The next day, after dinner, Mrs. Alexander drove Teresa all over the grounds in a little pony-chair, and showed her all their beauties. The evening was soft and balmy, and they prolonged their drive till the sun had parted from our hemisphere, and the full harvest-moon rose brilliantly over sea, mountain, and river. On their way home they passed a water mill on the river which ran through the grounds, and nothing could exceed the beauty of its effect by moonlight. The noise of the fall contrasting with the deep stillness around, the gleaming and glittering of the waters as they heaved and splashed; the rustic bridge leading to the mill; the miller's modest but picturesque dwelling, and the long line of river winding through the far park, formed a reposing and lovely picture.

"I hope you like what you have seen of Rossfirth, my dear girl?" said Mrs. Alexander as they arrived at the house.

"Oh! I love it already—it is exactly the kind of place I admire," replied Teresa, "and then

it is so quiet and reposing, and you know how fond I am of solitude."

"But I shall not allow you to remain in solitude long, my pretty Teresa," said her cousin; you are too bright a gem to be hidden; and tomorrow I intend issuing invitations to several of my friends, requesting them to come and pay us a visit. I wish to see you happily and brilliantly married."

Teresa sighed slightly as she replied,

"I am so peculiar, dear Mrs. Alexander, that I fear I should suit very few men; my dislike to society and extreme love of retirement would not be agreeable to any man of the world."

Well, I will say no more at present," replied Mrs. Alexander, "but leave everything to chance."

Mrs. Alexander put her threat of asking visitors to the house into immediate execution, and, at the expiration of a week, Rossfirth was filled with company.

The first person who arrived was a ward of Mr. Alexander's who was studying for the church

at an English college, and who came to spend the long vacation with him and his wife.

Teresa was startled when she first saw Gilbert Manners, (for so was he named) and felt an involuntary repugnance to him for the first hour of their acquaintance. He was not only singularly plain and repulsive in his features and countenance, but his person was extremely deformed. There was no lighting up of his expression when he was cordially greeted by the Alexanders, and Teresa felt chilled by the gloom of his manners.

But her better nature soon enabled her to shake off this unjust antipathy, and she determined to be studiously attentive to one so hardly dealt with by nature. On a farther acquaintance, she found that he possessed great and original talent, with a vein of deep feeling which few could discover, so carefully did he conceal it from every one.

It was evident that he felt with unutterable bitterness, the deformity of his person, and was keenly alive to every disadvantage it entailed on

him.

Oh! how very difficult it must be for such victims of a hard fate to say, with their whole hearts,

"Lord, thy will be done,"

To them, everything in creation is fraught with melancholy. The bright sunshine only serves to render their deformity more glaring! Beautiful nature, from its harmony and proportion, seems to reproach them as blots on her fair face! The very herds and flocks in the meadows seem to gaze at them with surprise as they pass, and to feel instinctively that they are unnatural prodigies.

If they mingle with their fellow-beings, what a sad contemplation! They feel doubly alive to the beauty of proportion-the bounding agility of symmetrical manhood, the soft harmony of lovely womanhood; alas! alas!-what a fearful contrast in themselves. They look around them, and they see hands clasped in love, which are only extended to them in pity or fear; they behold looks of beaming affection which stir up

their inmost hearts-looks, which, when turned on them, involuntarily change to those of startled commiseration. They hear words and tones of tenderness which never may be addressed to them; they feel in bitter agony, that they are alone in the fair throng, unloved-unsoughtand should passion creep into their bosoms, should they be doomed to consume away in hopeless untold affection, woe-woe for them!

Yet, in their utter misery, let them not harbour bitterness or repining in their hearts. He who made them such, has abundant sweet comfort for them if they will but turn to Him,

"Poor though they be, despis'd-forgot,
Yet God-their God forgets them not."

Teresa's kind heart bled for the secret sufferings of Gilbert Manners, and the tenderness of her compassion induced her to treat him with a marked attention which fatally misled him. She wished to soothe and alleviate his sorrows, and she planted a barbed arrow in his breast which might not be withdrawn without drawing forth the life-blood.