lady's hand. Probably he lost half a dozen fortunes for the sake of saving a shilling.

At last, however, Mr. Smith's great name-sake, the little God Cupid, in one of his freaks, directed the two Miss Prymsticks, or the two Misses Prymstick, we don't remember the fashionable way, to take up their residence for a couple of winter months, at the boarding-house where Mr. Smith lived. These two ladies were sisters; the eldest, Caroline, was probably forty-the younger, Charlotte, thirty-eight. They looked very much alike and were very much alike, and they were never more alike in anything than in liking Cupid Smith. "Hasn't he fine teeth, Caroline?" "Hasn't he beautiful hair, Charlotte?" they exclaimed together, after the first meeting. Mr. Smith quietly observed to a friend of his, "A pair of fine girls, the Miss Prymsticks. I wonder who they are?" It was an easy matter to learn exactly who they were; and Mr. Smith, very much to his satisfaction, learned that they were the orphan daughters of a jobbing grocer who had died some ten years before, and left them quite a little fortune, the interest of which enabled them to live very genteelly in a cottage ornée at Bloomingdale, and to contribute largely to several missionary enterprises. We do not know that Mr. Smith actually redoubled his attentions to the two Miss Prymsticks after he received this information, but he was suffificiently attentive to them; and let people say what they please of his manners, we are knowing to the fact that he treated them to ice-creams at Thompson's twice in one month. And such is the power of love on the mere externals of our nature, supposing Mr. Smith to have been influenced by that tender passion, we do not hesitate to say that his hair assumed a darker hue and a glossier surface, and even his teeth shone with a preternatural brightness, after his acquaintance with

Caroline and Charlotte Prymstick. His eyes, it is true, remained about the same as they had been, but their sparkles were probably perceived by the two sisters: for our own part we wondered at their dullness considering the happy excitement under which he must have labored.

Things wore a very smiling, a very cheerful, and a very contented outside with Caroline and Charlotte Prymstick, and Cupid Smith, for two whole months, let the same things have been ever so much the reverse inside. It is a great thing to appear happy, even, for two months. Mr. Smith was no doubt a happy man every way. He felt morally sure that one of the sisters, and her fortune, would be his, when he made up his mind which one he would take; the only thing that he grieved about was the strictness of the laws which forbade polygamy, for he would have been too happy to espouse both of them, and take the care of their fortunes, poor things! The young ladies felt equally certain that one of them could have Mr. Smith; but as they could not, like him, make an election, they were in a state of feverish anxiety night after night, amounting almost to one of those terrible cases of madness which we meet with in novels. At one time the chances seemed in favor of Caroline, at another Cupid seemed to be pointing his arrows at Charlotte. But we leave our readers to judge of the feelings of hope and despair which alternately scourged the hearts of these amiable young ladies. We are sure that they can be much more easily imagined than described. Indeed, nothing can be more easy than to imagine such feelings, and nothing more difficult, in the way of description, than to describe them.

Not to interrupt the train of reflection too suddenly into which our reader has probably fallen, we will pause for a moment before entering on the second division of our story.

The blasts of winter had given way to the soft breath of spring; the hillocks of ice and snow, which had long impeded the progress of the traveler as he wended his way from Union Square to Wall street, had disappeared and left pools of mud at the crossings of the streets: cloaks had given place to shawls, and marabout feathers to crape roses; and many other

changes equally important had taken place, which we will omit, because we are only writing a magazine story, and not a novel like those by Mr. James and Mr. Simms. To be very brief, then, and comprehensible, it was spring, and the two Misses Prymstick had returned to Sweet-Brier Cottage without having received any intimation from Mr. Smith of

his inclinations or intentions, excepting in a very general manner. It is true that Miss Caroline thought that he had shown rather more tenderness towards her, and had pressed her hand at parting a little more warmly than he had done to her sister, but then Miss Charlotte thought exactly the same respecting herself. The truth of the matter was that he had not shown the least partiality, neither did he feel any. But as soon as he felt relieved of the witchery of their personal charms he began to settle his thoughts upon Charlotte Prymstick. It was something to be on this side of forty, even though the distance was so short. Mr. Smith was something the other side of that venerable period himself, and any young lady under it was quite a girl. Having once allowed himself to think of Charlotte apart from her sister, he was not long in arraying her in a thousand graces which Caroline did not possess. Her complexion was better, her teeth whiter, her form more perfect, her foot smaller, her voice sweeter, her mind more elevated, for Mr. Smith would talk of elevated minds in spite of Wall street, and, what was of more importance, she had the most love for him. But we who knew these young ladies, well knew that Mr. Smith was mistaken in all of these particulars. The only difference between these unfortunate sisters was that of age, and that was too little to care about. However, we did not know at the time what thoughts had taken possession of Mr. Smith's mind, and therefore we could not set him right in the matter. So he went on day after day, and night after night, stuffing himself and filling up all the pores of his capacious heart with thoughts of Charlotte Prymstick, until the image of the young lady completely occupied every part of his system. It was just such another marriage of souls as took place in the beginning of things, when the original Cupid and Miss Psyche made their most memorable and desirable match. At last, Mr. Smith being entirely possessed with the image of Miss Charlotte Prymstick, felt himself irresistibly impelled towards her by that secret influence which men are beginning to understand since they have begun to make researches and discoveries in the science of Psydunamy; and finding that it would be of no use to attempt to hold out longer, he sent word to the sisters that he would pay them a visit of a Saturday night and remain with them at SweetBrier Cottage until Monday morning; in

tending to watch an opportunity of declaring his love to Miss Charlotte when she was alone, and, if she should reject him, to offer himself to her sister before they could have an opportunity to confer together.

The sisters were thrown into an indescribable tumult by Mr. Smith's message; and, as women always do on such occasions, immediately turned the house upside down, and had it scrubbed from garret to cellar; just as if Mr. Smith was going to inspect every closet and cupboard with his eye-glass. Then they began to inspect their jars of preserves, and fretted themselves into a high fever in trying to think of something suitable for dinner. All their proceedings were on the most extensive and lavish scale, and if it had been possible to eat gold it would have been offered to Cupid for his supper. But nature has so ordered things, for wise purposes we have no doubt, that high and low, rich and poor, the favored and the oppressed, the master and the slave, must all come down to the same level in receiving sustenance from the bounteous Giver of all good. The same air and water and bread necessary for the slave are also necessary for the master. We live upon neither eagles nor bank bills; and although it would not be utterly impossible, as we know from our historical reading, to swallow a pearl dissolved in vinegar, yet nobody would take such a potation in preference to pure water. In spite, therefore, of the Cleopatraish desires of the Misses Prymstick, when their Anthony made his appearance at Sweet-Brier Cottage they were forced to see him sit at their table and eat a slice of dry toast and drink a cup of weak tea, the whole of which could not have cost fivepence.

And they were so willing and so able to feed him upon gold, and dissolve pearls in his drink! Why, what a mortification is this! To sweat and toil, and sacrifice blessed nights and days to the getting of money and then not to be able to swallow a sixpence more than the happy healthy creature who has laughed at care and grown old without a dollar at interest. Never did their wealth seem so small in the eyes of the Misses Prymstick, as when they saw Cupid sitting at their table and felt the impotence of money to add in the smallest degree to his pleasures. Oh! it would have drawn tears from the eyes of John Jacob Astor to see them in their distress. Why, anybody

could have furnished such a supper as that to Mr. Smith. There is not a milliner in Division street who could not have done as much. What then was the use of their money? The use of it was that to its particular influence they were solely indebted for the company of Mr. Smith at all. But this they did not consider. Indeed, such are the magnetic influences of the precious metals, that people who possess any considerable quantity of those materials can never know what portion of their joys or woes is owing to their attractions; and the only way to test their true value and your own merits is to dispossess yourself of them after the manner of Timon. But these subtleties were quite beyond the Misses Prymstick. They were willing to credit all the attentions they received from Mr. Smith and from everybody else to their own personal attractions, and not to that worthless dross which in the commerce of the world is called money. And they are right for so doing. What could more effectually disgust an honest soul, and sicken it of the world, than to know it was surrounded by base parasites and worshipers of that idol, the love of which God himself has said is impossible with those who worship Him. Can it be a comfortable feeling to know you are surrounded by a rabble rout-like the lady in Comus-who are watching for a chance to prey upon you? And that the smiling looks and watchful eyes which are bent upon you are but the marks of sordid vice? No. The two sisters, therefore, hugged themselves in the faith that Mr. Smith was smitten by their personal

charms and the blandishments of their conversation.

We will not infringe upon the sacred privacy of Sweet-Brier and reveal to the world the conversation of the two sisters and Cupid Smith. The reader must have a dull imagination who cannot furnish for himself as much gentle talk and soft whispering as took place on that memorable Saturday night. Smith had wisely determined not to reveal his passion before the next day, fearing, perhaps, that when the sisters were left to themselves something might occur to mar his brilliant hopes; they left him, therefore, when they retired for the night, in the same sweetly uncertain state which they had now endured for almost half a year; and he retired to his couch with the same high hopes in his heart; the same bright mansions glittering in the smiling valleys of the Future; the same glossy brown hair on his head; and the same spotless porcelain glistening between his severed lips. But this life, as the Poet sings, is expressly given us for our illusion; and never, as after events proved, did three mortals so delude themselves with vain dreams as did Caroline and Charlotte Prymstick and Cupid Smith that eventful night.

Before we enter upon the exciting part of our story, a little time is essential for the recuperation of our own as well as our reader's nerves. Therefore we will close this chapter while the chief personages of our story are enjoying that repose which no hero however great, nor any reader however ardent, can afford to forego.

We have not before attended to one peculiarity of the Miss Prymsticks, which those two ladies held in common with the greater part of the sex who remain unmarried at a certain age; this, as may be imagined, was an excessive caution, in all affairs wherein the opposite sex was an actor, not by word, deed, or sign to cast the faintest shadow on the immaculate purity of their chaste reputation. Until the night that Mr. Smith favored them with his company, no man had ever rested his head upon a pillow in Sweet-Brier Cottage. They were, therefore, in a state of great excitement when, after retiring to the sleeping apartment they remembered that a man, or to use their own ex

pression, "a gentleman," was sleeping under their roof, even though that gentleman was Cupid Smith. They had no fears of him--not the least in the worldbut to make security doubly secure, they called Bridget the cook, and Ellen the chambermaid, and made them lie in the room adjoining their own; not content with this, they put Cupid himself in a little octagonal room on the first floor, which had a window opening out upon the lawn still further, they waited until they thought he must be asleep and then barricadoed his chamber door with the dining table and rocking-chair, and then closed their virgin eyes to dream, in sweet security, of brighter and happier days to

come; for the happiest of mortals are continually looking forward to still happier days in the future.

Smith stretched himself upon the downy bed which the tender sisters had prepared for his weary limbs, and courted sleep with all his power, anxious, no doubt, to revel in those dreams which his fancy would be sure to conjure up when his thoughts were disentangled from the grosser cares of the world. But sleep would not come at his call; the novelty of his situation, the closeness of the room, the excessive whiteness of the virgin linen in which he was wrapped, or some other cause, kept him staring wide awake; at last he grew so restless that he determined to rise and walk in the adjoining room until his nerves should be composed. His consternation was extreme when he tried the handle of his door and discovered that he was fastened into his room. The night was calm, the moon at the full and temptingly bright; so gently raising the window of his room he stepped out upon the lawn, and having on no other covering than his shirt, after two or three turns across the lawn he felt sufficiently refreshed to wish for his bed. But when he attempted to raise the window again, to his utter dismay he was unable to lift it an inch. It was secured by a self-acting spring which he had not perceived when he let it down. He tried and tried until the sweat began to run from him in streams. There he stood in the cold night air, the moon shining with intense brightness upon his bald head and giving it the appearance of one of those quicksilvered globes which are sometimes seen hanging in the parlors of very old-fashioned country taverns. Yes, the crown of Cupid Smith's head was as bald as the palm of his hand. We have kept this fact a profound secret until this moment, when we could do so no longer. Our reader will remember that we have alluded to the admiration of the Miss Prymsticks for Smith's fine head of hair. And their admiration was as good a proof of their æsthetical perception as though they had written an essay on the Apollo Belvidere. Winckleman, or Göthe, or Miss Fuller, or any other æsthetic writer might have admired Smith's wig. It was a very perfect one and he always kept it in the best order. Of course he took it off when he went to bed-which is more than every man can do with his hair-and that was the reason of his baldness. Since we have gone so

far as to divulge the secret of the wig, we might, perhaps, as well mention here a fact which must come to the reader's knowledge sooner or later: Smith also wore a complete set of false teeth, made of the most delicate porcelain, which, at the moment that he stood on the outside of the window trying to effect an entrance, were quietly reposing on the toilet-table of the Misses Prymstick's octagonal dressing-room, which was for the first time graced by such splendid ornaments. A ray of silvery light penetrating through one of the parted folds of the window drapery, fell upon them and gave them the appearance of spectral teeth. If we were to write page upon page we could never convey an impression to the reader's mind of Smith's feelings. Those who would know how he felt must try to imagine themselves in his situation. Having stopped a moment to consider what was best to be done, an icy chilliness succeeded to his feverish heat: gradually the wind began to rise and whistle sharply about his legs, rustling, in a very unpleasant manner, his exceedingly scant drapery. At first Smith resolved rather than expose himself to his chaste hostesses to make a bold venture and run off to town; but when he remembered that his teeth and hair were lying on the toilettable of his sleeping-room a dizziness came over him and he gasped for breath. But he soon recovered. A man in his situation was not likely to be long lost in thought. There was but one alternative. He must get into the house by hook or by crook. Leaving the window of his sleeping-room, he tried all the other windows and doors, hoping to find one unfastened, but the Misses Prymstick were not the persons to leave a window unfastened. In gliding around the cottage, jumping over beds of flowers, and ever and anon scratching his legs against rose-bushes and treading upon nettles, he had restored the fever heat of his blood, and in spite of the wind the sweat began to drip from his body. Now he resolved to knock boldly at the front door of the cottage, but dreading to encounter the chaste sisters in his entrance, and fearful of alarming those tender virgins he concluded, just as he had laid his hand upon the knocker, that his only way was to wake one of the house-maids and bribe her to let him in without waking the sisters. A new difficulty now beset him. He didn't know where the servants slept, and he might disturb the sisters by mis

take. But he had been a denizen of Wall street too long not to understand the science of chances, and making a slight algebraic calculation in his perplexed brain, he arrived at the conclusion that a little diamond-paned window which looked towards the rising sun must belong to the servants' apartment. So, gathering a handful of small pebbles he flung them against it, and was startled by the tremendous noise which they made, as they

rattled against the glass. He waited a few minutes, but there was no response, and growing impatient he threw up another handful of pebbles with still greater force. It was not long before Smith had the happiness to see the little casement open. His heart leaped with delight at the sight, but the next moment

what happened at the next moment, we shall refer to in the next and concluding chapter.

Although Smith capered about the grounds of Sweet-Brier as free from the suspicion of being observed as a young colt gamboling in a field of clover, and as little embarrassed by mauvais honte as by any unnecessary clothing, he was, nevertheless, closely watched by more eyes than Diana's, which shone as brightly upon him as though he had been her cherished Endymion. Some secret influence-perhaps the same that had bewitched the faculties of Cupid Smith-had also prevented Miss Charlotte Prymstick from closing an eye when she retired to her couch, and after tossing awhile and striving in vain to close her eyes in sleep, at last rose and seated herself at her window and gazed abstractedly at the moon. She had not sat long when she thought that she perceived the shadow of a man flitting across the lawn. She nearly swooned at the sight; but as it almost immediately vanished she imagined it was only the effect of her disturbed mind and hesitated to awaken her sister who had fallen into a sweet sleep. But as she sat with her heart beating terribly, her eyes soon encountered a sight that almost deprived her of reason. It was no shadow that she saw now, but a real man, and in a condition too that left her no room to doubt. But her horror was at its height when he cautiously approached the window where she was sitting and attempted to raise the sash of the one directly beneath. Too much terrified to utter a piercing scream, she rushed to the bedside of her sister and in a few hurried whispers informed her of what she had seen. Rushing from their apartment like startled fawns, (to be frank with the reader, we never saw a startled fawn, excepting the tame one in the Bowling Green, and are not positive that this simile is a just one, but as frightened young ladies are always compared to startled fawns, we think that

it must be,) they sought their sleeping servants in the adjoining apartment. Bridget and Ellen were soon awake; and on beholding the terrific spectacle which had alarmed their mistresses, they were less shocked though quite as much terrified as those two young ladies. Keeping themselves sufficiently removed from the window to escape observation they watched all the movements of Mr. Smith, and made up their minds that he was a lunatic who had escaped from the Asylum. They were confirmed in this opinion by observing that his head had been shaved, and his shirt they innocently believed to be a straight-jacket. Knowing that all the doors and windows were well secured, they felt under no apprehension of harm, and heroically resolved not to alarm their sleeping guest.

It so happened that the very window at which Smith flung his handful of pebbles was the one where the sisters and the two house-maids were huddled together watching his movements; and the second handful coming with such force as to make the sisters fearful of their glass, they persuaded Ellen to open the casement and ask the poor wretch what he wanted.

"Hlush! Hlush!" exclaimed the poor creature: "Ble clareful and don't wlake le loung ladies. Clome dlown qulick and let me in for Hleaven slake; I'm plerishishling with clold. Don't be alarmed, its li Mr. Smith." Poor Cupid was hardly able to enunciate a word without his teeth, and not more than a quarter of what he said was understood by the young ladies.

The window was immediately closed again, and the ladies held a consultation, but before they could determine what to do, another shower of pebbles rattled against the glass, for Mr. Smith was growing dreadfully impatient, and had