emerging from my covert, and placing myself before her as the last note died upon her lips.

"Oh! Washington, how you startled me. no-not ungentle, so abrupt sometimes; but

You are so ungentle-

you are just in time

now to fill this watering-pot for me from the green-house tank, and bring it to me in the arbour walk."

"Thank you," she added, as, obeying the behest, I joined her a moment afterward. "Do you remember, Washington, when I planted this bush ?" continued she, stooping to pick off some dry leaves which were the only blemishes upon a flourishing shrub near us. "Yes, well; we were both children then.”

"Then? Why what are we now, Mister Vanderlyn? What a way you have, Washington, of talking as if you had long since come to man's estate! I sometimes think that you are like this trumpet creeper that has overrun the whole arbour, while my poor rose-bush scarcely reaches the second trellice, though they were both planted at the same time. The bignonia-is not that what the botanists call it ?-grows fast and wild, as they say you do, Washington," said she archly; "and yet it is but a scentless shrub after all; while my roses, that mature so slowly, are the sweetest in the garden."

"True, Elsie, true," answered I with some bitterness; "I have not to learn from you that I am like a profitless vine producing nothing, and that my growing youth has sent its wild shoots hither and thither without the promise of one wholesome fruit: but the vine of which you speak is hardy as well as vigorous; it clings, too, with strange tenacity to the object near which you plant it, and its embowering twigs have already sheltered your more favourite and fragile plant from many an autumnal frost. There are some natures, Elsie, which, like yours, are formed to embellish life, and to add to its excellencies, and these are worth the careful training and gentle nurture that men give them; there are others which flourish best perhaps from neglect-that will not repay the culture bestowed upon them, but which still I would fain believe may have their uses,"

"Yes, one might weave a basket from the leaves of your vine to carry my roses, Washington."

"Ay! or a fence from its tough twigs to keep the bush that bore them from harm," exclaimed I, passionately, passing my arm around her slender waist.

"What mean you?" cried she, extricating herself from the half embrace with looks of alarm and astonishment rather than anger. "You are ill this morning dear Washington; how pale you look-I thought something was the matter with you when you first joined me. Let me call the gardener-let-"

But I did not allow her to run on farther-" dear Washington !”—

-the word unlocked the fountains of my heart in a moment, and I poured out my feelings with such impetuosity that I saw not how the declaration was affecting her before I had told the whole history of my love: of the early childish attachment I had borne her; of the fond affection that developed itself with her budding youth, and the deep-seated passion which had taken possession of me within the last few months-a passion whose fullness and power I had not dreamed of until that morning I had learned that I was about to be severed from her for a season-for years perhaps to go I knew not where.

"To go away-away from here? Away to live? Oh no! you must not do that! What will become of me when you are gone? Who will ride with me when you are gone, or take me sailing in the bay, or drive me to the beach to gather those beautiful shells, or bring me wild flowers from the marsh? Oh! don't go-don't go, Washington."

"Elsie," said I gravely, recovering myself at this childish reply; "hear me! I have spoken to you upon the most momentous subject of my life-possibly the most important one of yours, and I wish you to answer me knowing what you say: I have told you I love you, that my dearest dream of happiness would be realized by making you my wife; I do not-I could not wish to trepan you with your eyes shut into an engagement which must necessarily be long; I would have you know your own heart while weighing the worth of the one I offer." I spoke this calmly, and then, with agitation which I could not control, I added, clasping her hand between both of mine" Elsie, Elsie, it depends upon what you say at this moment whether or not I leave this part of the country for ever! Will you-will you"-I pursued, half sinking upon one knee, from the garden seat before her, and trying to look into her averted eyes, while her fingers were feebly employed in removing the arm which encircled her "will you," I whispered in tones hoarse with emotion, "will you be mine, dearest Elsie?"

She answered only with a burst of tears. I tried to soothe, to reason with her; but her tears only flowed the more freely. I waited long for a more explicit reply, and at last it came. I remember every syllable of it as if they were pronounced but now.

"We are only children, Washington-and-and-but your talk to-day is madness; you cannot mean it!"

I answered only with a look.

"Oh, don't, don't look so fearfully earnest. You know I like you-better than any one-better than any one? There is scarce another person not of my own sex that I may say I know-at least as I know you. You know that I like you that I would not have

say,

Wash

you go away for the world; but I can't, indeed I can't ington, that I would be what you wish me ;-it's wrong to ask me to promise such a thing. Me! a child-it's wrong in you. Nay, don't look so troubled, I will forget it; let us both forget it-forget all that we have been talking about, and be playmates as of old. Why now you smile yourself at what you've said. Ah! Washington," pursued she, laying her hand upon my arm, and smiling through her tears with a half-piqued expression, "you have only been trying to quiz me in talking about what neither of us understand. Why, love? love? I only know the thing as I've read about it in the Scottish Chiefs, which you told me the other day was trash."

Her eyes, at first tearful and averted, were fixed with smiling openness upon me as she thus concluded her rambling reply; but their long lashes drooped in confusion, and her flushed and excited cheek paled even as the words passed her lips. I turned with quickness at hearing a slight step near, and caught a glimpse of a figure disappearing in the shrubbery. It was my cousin Jocelyn, and she had seen him! I knew it-I felt it; but I gave no sign of heeding, and still pressed my suit. I knew, indeed, that I pressed it in vain ; but I now wished the rejection so complete and peremptory, that no after-thought could ever tempt me to renew the attempt to win her heart, or cherish a weakness which must unman my character. I wished, in a word, to gain for myself the energy of despair, when the spur of hope should be withdrawn from my opening career. Her replies were all that they should have been; but, vexed at my persistance in pleading so idly, they were at last given in a tone of petulance which piqued me in turn. I drew myself up in anger, and could not refrain a reproach as I turned on my heel to terminate an interview which might never be renewed.

"Oh! do not be angry with me, Washington," exclaimed she, springing toward me with earnestness; "do not leave me thus. I wish to act rightly; I wish to act as you-as my brother would have me act did another stand in the position where you have placed yourself to-day. I am young, I am inexperienced; I know not how to say to you what I feel I ought to say; but oh! tell me that you are not angry with me for being compelled thus to pain you. Washington, I have no friend, no companion when you are gone." A flood of tears here relieved the poor girl, and she did not withdraw her hand as I pressed it with mute feeling to my lips. The thought of her orphan condition, of her most winning gentleness, of her loneliness in my uncle's house, with not one sympathizing being of her sex around her, rushed through my bosom, and made me think myself a demon to have tortured one so kind and so unoffending. I besought her to forget all that I had said; to think of

me only as a brother-as one who, though absent in person, would still be ever near her in watchfulness;-and then, as my own lips began to quiver, and my eyes to swim, I rushed from the spot, and leaping the garden fence once more, plunged into the woods beyond.

It boots not what became of the remaining hours of that day. Not half of them had yet expired; but within that brief space had been crowded two events which were destined to colour my whole after-life. I saw the stars when they first looked out upon the broad sea that night, and the light of another morning cheered the gray waters before I left the shore, and, stealing home, crept up to my chamber.

(To be continued.)

"TOO LATE."

WRITTEN TO ORDER.

"Too late "-" too late!"-How oft the word
Seems but a requiem of the past,

As sadly we some blessing greet
That, long delaying, comes at last!
The laurel leaf, that blooms above
The cold and cheerless tomb of him
Who won not glory's guerdon, till
His eagle-eye in death was dim-

The tear of love, that only falls

When every answering pulse is o'er,
Which beat for her who weeps, too late,

The heart that now can beat no more,
The wealth that comes when none can share,
The premium due on shipwrecked freight,
The canvass-back when we have dined,
Are all of them too late-too late.

Too late? alas! how many a soul,
Shrinking beneath Death's icy wand,
That hath no hope this side the grave,
And dare not look beyond;

When launching on the Spirit sea,
Where strange appalling perils wait,
Dismayed will for THE PILOT look,
And, dying, gasp-" too late!-too late!"

And he the Prince of Fairy tale,
Who winged his flight from star to star,
To learn, by every changing light,

In each bright orb, what women are!
Did he now plume his wings for this,
And, lighting, chance to meet with KATE!
Would fain recall his yielded crown,

And, grieving, sigh" too late-too late!"

Philadelphia, Jan. 9, 1837.

LEAVES FROM A LADY'S JOURNAL.

No. 2.

BY GRACE GRAFTON.

Departure from Tampico.-Pack mules.-Mexican riding accoutrements.-Method of grinding corn.-Leperos.-Household servants.-Falls of the Rio Limou.-Inhabitants on the bank.

ONE bright morning in June saw us making our way out of Tampico, with our handkerchiefs at our noses, armed with camphor, as we passed the miserable abodes where disease was doing its work.

At a brisk pace we cleared the outskirts of the town, and with a feeling of relief and pleasure entered a road leading through a forest rich in the spontaneous productions of a tropical climate and

luxuriant soil.

Those who have floated on the broad bosom of the Mississippi, and beheld her tangled thickets and mighty waving forests, where Nature, as in wantonness, has lavished her bounties; those who have glowed beneath the shade of those flowery wildernesses of the South, can imagine the character of the scene: but to this were added the productions as of another hemisphere. The botanist might have revelled in novelty, that favourite feast of the naturalist. Flowering shrubs, and creepers of surpassing beauty, meet the eye; around and aloft, on the spreading branches of the giants of the wood, parasitical plants of flourishing dimensions waved in sycophantic grace. There was something refreshing and soothing to the spirits in our ride through those green and bowery shades, which served for a brief interval to wean us from the anxieties of the expedition before us. a journey of about one hundred and sixty leagues into the interior This was of a foreign country; we in utter ignorance of the language of that country, as well as the manners and customs of its inhabitants.

Twelve animals and three servants formed our scanty train. Nor was it of the choicest materials; but necessity is an arbitrary master, and we were glad on any terms to leave the port to which the yellow fever was adding its terrors. aparejos, or pack-saddles, bore the baggage, which is placed on the Five mules, furnished with animals' backs, and secured there by means of one long cord, in a manner not easily explained to one who has not watched the pro