I knew thy meaning-thou didst praise
My eyes, my locks of jet:
Ah! well for me they won thy gaze,-
But thine were fairer yet!
I'm glad to see my infant wear
Thy soft blue eyes and sunny hair,

And when my sight is met

By his white brow and blooming cheek, I feel a joy I cannot speak.

Come, talk of Europe's maids with me, Whose necks and cheeks, they tell, Outshine the beauty of the sea,

White foam and crimson shell.
I'll shape like theirs my simple dress,
And bind like them each jetty tress,

A sight to please thee well;
And for my dusky brow will braid
A bonnet like an English maid.

CHAP. I.

WE might discover an interesting chapter of human life, well filled with curious facts, could we board that noble East Indiaman just entering the Plymouth docks, and read the hearts and the lives, as well as scan the features, of the anxious crowd who, gathered together on her deck, appear all impatient to land. Seldom could we find more variety of character and circumstance.

We must, of necessity, mingle with that group, for from among it have we to single out the chief subject of our tale. Ah! now you cast a curious eye around. It is not that young dragoon, with twisted moustache, and sallow skin, who, on account of ill-health. is returning to join the depôt of his regiment; nor is it that very lovely delicate-looking woman, who, for the same cause, has been sent by a husband, far more advanced in years, to reside for a while with his family in England, on whom the young soldier we have just mentioned is bestowing many little attentions, of the same class as those by which he has striven to alleviate the dulness of the long voyage to her. It is not that veteran hero who has fought on so many bloody fields; not that imperious judge, whose arbitrary behests are obeyed by his servants with trembling haste; nor is it that pale sickly widow, who presses her young child to her breast, and anxiously reflects on what welcome will await her and her orphan at the family hearth of him who was her protector and support. It is none of these (though each may have a tale to tell) that I am seeking earnestly. But I discover him now; and though you did not fix on him for a hero, and exclaim triumphantly, "This is he !" yet, when you mark him closer, you shall acknowledge that perhaps I have chosen well, or at least, that twenty years ago he must have been admirably qualified to sustain the character. Nay, reader, when you are as well acquainted with him as I intend to make you, you shall confess that (strange as it seems to talk of romance at forty!) he yet retains most of the necessary ingredients of a hero. You hinted at twenty years ago. Well, it is exactly twenty years since Edmund Neville quitted his native land, never to set foot on her shores till this very day; and at his departure he was all that you may suppose him to have been, from what you see now. Those locks, now whitened by a fiery sun, by arduous toil, by grief of heart, were then of a glossy chestnut; those lips, now habitually compressed, wore then a smile of uncommon sweetness, into which they can still occasionally relax; those thoughtful, mournful eyes, then sparkled with hope; that well-proportioned figure, that wears an air of becoming dignity, had then an elasticity and freedom

of motion at once graceful and exhilarating to behold. No young adventurer ever set out with a more sanguine spirit than did Edmund Neville; and now he returns with feelings of loneliness and depression even far beyond those usually entertained by the exiles of many years. He had quitted England an orphan, but not, therefore, without leaving fond hearts to mourn at his departure. Destitute of fortune-loving passionately the beautiful sister of a friend, by whom he was in turn turned with the ardour of youth, and of a sanguine and beloved, and who was as portionless as himself-he energetic temperament, to bright prospects which opened to him in the East, promising to return in 3 few, a very few years, to claim Juliet Markham as his bride, and again to seek with her a golden land. was twenty years ago that he gave that promise, and it is yet unfulfilled. The most indefatigable applicafor whom all his efforts were made, meanwhile sickened tion was rewarded by gradual advancement; but she and died, while he laboured for her in a distant land, and did not learn, for months after the event, that she who animated all his endeavours had passed into that state in which all he could bestow could profit her nothing.

It

Still he did not abandon his avocations; he was far too wretched to be idle. In vast and splendid attempts he ran bold risks, and amassed princely wealth. At length he wearied of his labours; he felt a yearning for his native land, and yielded to the impulse. though to do so at that moment asked the sacrifice of thousands. He set sail for England, and proposed, the moment he reached her shores, to seek the dearest

friend he possessed in her, the brother of his betrothed, -a man happy in those domestic ties which Neville wanted, but slenderly furnished with the riches with which he was so amply supplied.

CHAP. II.

MR. MARKHAM, holding in his hand an open letter, which conveyed the welcome promise of Neville's arrival that very evening at the Grange, was standing with his wife before a picture representing a very beautiful girl in the costume worn twenty years before. Both gazed on it with mournful reflections. At length Mr. Markham said, "Shall we remove this picture, or shall we leave it here, Maria? Do you think that Edmund Neville will perceive Juliet's strong resem blance to it? Do you think the sight of it will distress him?"

"I know not what to advise," replied Mrs. Markham; "he cannot come here without being reminded of his youth; he must be aware of that, and yet, you see, he comes. If he must see Juliet, he may as well see the picture; it is one and the same thing."

"She is so exactly in age and person what my sister!

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was when he parted from her," said Mr. Markham, thoughtfully and sadly," so exactly what he may imagine her to have been when grieving over his absence. Poor Juliet had he come a few months ago, when she was gay and happy, he would not have found a resemblance so distressing !"

"Does he ever mention his betrothed to you in his letters?"

"Never. He is one of those who never speak or write on subjects on which they feel acutely, unless duty calls for the exertion."

At this moment a pretty child ran into the room. "Tell me, dear papa," she said, "is the great Indian Nabob' really coming to see us?"

By this name the wealthy merchant often went in his friend's family, and it conveyed very mysterious ideas of him to the younger members of it. He was half identified in their minds with the strange idols which once arrived in one of the boxes of rich Indian curiosities which had often found their way to the Grange. Little Marion, having procured an answer to her first question, had still an important one to propound. "Papa," she said, "we all very well know how beautiful and good Juliet is, and that she deserves much more than any of us; but how did Mr. Neville guess this, that he should always mark all his prettiest gifts

with her name?"

Her father patted her cheek, amused by her earnest curiosity, and replied with a smile, "Probably the benevolent fairy who presided at her christening, and gave her all her good gifts, floated across the ocean to whisper this in the ears of the Nabob, Marion; what do you think?""

Why, I really think that is very likely, papa," cried Marion, who loved the marvellous, and in her merry mood always feigned to credit the wildest fancies with which her favourite books abounded; and those favourite books, I almost fear to confess it, were no other than the Arabian Nights and other tales, with which I and those of my generation were allowed to delight ourselves; and which Mr. Markham, remembering the exquisite pleasure which he had enjoyed, had the good nature, if I may not say the good sense, to let his children enjoy also. And now Juliet entered; and you, my reader, seeing her thus for the first time, will wonder why Marion talked such nonsense as to call her beautiful, and why Mr. Markham appeared to hold the same opinion. Why should this pale girl, with her sad and serious countenance, and her listless step, be termed beautiful? Wait a little; perhaps she will raise those drooping eye-lids, fringed with their long black eye-lashes; then shall you behold eyes of a wondrous lustre-large, liquid, grey eyes-that beam with intellect and with feeling. Perhaps she will speak, and you will see a brilliant glow mount up on her cheek, and fade away again as quickly; you will see two rows of pearly teeth; and, if Marion can make her smile, you will see a hundred dimples play around her mouth. Ah! if you had beheld her a few months since, I need not have written all this to convince you that she is lovely.

Juliet has not yet seen her nineteenth birth-day. What can have worked so great a change in one so young? Nay, reader, why ask the question? Sure I am that every one who reads this passage can answer it. It is true that the heart of youth is not easily cast down; it triumphs over dangers, difficulties, hardships, sufferings, poverty; it recovers the loss of friends, the defeat of projects; it can hope on, and continue to pursue the happiness which has a thousand times eluded its grasp; it can do all this, but there are pangs at which older hearts mock, and at which it will mock too, in its turn-pangs which, to the young, fresh, ardent heart, are as the severing of soul and body, inexpressibly agonizing.

And Juliet, this beautiful young girl, what is it but

that she has drunk the first draught of the bitter waters of Marah-the waters of disappointment? And before she tasted of them she fancied herself in the garden of Eden, so happy and rejoicing was she; but now it seems to her that she has suddenly discovered herself to be a wanderer and an outcast in the waste howling wilderness. Now may she, with George Herbert, say, not repiningly, but with a grateful, though a broken, spirit :-

"At first thou gav'st me milk and sweetnesse--
I had my wish and way;

My days were strew'd with flowers and happinesse-
There was no moneth but May;

But with my yeares sorrow did twist and grow,
And made a party, unawares, for wo."

Juliet, languid as she was, shared the eager wish for the arrival of her father's noble-hearted merchant friend. She knew well the history of his early love and grief, and could trace in memory a fair vision of her aunt, which she cherished with the utmost tenderness. minds of those who had known and loved her, and in Everything that remained of her, in the hearts and the memorials which she had left behind, conveyed the impression of so much tenderness and truth, such meekness and devotion of spirit, such touching resignation, that Juliet could not but believe that she had been a being rarely equalled, and never to be forgotten. She felt that she could conceive and sympathize with the feelings of him who was now about to return to her home, and would find her not. She contrasted their fates with her own; and, though she wept for them, the tears which she shed for herself were far more bitter. They had loved with unbroken constancy and unshaken trust. Juliet sickened as she remembered the beautiful

image which had once been enshrined in her heart, and then looked on it disfigured and dethroned, lying in shame and degradation in the dust; and, first to love, and then to despise,-Juliet thought that no dart from the quiver of Death could inflict a wound like this.

CHAP. III.

Ar length evening came, and with it came Mr. Neville, and the merchant was quite unlike what any one of the expecting group had supposed that he would prove. Mr. Markham, who had parted from a fiery enthusiastic youth, was scarcely prepared for the calm dig nity of his manhood. The children, who regarded him from a distance with something of the awe and curiosity which a Bengal tiger might inspire, were amazed by the sweetness and gentleness of his voice and manner. Juliet had not thought that he would look so old, but, in spite of his whitened hair and bronzed skin, the unquenched fire of his dark eye, the whiteness of his teeth, and the freedom of his movements, quickly removed the impression of advanced age. Mrs. Markham was surprised to find him so young.

After the first warm greeting of the friends was over, and the feelings excited by it had partly subsided, Mr. Neville showed how desirous he was to make acquaintance with each member of the little group. Juliet was quite in the background, and her little brothers and sisters crowded round her, and completely shut her out from view. Her father put them aside, and called her to him. She well knew the tide of painful associations which must fill the stranger's breast on hearing her name, and on beholding her for the first time. She advanced with head and eyes inclined downwards; her raven hair was drawn back from her classic brow; the colour mounted visibly on her check, then rushed back, leaving her colourless as marble. She breathed quickly with agitation. Her father glanced at his friend as she approached. He saw him start, and briefly, but tenderly, he said:

"This is my eldest child, my Juliet."

Taking her hand, he placed it in that of Neville, and by a kind pressure spoke his acquaintance and sym

was as in a dream ;-one of those heart-sickening dreams in which we act over again the happy scenes of youth, Oh, miserable power to dreams allowed!"

None of the supernatural horrors, the terrific perils, which we often encounter in sleep, cause half the pain which we experience in retracing reality step by step! Juliet felt Neville's hand tremble; the moment that she could withdraw hers, she fell back, and a few hot tears rolled down her cheek unperceived.

Neville grew absent in his replies, and declined all refreshment, though he had travelled far. His friend interpreted these signs as weariness, and conducted him to the chamber prepared for him. When alone together, they could not abstain from retrospections of the past. At length Neville himself alluded to the perfect resemblance which Juliet bore to her whom he had left as fresh a flower, blooming in the same soil. As he spoke his countenance changed, his manly voice faltered. Emotion banished self-possession. He resolved that this comment should be made for the first and last time. He would never again venture to approach this subject. When Neville was left to himself, he found it impossible to obtain rest. Old recollections haunted and agonized him. Visions of an hour's birth flitted before him. In vain did he attempt to separate the Juliet who was not, and the Juliet who was. He trembled on the brink of a discovery, that to him they must henceforth be the same. He passed a night of restless pain, shamed and harassed by this strange intermixture of the past with the present. He rose with the dawn, and threw open the window of his chamber to breathe the morning air, which seldom fails to refresh the sickest head or heart. He gazed forth on a scene once so familiar to him, and retraced with little difficulty every feature of it. While thus employed, he forgot the lapse of time. Suddenly the sound of the church-bell struck his ear. What village ceremony is about to take place? He felt a superstitious desire that no funeral train should meet his eye, as the omen attending his first return to the Grange. He was diverted from his fears by beholding his host issue from the house with his family, and, quitting the garden, take the winding path over the rising common, which he so well knew led immediately to the church porch. He quickly descried among the group the slight form of Juliet. He saw, too, how the younger children hung about her with fondness, and her father drew her tenderly to his side. Neville's eyes were fixed upon her till she disappeared among the trees which bounded the common. Then he covered his face with his hands, and in his loneliness he wept. It was as if he had returned to find Juliet in unimpaired youth and beauty, while, in himself, all freshness of feeling, all liveliness of hope, all elasticity of spirit, had been numbed by the touch of time. The contrast was bitter.

CHAP. IV.

and her eyes were sparkling, with the exercise she had taken; but he watched all this brilliancy fade away, and an expression of mournful resignation overspread her countenance. "She does not look happy," he thought; : and throughout the day he could not banish from his mind this distressing supposition.

The time past chiefly in familiar conversation between the two friends; by which, in a few hours, they realised the existing circumstances of each other more than they had done in the correspondence of years. Neville found that Markham enjoyed few of the superfluities of life. His children were frugally reared, and simply attired, which added vigour to their health, and charms to their beauty. His sons were carefully educated, and were already fitted for introduction into the world; to advance their fortunes Neville resolved should be his earliest care. Juliet owed chiefly to her aunt and godmother a cultivation of mind and taste which might be a solid basis for further acquirements. Nature had gifted her with talents for the arts which she had formerly exercised with great delight, though with little knowledge; but that delight did not now exist. Her most pleasing occupation now was the instruction of her little sister in such rudiments as she could impart; and she was no unskilful teacher, as the progress of the lively, intelligent little Marion evinced. Neville saw, with vexation, that while Juliet welcomed him with all the cordiality due to her father's friend, yet, as much as possible, she withdrew from the conversation generally held, and her silence was less that of timidity than of abstraction. Clearly to ascertain whether the grief which he uspected did or did not exist,-if it did, to proceed to the discovery of its cause, and finally to relieve it, became, ere evening, Neville's prevailing wish and design. But he was resolved that the impression made on him should receive corroboration solely from his own observation, and, actuated by delicacy, he abstained from communicating his doubts, by the slightest hint, to the parents of Juliet.

The following morning found him walking at her side towards the village church. She conversed with intelligence and animation until her father overtook them. Then she immediately fell back, and walked and talked with Marion, evidently with more real satis faction. But in the church they were again side by side, and Neville could not but be sensible, that while they joined in the most impressive prayers which man ever framed wherewith to address his Maker, Julia wept-silently,-as secretly as might be, but, calm as she ordinarily was, she could not here wholly restrain the emotion which betrayed a heart full to overflowing. Neville's first inquiry was answered.

(To be continued.)

HISTORY OF THE COTTON MANUFACTURE. Ir has long been acknowledged, that from the simplest matters the most important results may flow. Nor is this true in one province of human affairs only, but continually exemplified in the great departments of morals,

To-morrow I will so commence it with you," replied Neville, readily; and Juliet, who had just reached the spot where they stood, was pleased with the cheerful alacrity of his voice. Neville's eye rested attentively on

Abyssinian boy can leap, and Egypt herself has risen from the muddy deposits of a stream; whilst an insect, silently working in the deep sea, creates a whol polynesia, and covers the ocean with a thousand coral isles. A similar exemplification of the law of growth