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me.

"Cold as your northern suns!" was the muttered reply, in a tone of bitterness which really frightened "I am as bad a judge of English smiles as of everything else I suppose," added he, in a softened accent-"I have been spoilt for them too I fear."

Just then a loud sound of talking and laughter announced the return of the equestrians, and my painful curiosity to see my new niece, was gratified. I had heard that she was handsome! She was more-she was dazzlingly beautiful-her tall fine figure, set off by her riding dress, and her complexion, heightened by exercise, struck me with admiration; and I wondered what Philip could mean by "cold smiles," when with one of irresistible frankness, she bade me welcome to Westerton. She made some lively remarks on their ride, and joined cheerfully in the chit-chat around. I looked at my nephew, to whom she had not spoken; and he, probably reading my astonishment, rose as with an effort, and approaching us, asked her in a tone of tender interest, if she felt fatigued? As if all her animation had been suddenly chilled by a painful recollection, she coldly and gravely answered, "Not in the least ;" and rising with ungracious haste, left the room to dress. "There must be something at the bottom of this," thought I, as my nephew, shaking his head sorrow fully, led me, with the rest of the gentlemen, to my room.

When we met at dinner, I was much struck with the contrast between the plain substantial meals which in my childhood covered my father's board, and the perfectly foreign air which, under the superintendence of an Italian Major domo, the table had now assumed. party-who seemed about equally made up of mere sportsmen who despised, and dashers who criticised,

The

their entertainment and host-provoked me by alternately devouring and disparaging everything before them; while Philip, a stranger to their local wit, and disgusted with their selfishness, sat nearly silent by my side; and Lady Jane, more radiant than ever, listened complacently, if not encouragingly, to the small talk of her privileged cousin, the puppy of the set.

I never in my life saw such an illassorted party. There were one or two ladies, meet helpmates for their foxhunting or blackleg lords, silly, insipid, or worse; and it was impossible not to pity a poor foreigner thrown by his hard fate among such a specimen of British bon ton. On the guests I could scarce waste a thought; but Lady Jane cost me much painful rumination. She was certainly clever and accomplished; she must despise the beings around her; nay, I saw she did, by the smile which curled her beautiful lip, when their absurdity out-Heroded itself. It was scarce possible she should dislike her handsome, refined, deeply interesting husband; she did not." Thank God!" ejaculated I mentally more than once, when I detected her large blue eyes fixed with a softened expression on his face. "I will know the true history of all this," said I to myself; "two young hearts shall not misunderstand each other if I can help it."

There was in the party one individual whom I could not help regarding as the evil genius of the pairthe cousin of Lady Jane, who had been acquainted abroad with Philip, and whose mutual representations had greatly conduced to make the match. This young man, who was certainly of a cold calculating disposition, but in whose glances I could not avoid occasionally suspecting a warmer sentiment towards his fair cousin, seemed to exercise over her uncommon influence; and before the evening was over, I fancied she took advantage of his absence to address a few words of more than common kindness to her lord. He returned

and found them sitting together; and his supercilious look of reproach gave me, as I supposed, a key, of which I determined to avail myself. A few days placed me on a footing of privileged intimacy with my niece, who seemed to indemnify herself by kindness to me for her restraint elsewhere; and taking her arm within mine for a long walk, one bright frosty morning, I ventured to hint that I did not think the air of England seemed altogether to agree with her husband. I was delighted to feel the start with which she received this observation.

"Do you really think so?" said she, stopping and looking earnestly up in my face.

"Oh! perhaps," said I, wishing to touch another chord, "it may be only something on his spirits; he is certainly not so happy, as, with all he has to make him so," kindly pressing her arm," methinks he ought to be !"

My fair companion grew very pale; and her lips were compressed as with the effort of one, determined to be silent, coute qui coute.

"I seek not to intrude on your confidence, my dear niece," said I; "mine is, alas! no idle curiosity. Philip is my only brother's only son, and his mother was once the object of a boyish passion, which it nearly cost me life to subdue."

"His mother!" exclaimed Lady Jane, scarce conscious of the abrupt ness of her interruption; "I always thought- -" then suddenly aware of the delicate ground on which she was treading, the sweet girl blushed, and hesitatingly added-" I had understood the object of your youthful affection was removed to a better world."

"You heard but the truth, my dear niece," replied I, with a sigh." She to whom my heart has ever remained indissolubly united, is indeed no more; but the attachment I felt for her was but enhanced and deepened by contrast with the meteor blaze of passion which preceded it."

"Did you really love twice-and

so soon? For you were but young, I have heard, when you lost your intended bride ?"-And this recently married young creature hung on my reply as if worlds depended on its tenor.

"I did, indeed, Lady Jane, if love's sacred name could be usurped by idle, frantic, unrequited passion! But such as it was, it melted before a steadier and holier flame, as a feverish dream flies before morning's fresh invigorating breeze."

"There is hope for me yet, then !" exclaimed my young companion, no longer repressing the tears which injured pride had long forbidden to flow.

"Hope ?" said I, "and of what ?” for I could not yet divine where lurked the demon fatal to her peace.

"That Philip may love me in time, in spite of his early and mad attachment to the Italian girl his mother rescued from taking the veil, and whom, but for her and my cousin Charles, he would have married."

The whole mystery, as it regarded my niece, was now unravelled; jealousy accounted for all her dissembled coldness, but whether any trace of entanglement still combated, in my nephew's breast, his evident attachment to his bride, I could not be quite certain. I, however, felt sufficiently confident of the contrary, to cheer her heart with assurances of the genuine and unfeigned affection I had remarked in his conduct towards her.

"Oh, he is very, very kind; but when, some weeks after our marriage, I received the cruel Vittoria's letter, invoking curses on my head, and boasting of the indelible hold she possessed over Philip's perjured heart, I thought I should have died. I flew and upbraided my cousin with his knowledge of this prior attachment; he confessed it, but, while he gloried in having assisted to break it off, and affected to treat it with scorn, he warned me how I revived a slumbering spark by any sentimental allusions or unguarded dis

closure; assuring me, from his knowledge of Philip's temper, that I could only acquire or maintain a hold on his affections by a dignified reserve, the most opposite to the jealous transports which had at length weaned him from my foreign rival. He told me my husband was romantic to excess, and that romance in a wife would be the bane of his happiness and hers; that amusement and dissipation were the only cure for his melancholy, and seeing me admired by others, the likeliest mode of fixing his truant affections on myself." "Poor child!" said I, almost unconsciously, as this highly born and highly gifted creature wept in agony on my shoulder, "by what machinations has thy peace been invaded and thy innocence endangered! Such invidious counsel could have had but one object, to estrange thee from the most affectionate of hearts, and cast thee for comfort on the most artful of seducers !"

Just then, I saw approaching, but at the further extremity of the long avenue we were entering, the husband so nearly about to become a prey to this deep-laid plot against his peace. Burning to dispel, without the loss of a moment, the remaining clouds of misapprehension between two young and amiable beings, I requested my niece to step aside, and pursue her walk, screened from observation behind the high yew hedge of the approach, while I went forward alone to meet my nephew. I quickened my pace, and joined him almost instantly. "Philip," said I, "am I right in supposing that your evident dejection is occasioned by doubts of your young bride's affection?"-He looked up, and sighed assent.

66

What, then, if I inform you that her coldness proceeds from far better founded misgivings; lest, in offering her your hand, a heart should not have been yours to bestow?—I need only name Vittoria, and say that Lady Jane knows all, to account at once for her injured pride and wounded feelings!"

"Does she indeed know all ?" said Philip, looking up with the air of one rather relieved than disconcerted. "It was not my fault she knew not from the first that I once childishly imagined loveliness of mind and person must be found united; and woke from the delusion to bless my escape from the toils of an incarnate fiend."

As he spoke, I caught a glimpse of a white veil, and, by an emphatic cough, warned my fair neighbour to remain, justly supposing that to overhear such unsuspected testimony to her sole empire in her husband's heart, would be worth volumes of direct assurances.

"Would I were as sure," continued he, "of my place in Lady Jane's pure and spotless bosom, as that mine has long ceased to feel aught but contempt or pity for the shameless being, whose own rude hand dispelled the illusion, which a romantic history, a fair form, and consummate art, had cast around rashness, levity, and, I fear, guilt!"

"Thank God! it is, as I hoped, my dear Philip, on your side,” said I;" and I think I may venture to assure you that half what you have told me will suffice to give to the smiles of your bride a warmth and sunshine, amid which that of Italy will never be missed."

He shook his head incredulously, and sighing, exclaimed, "What would I not give to see them on her own dear lips!"

We were near an opening in the old rugged yew hedge; I suddenly drew my nephew within it, and the fair listener stood confessed. The tears of joy, irradiated by such a blush, and such a smile as I have seldom seen but on the cheek of a daughter of England. "Give her your confidence, Philip," said I; 66 can you doubt further ?"

"Give me your pardon, my dear husband," said she, as he flew towards her, "for being an involuntary, but oh! a blessed listener !—It was your uncle

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"Who has made me the happiest

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won't you, till a few more comforts are added to our home, to make it all that an English home should be?"

I carried them with me in triumph. I introduced them at Dunbarrow to the worthy and the wise among their compatriots. I saw at my own tranquil fireside their once threatened wedded bliss assume the imperishable hues of eternity. I saw, not only without reluctance, but with delight, a youthful figure in my mother's sacred chair, and a second Emma beneath the picture of my sainted bride. They staid, only to grow too dear; they left me, at length, to know, for the first time, what it truly is TO BE ALONE.

FOREIGN LANDS.

SPEAK but of foreign lands-and see
The child of nature wand'ring free;
The wild-wood hunter fearless press
On through the trackless wilderness :

And shuddering trace the lonely path
The desert lion leaves in wrath;
Or feast the soul with all that lies
Lovely and strange beneath the skies.

We think upon a foreign land-
What wild luxurious scenes expand!
The broad deep river, like a sea;
The untrodden wood's immensity;

The green and quiet tracks of rest That hide within the forest's breast, That stillness so profound and dread : Ne'er broke by human voice nor tread :

We see the gorgeous flowers, that none, Save the lone Indian, looks upon;

And hear the bird with wild-cry wake
The night-hush of the forest-brake.

"T is thus yet foreign lands and seas
Wake other, deeper thoughts than these!
For where is he who hath not lost
Some dear one on a foreign coast?

Oh, many a noble heart is laid
To moulder in the forest's shade;
The palm-tree rears its glorious crest
O'er many a loved one's place of rest.

River, and sea, and flowery isle,
Radiant with Spring's eternal smile,
Have had their prey, have rent the ties
Of home-born, heart-link'd sympathies.

Alas! for this Affection pales,
The eye grows dim, the spirit fails,
Till foreign lands become a sound
That stirs the bosom but to wound.

WAR SONG.

Imitated from the Russian of Lomonosor.

ON-like a ship amid the sea,
When winds are loud, and waves are high,
And forward-forward, far and free,
Mid yawning deep, and threatening sky,
She dashes from her sides amain
The billows to their depths again.

On—like the eagle in his pride,
Who soars in distance wide and dim;
The rock, the gulf, the mountain's side,
The woods, are level paths to him :
Where'er the winds of heaven can blow,
There may his chainless pinion go.

9 ATHENEUM, VOL. 9, 2d series.

On-like the lion of the waste,
Whose glaring eye sheds fear around,
And wolves in rage and terror haste
Far from his footstep's fatal sound;
While through the rocks and mountains ring
The thunders of the forest-king.

On, warriors, on-through smoke and blood,
On-through the battle's furious sea,
That dashes, like a stormy flood,
Its deluge of red waves on thee:
On, on to conquer-or to die-
Hurrah, for death or victory!

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Pilot Wheels.

3. The Pilot Wheels.

4. The Pole.

5. The Fore Boot, for luggage.

6. The "Throttle Valve" of the main steam-pipe, which, by means of the handle, is opened or closed at pleasure, the power of the steam and the progress of the carriage being thereby regulated from 1 to 10 or 20 miles per hour.

7. The Tank for Water, running from end to end, and the full breadth of the carriage; it will contain 60 gallons of water.

8. The Carriage, capable of holding six inside-passengers.

9. Outside-passengers, of which the present carriage will carry 15.

10. The Hind Boot, containing the Boiler and Furnace. The Boiler is incased with sheet-iron, and between the pipes the coke and charcoal are put, the front being closed in the ordinary way with an iron door The pipes extend from the cylindrical reservoir of water at the bottom to the cylindrical chamber for steam at the top, forming a succession of lines something like a horse-shoe, turned edgeways. The steam enters the "separators" through large pipes, which are observable on the Plan, and is thence conducted to its proper destination.

11. "Separators," in which the steam is

separated from the water, the water descending and returning to the boiler, while the steam ascends, and is forced into the steam-pipes or main arteries of the machine.

12. The Pump, by which the water is pumped from the tank, by means of a flexible hose, to the reservoir, communicating

with the boiler.

13. The Main Steam Pipe, descending from the "separators," and proceeding in a direct line under the body of the coach to the "throttle valve," (No. 6), and thence under the tank, to the cylinders from which the pistons work.

14. Flues of the Furnace, from which there is no smoke, coke and charcoal being used.

15. The Perches, of which there are three, conjoined, to support the machinery. 16. The Cylinders. There is one between each perch.

17. Valve Motion, admitting steam alternately to each side of the pistons.

18. Cranks, operating on the axle; at the ends of the axle are crotches (No. 21), which, as the axle turns round, catch projecting pieces of iron on the boxes of the wheels, and give them the rotatory motion. The hind wheels only are thus operated upon.

19. Propellers, which, as the carriage ascends a hill, are set in motion, and move like the hind legs of a horse, catching the ground, and then forcing the machine forward, increasing the rapidity of its motion, and assisting the steam power.

20. The Drag, which is applied to increase the friction on the wheel in going

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