WHEN I was a wee little slip of a girl, 66 The men, as I passed, would exclaim, " Pretty dear!" Which, I must say, I thought rather rude. Such impudent things are the men. But of all the bold things I could ever suppose Yet how could I take it amiss? Was that of my impudent cousin last night, When he actually gave me a kiss! I quickly reproved him; but ah, in such tones, Such strange, coaxing things are the men. She knows him as one dead, or worse than dead; And many a change her varied life hath known, But her heart none. No thought within her bosom stirs, But wakes some feeling dark and dread ; God keep thee from a doom like hers, Of living when the hopes are dead. MATURIN. PHOBE CAREY. And now farewell! farewell! I dare not lengthen, Those sweet, sad moments out: to gaze on thee Is bliss indeed; yet it but serves to strengthen The love that now amounts to agony; This is our last farewell. MRS. WELBY. MY FORTUNE'S MADE. My young friend, Cora Lee, was a gay, dashing girl, fond of dress, and looking always as if, to use a homely saying, just out of the bandbox. Cora was a belle, of course, and had many admirers. Among the number of these was a young man named Edward Douglass, who was the very "pink" of neatness in all matters pertaining to dress, and exceedingly particular in his observance of the little proprieties of life. I saw from the first that, if Douglass pressed his suit, Cora's heart would be an easy conquest; and so it proved. "How admirably they are fitted for each other!" I remarked to my husband on the night of the wedding. "Their tastes are similar, and their habits are so much alike that no violence will be done to the feelings of either, in the more intimate associations that marriage brings. Both are neat in person, and orderly by instinct, and both have good principles." "From all present appearances, the match will be a good one," replied my husband. There was, I thought, something like reservation in his tone. "Do you really think so?" I said, a little ironically; for Mr. Smith's approval of the marriage was hardly warm enough to suit my fancy. "O, certainly! Why not?" he replied. I felt a little fretted at my husband's mode of speaking, but made no further remarks on the subject. He is never very enthusiastic or sanguine, and did not mean, in this instance, to doubt the fitness of the parties for happiness in the marriage state, as I half imagined. For myself, I warmly approved my friend's choice, and called her husband a lucky man to secure for his companion through life a woman so admirably fitted to make one like him happy. But a visit which I paid to Cora, one day, about six weeks after the honeymoon had expired, lessened my enthusiasm on the subject, and awoke some unpleasant doubts. It happened that I called soon after breakfast. Cora met me in the parlor, looking like a very fright. She wore a soiled and rumpled morning wrapper, her hair was in papers, and she had on dirty stockings, and a pair of slippers down at the heels. "Bless me, Cora," said I. "What is the matter? Have you been sick?" "No. Why do you ask? Is my dishabille on the extreme?" Candidly, I think it is, Cora," was my frank answer. "O, well! No matter," she carelessly replied, 66 my fortune's made." "I don't clearly understand you," said I. "I'm married, you know." "Yes, I am aware of that fact.” "No need of being so particular in dress now." "Why not?" "Didn't I just say?" replied Cora. tune's made. I've got a husband." "My for Beneath an air of jesting was apparent the real earnestness of my friend. "You dressed with a careful regard to taste and neatness in order to win Edward's love!” said I. "Certainly I did." "And should you not do the same in order to retain it?" "Why, Mrs. Smith! Do you think my husband's affection goes no deeper than my dress? I should be very sorry indeed to own that. He loves me for myself." "No doubt of that in the world, Cora. But remember that he cannot see what is in your mind except by what you do or say. If he admires your taste, for instance, it is not from any abstract appreciation of it, but because the taste manifests itself in what you do. And depend upon it he will find it a very hard matter to approve and admire your correct taste in dress, for instance, when you appear before him day after day, in your present unattractive attire. If you do not dress well for your husband's eyes, for whose eyes, pray, do you dress? You are as neat when abroad as you were before your marriage." "As to that, Mrs. Smith, common decency requires me to dress well when I go upon the street, |