ther, although I never could wholly forgive it. The sequel will shew what was the real object of this fair dealing, and how my own blindness regarding it led to the destruction of my happiness.

A freshman at college, with the princely allowance which was awarded to me, is an object of peculiar regard to those who have already been initiated into its maternal mysteries; and I was not long before I could command any society or set of men I pleased. With my pleasures, my indulgent tutor did not interfere, except to encourage them; and although I never debased myself by an addiction to unworthy pursuits, my time at the University was not dignified by an exclusive attention to the purposes of its foundation.

You will naturally inquire if I made any friends at Oxford. I must answeryes-one, and only one. Although my heart was ever open to the best and kindliest feelings of our nature, no one but Pelham Bouverie could possess its warmest aspirations; and even here, the growth

of our mutual friendship was slow, and almost imperceptible. Of the same ages, and possessing the same high feeling and honour, many of our amusements were enjoyed together, and much of our time spent in each others society; till at length the intimacy, which originated in a similarity of pursuits and sentiments, enlarged and ripened into a firm, enduring friendship. I need not describe Pelham Bouverie more particularly, than by informing you that his soul was the seat of all honourable and benevolent feeling, that his person was a model of manly beauty, and that he was the heir to a baronetage, with a large-even a splendid fortune.

It was during my third and last year at Oxford, that I went down into Leicestershire to spend the Christmas at Bouverie Park. Lady Bouverie had been dead some years; but sir Philip found in his daughter Louisa a consoling substitute for his lady; and she did the honours of the establishment, to a large and most miscel

laneous company, with infinite with infinite grace and effect.

My intercourse with refined women had been not very extensive. The repulsive stateliness of the Arlesfords was no inducement to youth and loveliness, and youth and loveliness rarely graced the old Gothic castle with their charms. Of all the females I had ever gazed upon, Louisa Bouverie was the most lovely, the most fascinating; but there was nothing brilliant-nothing startling or astounding about her; all was quiet, soft and delicious; she was not even tall, but her figure was beautifully proportioned, and her dark, deep, dewy melancholy eye shone mildly through its long lashes, like a star in the cloudy heavens. Oh, how thrilling was the full gaze of that lovely eye! lighted up, as it often was, with all the feeling of a heart that never knew guile, but that always beat responsively to all that was good-to all that was noble in nature.

Pelham was passionately fond of his sis

ter; she was a sort of pet, in whose happiness he delighted.

"What do you think of my sister?" he asked me, with all the rapture of a lover towards his mistress; "is not she a lovely creature?"

I answered in the affirmative, and his own dark eye glistened with pleasure at my approval. But it was not amid the glare and bustle of boisterous rejoicing that Louisa Bouverie was seen to the greatest advantage; it was in the calm seclusion of her domestic life, while pursuing those quiet occupations which were most congenial to her gentle spirit; then indeed, like a retired wood-nymph, she charmed the hearts of every one by her gentleness and beauty, and answered, in every respect, the picturesque description of the poet

A violet by a mossy stone,
Half-hidden from the eye;
Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky."

Louisa's fascination in retirement be

came quickly apparent, as soon as our guests departed; and exposed as I now was to her charms, they speedily made a very great impression upon me. I was then just two-and-twenty, and she could not have been more than eighteen, or nineteen; but her quick and rich mind had made her a proficient, even thus early, in all the ordinary accomplishments of an elegant and elevated female. Could I therefore help loving this charming girl? -could I, unused all my life, till now, to the soft interchanges of affection, as well as to elegant refinements of life-could I be insensible to such supreme lovelinessto such engaging, although unobtrusive virtues? No! no! nor did I wish or attempt to be so? Why should I? Louisa Bouverie was, in every respect, a befitting mate, even for the heir of all the Arlesfords; she had rank, wealth, beauty, loveliness, love-but no love for me; and this, although I knew it not then, was the cause of much withering misery to us both.