CONTENTS TO VOL. IV. Ida Venella .................. 1, 99, 164, The Little Queen ....... Ambition The Daughter of the Sea. 37 THE LADIES' CABINET OF FASHION, MUSIC, AND ROMANCE. IDA VENELLA. "What is the tale that I would tell? Not one Daily, in many a young and blighted heart."-L. E. L. IDA Venella was the breathing portraiture of all that poet has sung, or painter embodied. At the time I first knew her, scarce fifteen summers had shed their radiance over her opening loveliness; she was, as it were, on the vestibule of womanhood, beautiful as a sculptor's dream," with a joyousness rarely varying, bursting like a fountain from its recesses, gleaming like a sunbeam over every object that came within its influence, and touching all things with its own golden and gorgeous hues. I have gazed on her with that intensity of admiration, which "outstrips our faint expression," and never have I turned from the contemplation of her brightness of beauty without an involuntary sigh, a sickness of soul, lest a temple so glorious might be scathed by the rude blasts of adversity, crushed beneath the avalanche of "life's dark gift." I have sometimes hoped, that unlike all that is most fair and bright, she would know no sorrow; that time, with its accompanying mutations, would bring unchanging bliss and gladness to her, that like the long sunny lapse of a summer day's light," existence would never be shadowed to her; but close as gloriously and auspiciously as it had dawned. Idolized by all who knew her, followed by the lingering gaze of admiration, caressed by her friends, it would have been strange had Ida Venella dreamed life's book held, amid its pure leaves, one gift of darkness; the phantoms of sorrow had never invaded the beautiful scenes the world held out to her. Her feelings, though deeply tinctured with gladness, were, JULY, 1840. B however, not without that usual accompaniment of a gifted mind-keen sensibility. She was morbidly alive to neglect from those she loved, and I have seen the tear brightening the lustre of her soft dark eye, laving the bloom and gloss of her young pure cheek, as her heart whispered the suspicion of alienation on the part of those to whose affection she clung; but it was only momentary. The cloud passed off to make succeeding sunshine more sparkling, and she was again wreathed in smiles-the personification of "youth and hope and joy." Mr. Venella was a native of France, and had been travelling for some time in foreign lands. It was beneath the starry skies of Italy, encompassed by all that is most beautiful and seductive in nature, that Ida Venella first awoke to wayward life. Her mother had closed her eyes in death almost immediately after giving birth to her only child, and the feeble wail of her infant voice stilled the bursting anguish of her father's grief, as it reminded him that although the ruthless spoiler had invaded his hearth, it had not borne thence all his "household gods." Time, whose obliviating tide effaces the memory of the keenest grief, was not without its balm to the lacerated feelings of Mr. Venella; and before the smiles and caresses of his infant daughter, whose features wore the impress of its mother's loveliness, the first agony of sorrow melted. He blessed heaven that he was not desolate, and the "lightly-fibred sprays" of his affection clung to the unconcious babe, with a tenacity the greater that he had nought else to love. About this time, he returned and fixed his residence in France, in a retired and beautiful spot, which he took pleasure in ornamenting with classic elegance. Beneath the watchful care of her doating father, Ida sprang to womanhood, adorned with all the graces of her sex, gifted with a rare beauty, and her mind enriched with all those charms of literature, which, like the " glittering glory" of the fabled talisman, dazzled, but not to deceive. Though deprived of the gentle and elevating influences of a mother's love, a mother's care, she was as femininely soft and refined, as shrinkingly timid, as though she had been matured beneath its beams. Her whole soul seemed concentrated in her father, and there was a beautiful and touching blending of confiding devotion, playful tenderness and worshipping deference, in her deportment towards him, none predominating, but mingling in harmonious concord. Amid the shades and retirement of her own home, commenced the intimacy of that friendship between us, which after years so strongly cemented; but the imperative demands of duty soon called me from the |