otherwise my often-repeated rebukes of his courses might have caused. He sometimes left me in a passion when I said anything peculiarly severe; but then he was sure to return, to tell me, perhaps, some dream he had about Letitia, or some mark of kindness which she had shown him; because, strange to say, he had never yet ventured to make her any declaration of his attachment: indeed, he had not at this time many opportunities, and the few which he had, he declared himself he never had courage to avail him

self of.

"Is it not absurd,” he would sometimes say to me; "I think Letitia loves me. She must know-she must see that I love her; and yet time after time I determine to tell her all my heart, and to hear from her own lips the words that would make me happy; and I seek opportunities of being with her alone: but when we are alone -why, then I can talk to her of any thing but love."

I sometimes could not help laughing at him. The pains of love, like those of the toothache, command but little sympathy from those who do not feel them. It struck me, however, that his passion might be turned to good account. "Do you think," I asked him seriously, "do you think that even Letitia will marry a professed gambler ?"

He started: he seemed angry. "I am not a professed gambler. I do not deserve the name of gambler at all," said he, quickly.

"A gambler," said I, "is a man who gambles. A professed gambler is a man who devotes his time to gambling, and one whom everybody knows to do so."

"This is not fair," he answered: "everybody does not know that I play. Besides, your definition is false: a gambler is a man who plays for the sake of the money that he wins; a gambler is a man who will defraud you if he can; a gambler is a man who regards every opponent as his prey; and a professed gambler is one who makes this his business and his support. I do not deserve either of these characters. I love excitement; and if it costs me some money, I can afford to pay for it."

I saw that, under all his apparent cool

ness, he was nettled. I thought it better to say no more, and he soon left my room.

Next morning he came over to my chambers at an early hour. He seenied very much embarrassed: he walked several times up and down the room : at last he asked me, with more of solemnity than it had latterly been his custom to assume

"Tell me seriously, had you any meaning last night when you said that Letitia Jephson would not marry a gambler ?"

His eye rested on me with a piercing intensity of glance; his cheek was flushed with a crimson colour. I looked steadily at him, and answered

"I generally make it a rule to have some meaning when I speak; and in the present instance I do not think my words were very enigmatical."

Well, then," said he, "if you will thus quibble, had you any authority for saying so?"

"No," I replied: "I do not think I required any particular authority for such a statement. The girl must be mad who would set her life upon à cast.' Would you, Edmund, wish to see any girl whom you cared for united to a destiny that is staked every evening upon the throw of the dice ?"

He was visibly agitated. He walked up and down more rapidly; he then stopped, and said—

"Mr. O'Brien, you do mne injustice. I have played perhaps more than I ought; but, indeed-indeed I am not a gambler. Do not suppose that I would dare to seek Letitia's love if I felt that my success would make her happiness depend upon a cast. No, no: I have been drawn into playI have lost money, God forgive me, that might be better employed; but I am not a gambler. Never," continued he, earnestly, "never call me by that horrid name: you do no not know what a gambler is, or you would not. You have never seen what I have, or you would not call me gambler and stay in the room with me. Call me fool! friend! anything but gambler."

I was startled by his earnestness, I should rather say his vehemence of manner. I cautioned him against deserving the name of which he had such a horror.

"Deserve it!" interrupted he fiercely:

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"I know but of one man who deserves it; one hardened, soulless, heartless wretch; one who can lay his snares with coolness-" he stopped short, as if fearful he had said too much. I almost hoped he meant Nolan. hinted as much. No! no. Nolan is no gambler. I wont tell you who or what it is I mean; but I have been witness to one scene. God forbid that ever I should be witness to such another but I prevented villainy. But this is wrong: they consider it a point of honour that these things should not be told."

I did not wish to ask the communication of what there was any obligation on his part to conceal. He seemed anxious to tell it.

"I have not moral courage," he continued: "I cannot despise the threatenings of the bad. There was," he added, slowly, "there was a victim drawn in by the gambler of whom I spoke, and he would have been robbed; there was foul cheatery; but I exposed him-I showed his knavery. He was ignominiously expelled-he had too little honor for a den of thieves: but he threatened me; he told me that he would track my steps; that he would hunt me these were his words-he declared that he would have revenge. What thoughts cross the mind! When you said Letitia would never marry a gambler, I thought he had his revenge-that he had told the Jephsons that I gambled. All night I lay awake, and this horrid thought kept a racking hold upon my brain. Thank God, it was but a vain imagination."

I assured him that, as far as I knew, it was. I reasoned with him seriously on giving over all play. I endeavoured to point out the ruin which it must entail not only on his fortune, but on all his habits and feelings. He promised that he would. I asked him for his solemn promise that he would never enter a hell again. He hesitated; at last he told me that he owed some debts of honour, which he must discharge he had promised to do so at the gambling-table that night, and he must keep his word.

"You would not have me break my word?-you would not have those who praised me a few nights ago for conduct that they called honourable, you would not have them look on me to

night as a breaker of my engagement ?"

Go I perceived he would, and I trembled for him. Edmund's was a weak character: too much the child of impulse to have steadiness of purpose, I knew that the resolution of the morning would be lost in the excitement of the night. Next day my heart boded ill for him as I met him walking with Nolan in familiar conversation. I attempted, when next we met, to make him recur to the promise which he had all but given ine. Alas! it seemed as if the day of grace was gone by. He laughed; he laughed at his own exhibition of feeling upon the subject: he said this was the way he always magnified everything; he spoke of the nervous excitability of his temperament, (big words which, I believe, he had learned from his physician, or some medical book,) and he broke away from my arguments and intreaties with a song.

He took, however, another opportunity of assuring me that he never played; but added, that to bind himself never to enter a gaming-house was a nonsensical proceeding. "Such vows," said he, laughing, "like oaths against whiskey, are regarded just as long as the temptation is not too strong for the judgment, but no longer. They never are binding but when they are superfluous."

I feared that he refused the promise because he knew the obligation would be irksome. But it is time for me to return to the Jephsons, whom my readers probably suppose that I have forgotten.

The genial days of spring had been succeeded by the long hot days of the summer. Early in the month of May my relatives had left their town residence, and had retired to a beautifully situated cottage some miles from the city, at the base of the county Dublin mountains. I used to laugh at Edmund, and tell him that in this romantic spot he could make love with a good heart. And a romantic spot it truly was: villas, and terraces, and avenues, had not then sprung up round the environs of Dublin, and made the country for miles round but a ruralized continuation of the city. Woodbine Cottage for thus had it pleased the fancy of the proprietor to

name the spot of which I speak--its name was borrowed, I believe, from a solitary and unhealthy-looking stalk of woodbine, that scarcely vegetated against one of the pillars of the gate it was the only bit of woodbine about the place, and it was the only thing that did not seem to flourish -but Woodbine Cottage it was called -it was situated just on the rise of that chain of hills, which extend to the southward of the city, and are known as the county of Dublin mountains. A few trees planted around it relieved the wildness of the scenery that rose immediately behind. At a short distance behind the house, rose Mount Venus, covered half way up its sides with a young plantation of thick fir-trees, of so dark a shade of green, that you could hardly distinguish them from the black heather above; and farther away again was the Three-Rock Mountain raising its three peaks up in bleak and desolate grandeur; and then you could get in the far distance a glimpse of Killiney and the Hill of Howth to the cast. To the south, and west, lay mountains piled upon mountains, that you could only distinguish from each other by the long black line of deeper shadow that marked the ravine that separated them; and then far away to the north-east the ground sloped gently up from the plain, in which stands the city, until it met the horizon on the eminence called Tallaght Hill; and just close by, under the very base of Mount Venus, ran the valley of the Dodder, and the river itself winding on between the steep banks of white gravel, in the deep channel which the fierce mountain torrent had scooped out for itself, and down along its banks lay a rich and fertile country, clothed all over with plantations. But I must not spend too much time in description. Such of my readers as have ever gone out into the country beyond Rathfarnham, where the little church called Whitechurch stands on the base of the hill, raising its spire to heaven, as if to testify man's worship to Him who fixed on their bases these everlasting hills, that seem to repose in their might for these I have said enough to enable them to understand the locality I have endeavoured to describe.

In this beautiful retreat the Jephsons

had resolved to pass the summer, principally on account of Letitia's health, with whom even her eight hours' harpplaying did not very well agree. Poor Letitia was delighted; she was overjoyed at the prospect of being permitted to wander about the fields, and breathe the pure air as it came down with renovating freshness from the hills. Indced the whole party seemed happy. My aunt had just received a letter from her second son, who was in the navy, acquainting her with his promotion to the office of commander, a step which he had obtained at a peculiarly early age. Her eldest son had, a little time before, obtained a commission in a dragoon regiment. The flirtation, too, between Caroline and her rich fool was progressing as favourably as could be expected; and so all seemed happy and contented.

And Edmund was not the least happy. He was now as intimate with the family as I was; indeed, his vivacity made him more so. He was constantly with Letitia: she could hardly stir but he followed her. He would sometimes deck her hair with a garland of wild flowers, which he would gather in the fields; and she seemed pleased with all his familiarities; and yet strange to say, no word of love had ever passed between them. There was a strange, an unaccountable timidity about Edmund that prevented him from making any explicit declaration. However, even if their own feelings had not been their best interpreters, Caroline took care that they should be at no loss to understand each other, since she constantly made it a point to rally them in each other's presence upon their fondness for each other's company.

My aunt was no unobservant spectator of all this, and she appeared not a little puzzled to comprehend it. I remember well the means by which she endeavoured to unravel the mystery which she deemed Edmund's conduct to involve. One evening we were all sitting in the drawing-room, which opened on a beautiful view. The day had been hot; but a cool breeze of the evening had tempered the atmosphere. We had the windows up, and Edmund, I, and my two cousins were sitting talking and laughing, when my aunt entered the room, prepared for walking.

"Come, Edward," said she, "we will leave these young people to their follies, and we will take a quiet walk in the garden."

"And why," said Letitia, "mamma, why should not Edward stay and join in our follies ?"

"Indeed," answered my aunt, "I am sure he is too sensible to enjoy your nonsense."

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A nice compliment you pay Mr. Connor," said Caroline.

My aunt's object was, however, to get me with her; and Edmund, to tell the truth, did not seem much annoyed at the classification which left him with the foolish people. I could not help remarking that Letitia blushed, and seemed agitated as I rose to obey her mother's command. I was going to rally her upon it, but my aunt hurried me away.

She took me down a shady walk, all covered over with laurels and hollies: she evidently was about to speak to me of something of importance: she looked round several times, as if to be sure that she could not be overheard; and when she thought we were quite secure from interruption, she began very solemnly

"Edward, my dear, I wish to speak to you upon a matter which is of very great consequence to my happiness," and she looked full in my face with a confused expression.

"One would suppose," thought I, "that my aunt was going to make a declaration of love to me.'

more feeling than I ever before gave her credit for. I told her honestly all I knew of Edmund Connor's feelings. I said that I believed his attachment was of the strongest kind; but I told her he was a very bad hand at making love: "he is afraid to tell Letitia that he loves her."

"What kind of a fool is he ?" asked my aunt, indignantly.

I professed my inability to solve this problem; but, in reply to her repeated inquiries as to whether I was certain that the report as to the state of his feelings was correct, I assured her that I knew it was; that nothing but the highest sense of honour could ever influence any action of Edmund Connor's, and that at that moment he felt himself as much engaged to Letitia as if he had sworn to her to marry her.

My aunt seemed relieved; she said she was very glad we had this conversation; she would tell this all to Letitia, who, "poor thing, had been fretting about it very much."

I began to think that Edmund was fortunate in thus having love made for him by proxy. To be sure, his declaration passed through two hands to the young lady; but still it came, I fancied, nothing the worse for that. I reflected upon the strange interview I had with Mrs. Jephson. At first I thought her conduct strange; but when I thought on it, I looked upon it as only natural and right. No mother could or ought to be indifferent to her daughter's peace of mind, and I was the only person to whom she could apply; and though I at first felt inclined to condemn the proceeding as a bit of matchmaking, when I remembered Edmund's conduct I looked upon it as only a proper piece of motherly prudence and

care.

I know not how it was, but during the progress of this summer I began to feel an affection for my relatives, such as I had never known before. I was surprised, as it were, at the development of many amiable traits which I had never before perceived in their characters. Before this I had seen them in the gay round of fashionable dissipation; I had now gone with them into the privacy of retirement, and it seemed as if they had lost more than half that worldliness which I hated. There is, after all, much that

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is good and that is amiable in human nature; and not all the coldness of fashion, not all the heartless influences of a selfish and an intriguing world, can utterly suppress the kindly emotions of the heart, or kill those charities of domestic life that shed their holy charm upon the sweetness of domestic intercourse. Even the votaries of fashion or the worshippers of interest appear to forget their idolatries in the magic enchantment of home, and the most artificial creature that a world has spoiled, returns to the kindliness and almost the artlessness of nature by the domestic fireside. Often had I thought the Jephsons worldly, and selfish: worldly they still were; ay, and perhaps selfish: yet now, when I came within the family circle, there was the same happy innocence and glee as if no worldly or selfish thoughts had been ever in their minds. Hitherto I had seen them but in the crowd of frivolity and dissipation; but now they breathed a freer atmosphere, and it seemed as if the unaffected sympathies of their hearts at length had room to vegetate and expand.

During the summer Edmund and I passed most of our time at Woodbine Cottage; and still the remembrance of these days comes over my mind like the dream of a happy time. The Jephsons lived in very great retirement; most of their gay friends of the winter season had gone to ruralize in more distant parts of the country; and, with the exception of Mr. Thomas, Caroline's mad lover, as we used to call him, but few visitors disturbed the tranquillity of their retirement. Mr. Jephson, who was a quiet, unobtrusive person, altogether under the management of his wife, enjoyed this so much, that he declared solemnly he never would return to the routs and parties of the town. "God made the country," he used to add; "but man made cities"-sentiments which my aunt always answered by the brief but pithy comment of "folly !" an authoritative interjection, which, delivered in a peculiar tone, precluded all farther controversy on the subject.

But the brightest days will pass away; and happy as was this summer, t drew to its close. The evenings were already growing shorter, and the soft moonlight would sometimes sur

prise us by discovering our shadows on the grass before we were conscious that even the twilight had come. Sometimes, too, in the evenings, a chilly breeze came down from the hills, and the fields were getting brown with the golden tints of the ripening grain. Say what we will of the charms of spring and summer, there is no season like the autumn. It is said that Milton never could write poetry except in the autumn; and I do not wonder, There is a spirit of solemn and sober stillness abroad upon an autumn day that you meet at no other time. The hot and froward glow of the summer sun is softened down to a modest and gentle radiance; the very landscape partakes of the sombre melancholy of the season: its hues are not like the hues that arrayed it in summer. The autuma is to the year what the evening is to the day: nature sinks into repose, and the very air, as it stirs around you, has a feel peculiar to the atmosphere of autumn, and every sense seems able to distinguish its peculiarities. Let those who will praise the sultriness of summer and the pettishness of inconstant fickle spring; but give me the autumn day, when all nature seems resting in the tranquillity of a deep although a quiet joy; when the beams of the sun come less intense, and mellowed in their course through the thin grey clouds that robe the sky, and cast the reflection of their own greyness upon the landscape; and still that landscape has its variety of hues-less brilliant than those that decked the gaudy robe of summer, but far more beautiful. There is the heather upon the hills, already beginning to change its colour as the blossoms of the summer fall down beside each branch, and expose the redness of the twig upon which they grew; and then the russet fields of grain, waving too and fro in one golden undulation as the breeze sweeps the lights and shadows across; and then in the forest, how many tints do the changing leaves assume as the first breath of autumn has come over their verdure with its discolouring rebuke. Spring may be the childhood of the year, with its gleams and showers, like the variations of inconstant childhood; summer may be its hot and fiery youth; then autumn is its manhood, sinking into the solemnity of middle