battle it with each other for the sake of power, when power lasted but so short a time. I wondered why kings who could have done so much good had done so much evil; and I wondered why anybody was very unhappy, since death should so soon relieve from all earthly ills. Then I felt, there was some