Thus he spoke; and when the lady heard him, Pale as death she dropp'd upon the pavement, And the life fled from her wretched bosom As she saw her children turning from her. MY FIRST LOVE. A SKETCH IN NEW YORK. "Margaret, where are you?" cried a silver-toned voice from a passage outside the drawing-room in which I had just seated myself. The next instant a lovely face appeared at the door, its owner tripped into the room, made a comical curtsy, and ran up to her sister. "It is really too bad, Margaret; pa' frets and bustles about, nearly runs over me upon the stairs, and then goes down the street as if 'Change were on fire. Ma' yawns, and will not hear of our going shopping, and grumbles about money--always money--that horrid money! Ah! dear Margaret, our shopping excursion is at an end for to-day!" Sister Margaret, to whom this lamentation was addressed, was reclining on the sofa, her left hand supporting her head, her right holding the third volume of a novel. She looked up with a languishing and die-away expression-- "Poor Staunton will be in despair," said her sister. "This is at least his tenth turn up and down the Battery. Last night he was a perfect picture of misery. I could not have had the heart to refuse to dance with him. How could you be so cruel, Margaret?" "Alas!" replied Margaret with a deep sigh, "how could I help it? Mamma was behind me, and kept pushing me with her elbow. Mamma is sometimes very ill-bred." And another sigh burst from the overcharged heart of the sentimental fair one. "Well," rejoined her sister, "I don't know why she so terribly dislikes poor Staunton; but to say the truth, our gallopade lost nothing by his absence. He is as stiff as a Dutch doll when he dances. Even our Louisianian backwoodsman here, acquits himself much more creditably." And the malicious girl gave me such an arch look, that I could not be angry with the equivocal sort of compliment paid to myself. "That is very unkind, Arthurine," said Margaret, her checks glowing with anger at this attack upon the graces of her admirer. "Don't be angry, sister," cried Arthurine, running up to her, throwing her arms round her neck, and kissing and soothing her till she began to smile. They formed a pretty group. Arthurine especially, as she skipped up to her sister, scarce touching the carpet with her tiny feet, looked like a fairy or a nymph. She was certainly a lovely creature, slender and flexible as a reed, with a waist one could easily have spanned with one's ten fingers; feet and hands on the very smallest scale, and of the most beautiful mould; features exquisitely regular; a complexion of lilies and roses; a small graceful head, adorned with a profusion of golden hair; and then large round clear blue eyes, full of mischief and fascination. She was, as the French say, _à croquer_.