to funerals in the best society; to the marriages, deaths, an to all the christenings of an extensive juvenile connection; also, the privilege of watching and nursing, in most infectious. cases, at the superb bedsides of her very genteel relatives.

These privileges Mrs. Castleman estimated-perhaps as few gentlewomen would-an appreciation visible in every turn of her aristocratic head-in every fold of her well-darned respectable gown, as she appeared among her rich connections, humbly, yet respectably. Yet, the time had come, when she felt also the inconvenience attending her very respectable blood.

It cost too much-not money, that she did not possessbut too much condescension, and body weariness. She had married at the age of thirty-five, without deriving great advantages from the change in her condition; her husband having little with which to maintain her, or at his death, bequeath her, save his respectable name, and a small infant. Since this bereavement, she had been a source of trial to her. relatives; though no one could bring accusation for any known sin or offence, the conviction of which caused her to fawn, cringe, and make herself useful.

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'For most of the world's favors there must be an equivalent," suggested the experience of the sapient Mrs. Castleman, whose physical and mental energies were becoming lax; her sycophantic smiles turning into unmeaning smirks; her useful attentions into boring visits; while her honeyed flattery began to work-the sour to rise on the sweets that rolled off her saccharine tongue.

That she had begun to ferment, was evident, though she had boiled down for thirty years, in the sugaring process, to make herself palatable to her condescending friends, to whom she had been as long a time a standing dish of discussion at all private family meetings.

For "poor Aunt Castleman must be supported ;" and

time and trouble, no marvel, had somewhat vinegared her juicy nature.

Roving in an orbit, which but exposed her poverty, from its brilliancy, though seldom enjoying its mid-day effulgence, she could not fail to see that the clouds about her setting, if silver rimmed in the rays reflected, still grew blacker, and that the struggle she made to re-illumine, was but the expiring effort of a wick, from which the oil that fed it was departing. Could she have turned from this blaze of borrowed light, and pressed forward in an humbler sphere, with her energy and talent, she had done well; but there was the look back! Like Lot's wife, she could not turn to a pillar of salt, or she had been crusted standing; wrapped in her faded purple, gazing on the bright revolving wheel, on which whirled her family connections, glittering, shining in silks and gems, she resting from her toil, by which she had hoped to earn a counterfeit for the pageant.

But should this be the experience and fate of her Elinor, who, in the discarded habiliments of her proud rich friends, outshone them all? Could her beauty, her birth, save her from toil more laborious than that of the menial who works for bread? Could she forget that from her days of early widowhood, she had been cramped, fettered, chained down by the silver links that had made her a slave to the rich benefactors, from whom she had received bounty and condescension?

There was an alternative-one loophole of escape, a rich but "vulgar match." Such Mrs. Castleman deemed an alliance with the worthy manufacturer. But she was a woman of calculation, as well as policy. The scales were adjusted. Wealth and Mr. Archibald Miller lay heavily on one-patronising connections, their charities, and long looked for legacies, poised the other.

Which should be the portion of the radiant Elinor? The

weight of a mother's cupidity was added to the golden scale. With a bound, poverty went up. The motes in the sunbeams turned to jewelled drops, and gathered in a crown on the head of her child.

This was but a vision, yet a bright one to the victim of pride and poverty, whose slavish dependence had cankered her heart, and made humiliating her widowed life. It was a sweet morsel to roll under her tongue, that for her only child, she could secure independence. She considered herself, and was resigned to it, a recipient for life.

Mrs. Castleman drew about her shrunken form a timehonored shawl, laid her aristocratic head upon an old tapestried chair, and while rubbing back and forth on her skinny finger, an old family ring, brought herself, with powerful throes, to the deliverance of her burden. The pride that had sustained and consoled her in all her woes was now a cast-off load. The aristocracy of wealth she had despised, as such a proud woman could "vulgarity;" now, she fled for refuge to the golden calf, and was ready to sacrifice to it caste and her idolized child.

With her sagacious eye, she discovered the preference of Mr. Miller for her daughter, exhibited only in the fervid glance that dared not rest on her face, but fitfully wandered, stealthily catching the gleams of hers. She saw, too, that with uneasy restlessness, foreign to his bearing, he marked the devotion of others to her, whom he presumed not to address, and that the diffidence and unassuming character of the man, alone prevented him from seeking Elinor in marriage.

And she was partly right, though weightier objections arose in the widower's mind combating his love. Mr. Archibald Miller believed, rich as he was, influential as he might be in the commercial world, that Elinor Castleman felt above him in position; that in education—thanks to a

rich uncle though but a girl of seventeen, she surpassed him; that she visited in circles which he had never entered, and more than this, that she received the devoted attentions of another, suitable in age, as brilliant, as highly educated as herself.

At the table, among her mother's "select friends" (she never called them boarders, excepting in advertisements), Elinor was not seen, and but a choice few were ever invited into her presence the retired parlor, which she graced proudly, as if in a court circle, receiving her worshipers. Those most privileged at the present period, were young Hugh Shelbourne and the rich, unassuming widower: the first fascinating the daughter; the latter, being indispensable, from his experience in the world, to the widow, whose demands upon his sympathy and counsel, only equalled those upon his liberal purse.

Good, patient, Mr. Miller! Who else would appreciate as he did, the multiplicity of her trials, from the accumulation of debts, large and small-the tyranny and exactions of landlords, butchers, and bakers-her outgoings and shortcomings her poverty in purse, and her wealth in great ancestry? and how few would so generously, delicately state, not hint, that he was willing and glad to relieve her by an advance, meeting the exigencies of the case; while at the same time he so handsomely (rather briefly she sometimes thought) closed the conference by giving her a banknote.

Mrs. Castleman found no such friend among her family connections, and daily drew the credulous man more into her confidence.

Never had he pitied woman more; yet never felt he more unfeignedly, that the daughter was a being far beyond his hopes. The widower, with all his bonds, mortgages, his real estate, and bank stock-his boy of ten years, and his

fifteen of seniority, considered himself no match for youth, beauty, and "family ;" and but for the trials of the widow, her yearnings, and her discontent, he had been still unpresuming; and the young lady herself insensible to the prospects in store for her.

She was yet too young to balance without help, the scales that had decided the maternal head. Besides, she was occupied with Hugh, to whom she had given, in exchange for a whole heart, a promise, some day, of her hand; he believing the transfer equal, and most people, who had seen them together, supposing a chance offered, might have imbibed the same opinion. Hugh Shelbourne, at nineteen, was in love, as a man rarely is twice. He said little of his passion, but it leaped with his pulses ; while with eye, soul, and lip, he met the flutterings of an unawakened heart; coquetry and vanity he mistook for a full return; the mounting crimson of gratified pride for the sympathy he sought. Sincere, ardent, and hopeful, he believed Elinor all she seemed; while he worshiped her seductive beauty, believing he had her heart's gold.

Yet reserve marked their intercourse before Mr. Miller, and the latter felt no sting of reproach when the widow revealed to his vision a prospect so alluring, as an alliance with her daughter-a communication made with "embarrassment," and with "confidence," causing, as we before stated, some excitement of the manufacturer's mind, as he came forth from her "private sitting room."

How mistaken he had been in the bearing of her child! How strange he had never discovered the secret preference the mother acknowledged had so long possessed her heart -a preference so well concealed from him!

Delicate, shrinking flower. He would seek it, woo it, wear it. Mr. Miller was no longer the reserved, deliberate counsellor; but impulsive, excited; and as liberal as if the