'Mine be a cot beside the hill-- A beehive's hum shall sooth my ear; A willowy brook, that turns a mill, With many a fall shall linger near.' To any one who fully understands and appreciates the peculiar beauties of England--who knows how much elegance, content, and knowledge can be sheltered under such a roof, these lines must ever, I think, as to me, have a music of their own, and, unpretending as they are, breathe the very soul of happiness. In this imbowered cot, near which a clear stream murmured--which was clustered over by a thousand odoriferous parasites--which stood in the seclusion of a beech wood--there dwelt something more endearing even than all this--and one glance at the only daughter of Mrs. Rivers served to disclose that an angel dwelt in the paradise. "Alithea Rivers--there is music, and smiles, and tears--a whole life of happiness--and moments of intensest transport in the sound. Her beauty was radiant; her dark eastern eye, shaded by the veined and darkly-fringed lid, beamed with a soft but penetrating fire; her face of a perfect oval, and lips which were wreathed into a thousand smiles, or softly and silently parted, seemed the home of every tender and poetic expression which one longed to hear them breathe forth; her brow clear as day; her swan throat and symmetrical and fairy-like form disclosed a perfection of loveliness, that the youngest and least susceptible must have felt, even if they did not acknowledge. "She had two qualities which I have never seen equalled separately, but which, united in her, formed a spell no one could resist--the most acute sensitiveness to joy or grief in her own person, and the most lively sympathy with these feelings in others. I have seen her so enter heart and soul into the sentiments of one in whom she was interested, that her whole being took the colour of their mood; and her very features and complexion appeared to alter in unison with theirs. Her temper was never ruffled; she could not be angry; she grieved too deeply for those who did wrong; but she could be glad; and never have I seen joy, the very sunshine of the soul, so cloudlessly expressed as in her countenance. She could subdue the stoutest heart by a look--a word; and were she ever wrong herself, a sincere acknowledgment, an ingenuous shame--grief to have offended, and eagerness to make reparation, turned her very error into a virtue. Her spirits were high, even to wildness; but, at their height, tempered by such thought for others, such inbred feminine softness, that her most exuberant gayety resembled heart-cheering music, and made each bosom respond. All, everything loved her; her mother idolized her; each bird of the grove knew her; and I felt sure that the very flowers she tended were conscious of, and rejoiced in, her presence.