pected much from her; for much had been given | In the centre of that linked circle, which the her. With the early advantage of prizing intellec-fascination of Ida's beauty and the spell of her high tual pleasures and pursuits, she had the natural intellect had drawn around her, sat one who with endowment of very keen and brilliant capacities; kindling eye and rapt ear bent forward to catch and these were cultivated by a course of severe every word of glowing eloquence that flowed from and patient study. With her, improvement was her young lip. While I enjoyed the admiration not bounded by the "narrow line that makes the she excited, I felt that I was reaping the rich school-room :" but with a student's lighted eye she harvest of my hopes; and from the depths of my treasured the wealth of languages; and at every exulting heart I heard a voice saying, "So thou shrine, where knowledge could receive worship, art repaid for the labor of years." But let me she knelt and offered incense. onward.

Ida had, too, a feeling, a love, a deep reverence Alonzo St. Leon was a man in the full summerfor nature. She stood both a priestess and a wor- tide of life, a Spaniard by birth, and bearing the shipper in its magnificent sanctuary. In the moon fire of the south in his piercing black eye, and the and the stars and the tide of deep waters-in the silver tones of his country in his voice. He was wind and the storm, the cloud and the sunshine- very much above the ordinary standard-slightly she found food for reflection. The wing of an in- deformed in figure; and though he possessed not a seet, the sparkle of a dew-drop, the flight of a bird, single feature that approached to good-looking, you the trees and flowers, and every blade of grass, was could not look on his face without feeling that it to her living with a spirit and instinct with a spell. possessed a charm more powerful than beauty. In all, then, that I wished for my sister, I was Few indeed whom Alonzo St. Leon wished to fassatisfied. The corner-stone of knowledge was laid cinate could resist him, yet to very few did he on the broad basis of a noble intellect and one by make himself agreeable. He held a high place one its fair pillars rose, forming a rich and beauti-among the literati; and his reputation for extensive ful temple. and profound learning ranked him with the most Then came the desire for travel, and I journeyed eminent men of his day. To his character-which with Ida to foreign lands. We wandered over all certainly was as singular as his appearance—I the famed places of Europe; in Italy and Greece-never could get a clue. In his general deportthose sunny, beautiful lands of fallen grandeur and ment he was haughty and unsocial; his few reglory-we lingered long. And here it was that marks were shrewd, caustic-sometimes bitterIda "flung open her impassioned heart." She and ever evincing keen observation, experience and stood rapt before the exquisite monuments of An- close insight into human nature. He dwelt most, gelo's, Raphael's and Guido's art. The lofty, me- when with men, in philosophical reflection, argulancholy enthusiasm of her nature flashed forth ment and discussion, and reasoned with a subtlety beside the mouldering palaces and fanes and old and strength of mind that I have never seen surplaces of Roman pride; while by every hill and passed. With the general order of fashionable waterfall of that divine land she loitered as on en- women he mingled not-neither was he in favor chanted ground. We passed through the glorious with them. This is a hasty and imperfect sketch bowers of the Bramin and Moslem-paused amid of the man whom I observed watching Ida with the pyramids of Egypt, and by those places along the greatest attention, curiosity, and even anxiety; the green shores of the Nile, where "cities, jewels while ever and anon when he addressed her, I in the crown of empire," once stood. Land and sea I traversed that my sister might have no wish ungratified. Then we returned to our native America, and with all the attractions of wealth, genius, and beauty, Ida took her appointed station in society-equal, nay, superior to the most gifted of her sex.

marked a change, slight and rapid, but visible, pass over her countenance.

And how well I remember Ida's appearance on that evening! The majestic and modelled form so full of queenliness and grace-the perfect outline of the snowy throat-the exquisitely moulded lip and cheek-the radiant brow, and deep, half meIt was at a brilliant private soireé in one of our lancholy eye-the long silken braids of black hair southern cities, that Ida first met Alonzo St. Leon. knotted with classic simplicity behind; all, all are It was a large, splendid saloon, in which all that imaged on the mirror of memory as clearly, as was bright and beautiful, gay, wise and witty, were though that form and face were now shining before assembled—where every thing that could charm me, yet making my life a blessing and delight. and enlighten and minister to the mental taste Beloved and ever-mourned sister! Time has seared could be found. And what a soft, refined air hung my brow with the frosts of many winters-weary over that coterie of talkers! How gracefully was years of suffering and sorrow have gone by since the keen critique, the grave sentiment, the spark-I kept my first dark vigil over thy grave; but ling repartee and the terse maxim given and re- through all the chances and changes of my after ceived among them! But, it is of Ida I would life, I have never forgotten the event which caused speak, and one other amid that group. thy death. But let me not dwell on the memory

:

of that which is turning every thought to bitter- her cheek grow thinner, though a bright flush was ness! ever upon it and she took little part in those conAmong those who, as my friends and Ida's wor-versations where she was ever wont to shine in shippers, accompanied us to our own home-near unrivalled ease and brilliancy; and while the gay the fair city of Richmond-was Alonzo St. Leon, jest, the witty saying and the flow of winged words who, I was not long in discovering, possessed for circled from lip to lip, she sat in a mute abstraemy sister an extraordinary interest-an interest tion, which told that her thoughts were otherwise that soon drew him from the stern abstracted lone- occupied than with the present. And, O! how liness in consonance with his taste, and awakened harrowing to my soul was the unnatural gaiety in his own bosom its mightiest, deepest, and most with which she would suddenly rouse herself when exciting emotions. she caught my eye-a gaiety very unlike her usually calm, high demeanor-which was the effort of a mind ill at ease to conceal the cause of its Once only I ventured to ask Ida the cause of her unhappiness; but an increased wildness in her sad eye-an aspen-like shuddering of the frame, and a burst of burning tears, was all my answer.

And why was it that Ida, surrounded by young, brilliant and accomplished men-caressed, flattered, worshipped, and obeyed-why was it that she disturbance. turned from the eager, earnest attentions of all, to listen to one who had neither youth, grace nor beauty, to commend him? It was deemed a strange choice, that youth and loveliness like her's, should select for the object of its distinguished regard and preference, the cold, reserved, uncouth St. Leon. By what magic had this singular man gained such ascendancy over the high-spirited Ida?

"Then I began to watch his mood,

And feel with her Love's trembling care, And bade God bless him as he woed

That loving girl, so fond, so fairAnd on my mind would sometimes press A fear that he might love her less!" And did he love her less? he, the only one who had ever called forth her deep and burning affeetions; he who was the spell of her being, and the living spirit of her dreams-could he love her less! O no! haughty and repellant as that countenance might be to others, it had never been changed or clouded in its aspect to her.

er flushed; but pale, very pale-and O how mournful in its repose. With a look of peculiar meaning, and the air of one who has decided on some long meditated and hazardous step, Ida summoned her betrothed to a walk, and I instantly resolved to follow and learn now, if ever, the cause of her late strange conduct. And I did learn!

I have said that my sister early manifested a remarkable love of study and veneration for knowledge. Her natural disposition being imaginative and thoughtful, her affections were of that rare exalted order which requires something to reverence before it can love. This something she found in her intercourse with Alonzo St. Leon. She honored his genius, and respected his learning. Thus, while the ruling principle of Ida's nature was being more fully developed, did love, that It was a lovely night of moonshine preceding most subtle and pervading of passions, steal upon my sister's marriage-morn. During the whole of her in the guise of wisdom, and she became his that day Ida had remained in privacy, denying disciple when she thought she was only the wor- herself even to St. Leon; but when the sunset had shipper of Minerva. died away she came forth. Her manner was unuBut why need I trace in its formation and sub-sually, prophetically calm: her cheek was no longsequent windings that love, which, whatever its beginning, had for its end despair and bitterness and death. Enough that my sister Ida knelt down to this intellectual beauty, bearing to the altar of her idol the richest flowers of her affection, investing it with her own purity, and clothing it in perfections of her own creation. Enough that Alonzo St. Leon asked my approval of his choice; Beneath the drooping branches of an old willow, and enough that I gave away her, who, in "the along whose verdant bank of moss an ever-merdeep passion of my heart's sole love," I deemed a muring streamlet broke its silvery ripples, sat Alonzo mate for angels. Ay, fearlessly and triumphantly St. Leon and his bride of the morrow. The first did I entrust the happiness of my darling to one star was trembling on the wave, and twilight shedwhom I thought worthy to tread the brilliant path ding its mellow hue over the green sod and deep with her on which the mind had already entered! trees, when I found myself within hearing of a Ever mindful of Ida, as a mother of her only conversation, every word of which is as indeliay child, I perceived after a time a change come over graven on my memory as when my ear was first her-a gradual, silent and destructive change. doomed to hear it. It was then and there I learned Even to a casual observer her appearance would that Alonzo St. Leon was an infidel-a firm, inehave betrayed uneasiness; but I who was so fa- claimable infidel! Methinks I have that man bemiliar with the meanings of that ever-watched fore me now, with the light of the full summercountenance, traced at once in the restless manner moon streaming through the leaves over his reffecand troubled light of the eye, indices of new, ex- tive Roman-like features. I think I hear his low, cited and dangerous feeling. Day by day I marked deep voice, more impressive from its earnestness,

advancing argument after argument to the support that memory could shroud in the mantle of forgetof his cause, with a calmness and clearness which fulness, that blackest hour of hours and wo unalmost staggered my own belief. And Ida-never utterable! would that that pale face, covered with can I forget the deep, chilling and set dismay, gory stains, could ever be turned from my own! which slowly gathered over her countenance, as she But it is madness to linger here: let me onward! heard her lover in silence to the end; then laid her With folded arms and features that had they been hand in his own-believed-shuddered-and was carved out of marble could not have been more resigned! Here then, lay the root and foundation rigid, stood Alonzo St. Leon. Not a limb stirred, of Ida's latent unhappiness. The immortality of not a muscle moved, no sound, no word escaped the soul was a subject which possessed for her an him. Soul, sense, feeling, all seemed locked in an indescribable interest. I knew this, though it was unnatural, deathlike trance. Slowly, at lengtha subject to which she rarely alluded, even in the very slowly-he woke from his fearful stupor; and slightest manner; but when she did, it was never in a change passed over his face. With a look of a careless or common-place tone. And until Ida such bitter despair that it froze my very heart, he met St. Leon, I do not think she ever doubted the took the stained, stiffening hand of my dead sister truth of that Divine Creed on which christians pro- in his own, and the knowledge that most agonifess to ground their salvation. But now, now it zingly possessed him was that he beheld his own was otherwise. St. Leon's abstract and logical work. He felt that but for his unhappy creed, that arguments in favor of the soul's perishable nature, young and beautiful and glorious creature, so full had placed the subject in a new light to her inqui- of radiant hope when he first met her, had yet rering mind. Many long hours had they spent to-mained to love and bless him. And it was in utter, gether in controversy; many long days and nights eternal, desolating darkness, that Alonzo St. Leon had Ida conned over his subtle reasoning, endea- hung over that bleeding clay. He knew nothing voring to find in the theology of Revealed Religion of the beautiful consolations of religion. He could some proof that would destroy the philosophy of not look upward with the eye of faith, trusting with his dark creed. But Ida's faith was not strong a solemn trust there to behold his dead again. enough to form a weapon wherewith to conquer his; Dark, dark and blasting to all the feelings which so she listened and reasoned, and reasoned and lis-cling most endearingly to the human heart, was the tened, until her understanding became darken-thought that cherished no promise of life beyond ed, her judgment perverted, and every thought the tomb. All his hopes, all his thoughts of her he learned to bow to the demon sceptre of unbelief. so worshipped, were bounded to the dark earth, the Ida! Ida! why, when I toiled to render thee a model of female perfection-when I strove so sedulously to adorn thy mind's casket with the rare and beautiful gems of knowledge-why, why was the pure and precious pearl of price forgotten? Why did I leave unopened the Holy Fountain of Truth, seeking to draw from broken cisterns the waters of life for thee, beloved one? O, that the foundation of thy faith had been more securely laid: then had it not failed thee in this hour of temptation and trial! But this is needless reflection now: let me hasten to the closing scene of thy most melancholy history!

When Ida returned home on that evening, that eventful evening, in which she cast away the high birthright of her hope in Heaven, she stole at once to her room, and flung herself beside her couch with that deep despair which on earth may never again know hope. O! who can tell the intolerable agony, the suffering, the fierce, awful conflict which racked that aching heart!—the jarring confusion which like ancient chaos hung over her wildering brain! At length was heard a cry of unutterable terror-then a noise as of a fall! St. Leon and myself broke in the door. There lay Ida, stretched on the floor, her robe literally

narrow house, and the cold, creeping worm! No! he had not a shadow of comfort; for he was a believer in that strange and gloomy doctrine which teacheth that man is dust, and that there is no God!

And for Ida, I opened the old vault of our ancestors, and laid her away in her last sleeping-place; and the spirit of Hope would fain persuade me, that in the infinity of God's mercy her reluctant and involuntary fall hath been forgiven! Let the daughters of our land, the young, the lovely and the gifted-let them be learned and accomplished; but with all their knowledge, let them get that "True Wisdom which cometh from above-that Faith which is as an anchor to the soul, sure and steadfast, which maketh not afraid." Above all, let them beware of the syren song of unbelief; let them remember that a poison more deadly than the Upas, lingers in its tones. As they would pass unscathed and unsullied, let them avoid the keen skepticism of the Atheist, the bland, subtle reasoning of the Infidel Lecturer; let them shun their presence as they would the accursed of heaven, for their way is through the gates

of death!

Eames' Place, July 6, 1840.

soaked with blood and the crimson stream gush- A French lady said with much naïvetè, "I don't ing from her mouth! She had broken a blood-know how it is-but I am the only person of my vessel. I raised her in my arms a corpse. Would acquaintance that is always in the right.”