Adam were not more beautified in their nuptial-bower, than I shall be with the Widow Pardiggle. * * * * * _Re_fused by a widow! Who ever heard of such a thing? Well; there’s one comfort: nobody’ll ever believe it. She is not so very pretty after all: her eyes are too small, and her hands are rough and red-dy:--not so very _ready_ either, confound the gipsy. What amazing pretty shoulders she has! Well, who cares? “If she be not fair for me, What care I how fair she be?” Ten to one, she’d have set up that wretch of a Pardiggle for my model. Who wants to be Pardiggle 2nd? I am glad she didn’t have me. I mean--I’m glad I didn’t have _her_! LOVE AND DUTY. The moon looked down upon no fairer sight than Effie May, as she lay sleeping on her little couch, that fair summer night. So thought her mother, as she glided gently in, to give her a silent, good-night blessing. The bright flush of youth, and hope was on her cheek. Her long dark hair lay in masses about her neck and shoulders; a smile played upon the red lips, and the mother bent low to catch the indistinct murmur. She starts, at the whispered name, as if a serpent had stung her; and as the little snowy hand is tossed restlessly upon the coverlid, she sees, glittering in the moonbeams, on that childish finger, the golden signet of betrothal. Sleep sought in vain to woo the eyes of the mother that night. Reproachfully she asked herself, “How could I have been so blind? (but then Effie has seemed to me only a child!) But he! oh, no; the _wine-cup_ will be my child’s rival; it must not be.” Effie was wilful, and Mrs. May knew she must be cautiously dealt with; but she knew, also, that no mother need despair, who possesses the affection of her child. Effie’s violet eyes opened to greet the first ray of the morning sun, as he peeped into her room. She stood at the little mirror, gathering up, with those small hands, the rich tresses so impatient of confinement. How could she fail to know that she was fair?--she read it in every face she met; but there was _one_ (and she was hastening to meet him) whose eye had noted, with a lover’s pride, every shining ringlet, and azure vein, and flitting blush; his words were soft and low, and skillfully chosen, and sweeter than music to her ear; and so she tied, with a careless grace, the little straw hat under her dimpled chin; and fresh, and sweet, and guileless, as the daisy that bent beneath her foot, she tripped lightly on to the old trysting place by the willows. Stay! a hand is laid lightly upon her arm, and the pleading voice of a mother arrests that springing step. “Effie dear, sit down with me on this old garden seat; give up your walk for this morning; I slept but indifferently last night, and morning finds me languid and depressed.”