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I deem it my duty to inform you of the true state of my affairs. You are aware that I have ventured deep in speculation; and I have this week learned that it has been not only unsuccessful, but has involved me deeply beside. A draft for three thousand dollars has this moment been returned from the bank protested, and for want of that sum, I fear I must go to jail, as the creditor is inexorable.'

To jail!' exclaimed Wilmot. Colonel Morton a bankrupt! Is it possible you speak the truth?'

Too true, I assure you, Sir. My house and establishment are all under attachment for a large sum.'

Wilmot walked away, while the colonel watched narrowly the effect of this announcement. Screened within a recess by a curtain, the former found a pen and ink, and taking a blank from his pocket, he drew upon his banker for the sum of three thousand dollars, to the order of Colonel Morton. Advancing, he laid the paper before the latter.

'Mr. Wilmot,' said the soldier, evidently surprised, ' do you know what you do? I am already involved beyond my means, and can never return a dollar of it. I really, Sir, cannot be so bad as to accept it.'

'Stay, Colonel Morton,' said Wilmot; I will take no refusal. With your own and Alice's consent, already gained, I intend yet to become your son-in-law. Think you I could, think you Alice could, rejoice at a wedding, while you were in jail?'

The veteran started to his feet, and rang the bell for his daughter. He paced the room in silence until she entered. Pausing, he placed her hand in that of Wilmot, while his manly countenance gleamed with an expression of heart-felt joy.

'Children, you have my blessing. He is worthy of you, Alice; I have tried him. Strive but to be as worthy of him. You, Sir, will pardon the jealous care of a father over his child. I have played upon you this trick, that your worth might be tested; and thank God! I have found a son-in-law who is not wanting in weight. My fortune is yet whole, and shall never be ventured in rash speculation. That gallant rascal Creighton sued for your hand, Alice, and I tried him in the same scale. He kicked the beam, and went off with a flea in his I had no doubt of you, Wilmot; but you are generous enough to forgive an old soldier's stratagem.'

ear.

The same day, Colonel Morton laughed heartily over the following paragraph, in an evening paper:

'An Englishman, calling himself CAPTAIN CREIGHTON, who has spent some time in great style in this city, was yesterday arrested at his hotel, on the suit of a London house. His real name is BENTLEY. Managing some business for the house just mentioned, he became a defaulter and forger to a large amount, and fled to this country. The money has been spent in display, under his military title.'

W. A. B.

THE LIKENESS.

How like is this picture! - you'd think that it breathes :
What life! what expression! what spirit!

It wants but a tongue: Alas!' said the spouse,
"That want is its principal merit!'

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Six long months have elapsed, to this hour, since, as I stood stretching my organs of vision from the front windows of Meurice's Hotel, Paris, I caught the last glimpse of a travelling equipage, which was conveying no less a distinguished personage than yourself to the shores of that privileged country, where, clad in the panoply of the most dazzling abilities, and rich in the recollections of the heroic past, you have since acquired a name, that shall live as long as the emblazoned memory of your stupendous literary exploits.

Alas! what a totally different course did the everlasting chain of fate compel me to pursue ! Had an angel descended from the loftiest heaven, and told me then, that the brief space of six revolving moons would have caused such an astounding change, both as regards our respective latitudes, and our social position, I should have deemed him the veriest dunce that ever attempted to startle our weaker senses with prophetic dreams. This you will of course attribute to that want of ambitious energy, and due appreciation of literary distinction, with which you were wont to taunt me, in happy days of yore. Alas! say rather, that my mind, like that of poor Collins, (forgive the presumptuous comparison !) being cast in too common a mould to admit of my concentrating my faculties upon any fixed object, I possess, therefore, little or no capacity for the prosecution of those splendid schemes, which have at once illumined your hermitage in solitude, and flattered your pride in the season of success.

*WE had opened, late one evening, our port-folio, for 'copy,' at the instance of an ambassadorimp from that 'hazy cave of Trophonius,' the printing-office, and were revolving over in our mind which of two clever articles to choose, when in walked, without knocking, our old friend AsmoDEUS, bearing in his hand an opened letter. With 'ful gret solempuite,' he advanced, and laying it before us, said: 'I was amidst the passengers of the late outward-bound packet, when they gathered around the contents of the letter-bag, while the captain assorted them. I selected, and have brought you, this epistle. I know what it contains. Print it; for it will effect a work of good. I shall come again.' And so saying, the sententious, business-like Shade vanished from the apartment We obey the voice which sounded soft and low in our ears on that memorable night.

The deportment of many of our countrymen while abroad, glanced at in the present letter, is not a new topic. We have heard several native travellers, on their return from Europe, animadvert upon it; and an observant American tourist, with whom our readers are already favorably acquainted, bestows, in a work now passing through the press, the following judicious advice, suggested by the same contemptible propensity in question:

'Without presuming to give a homily on manners, I may be pardoned, perhaps, for one or two hints to my young countrymen, touching their general deportment abroad-viz: If you would win respect and confidence in good society, especially in England, preserve your republican simplicity of character. Be straight-forward and unassuming in your manner, and honest, free, and at the same time unobtrusive, in the expression of your opinions. If you wish to make yourself ridiculous, the best course is, to cringe to rank and wealth; affect mysterious importance and reserve; and slander, either in words or practice, your own country and her institutions. Do not deem these hints intrusive: they are certainly well meant. I have seen many instances, and heard of more, in which prejudice and disgust have been excited against the whole American people, by this sort of conduct on the part of their representatives. Such consequential airs, if they ever do introduce you to high life, will only sooner or later bring you into contempt. An American who conducts himself as a patriotic and gentlemauly American should do, has no reason to be ashamed of his name or nation. He belongs to Nature's nobility; and to a country unequalled in extent, beauty, and natural advantages, by any on earth. On the other hand, avoid the too common practice of continually referring to it by invidions comparisons, or lofty boasts. 'A word to the wise." EDS. KNICKERBOCKER.

Beside, your absence, unlooked for as it had been, and only occasioned by the éclat of your marvellous productions, left a hiatus in my heart, which no extraneous charm or consolation could fill up. I could think of nothing but of our untoward separation. Oh that word separation! What a chill and drear sound it has! It comes between us and our happiness like a ravenous kite, and tears asunder, with one dreadful wrench, all the ties of tenderness and love!

But Nature, whatever may be the quality of your draught upon her, is capable of a certain amount of endurance only; and as I lay one day stretched on an easy couch, in luxurious indolence, like a puritanical Sardanapalus, striving to resist the narcotic influence of an enervating atmosphere, a flash from the reviving embers of my dormant energies suddenly shot athwart my cerebral chamber, and forthwith my passions were roused to the utmost verge of active sympathy. Weary of seeing thousands of idle faces daily buzzing about me, and yet live,

'Like a lonely bird,

Wailing unheeded in a vast sea-cave,'

I resolved to get into good humor with the world again, even at the hazard of beholding the premature subversion of all plea for turning misanthrope. Collision with society is, after all, I fear, the only antidote against bile a species of mental carbonate of soda, which causes a gentle degree of acetous fermentation, by which the superabundance of acid is either carried off, or neutralized.

It was during my subsequent intercourse with the gay circles of the French metropolis, that I became acquainted with those rare transatlantic specimens of female loveliness, whose rainbow-like glances had not unfrequently detracted from the singleness of your own pursuits, and bereft your eyelids of their proportionate share of vacancy. Through their gracious intercession, I soon found myself on a footing of intimacy with almost every American of standing and quality then in Paris.

You may remember how forcibly, for the last eight years, your American predilections had gained upon me, and how rapidly I was veering round to your own point of the compass, when the wholesome severities of Mrs. Trollope's criticisms, and the amusing impertinences of the ci-devant Fanny Kemble, made me wish to be placed in a position where I might sagely try conclusions of my own on the subject.

The accomplishment of this project, however, I found more thickly beset with difficulties than Sancho Panza's attempts at repletion, with Doctor Don Periwig Snatchaway by his side; for, notwithstanding that there were assembled in Paris, at this period, nearly two thousand Americans of wealth and influence, who entered freely into all the harmless frivolities of the season, and thus supplied me with excellent opportunities for contemplating new modifications of intellect and character, yet such is the melancholy diffidence exhibited by most Americans, when from home, particularly on the continent of Europe, and under the benign influence of daily condescension from the proud, the powerful, and the noble, that instead of those spontaneous ebullitions of patriotism, which I expected their

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