But then at eve the fragrant flower, Oppressed with dews, will droop—decay; For zephyr hath no longer power To kiss the dews of night away. Our childhood’s tears like dew-drops flow; A mother’s kiss soon dries the tear; But tears the aged shed in wo, Are only dried up on the bier. * * * * * LETTY RAWDON. AN EPISODE IN AMERICAN LIFE. BY THOS. R. NEWBOLD. The ever-changing hues of the kaleidoscope, and the varying tints of our autumnal forests do not present more changeful or varied scenes than are to be found in real life in this country. The decay of one family, the rise of another, depending as they do on the pecuniary fortunes of their possessors, render American society a scene of constant excitement, and he who is at the top of the social ladder to-day, falls to-morrow with the fall of stocks to the bottom. The little tale which follows is but a type of what is daily occurring around us, and is presented as a general outline, which all may fill up at their leisure to suit their pleasure. Letitia, or as she was usually called in her girlhood, Letty Rawdon, was the only daughter of old Elias Rawdon, a thrifty and prosperous tailor in the pleasant village of Middlebury. The old man had married rather late in life, after he had in his own phrase “got a little something snug about him.” She followed the usual course of village girls, and at the dame’s school had learned those difficult arts of reading, writing, and ciphering. In her young days, the road to learning was not the plank or rail-road track on which our young people now travel so readily. The A, B, C, required some study to ponder out, and in 179—, the portals to learning were not thrown so wide open as they are in the year of grace 1852. Be that as it may, Letty, however, mastered them. From her earliest years she had been an ambitious child, never content unless she was among the foremost; as eager for superiority over her little schoolmates in play as in study, as if she had been born to rule them. She was not what would be termed a handsome child, but her features were delicate, and her full hazel eye looked out from its long lashes with a glance that showed full well the determined soul within. She was her father’s darling, who denied her nothing, whence she soon obtained a complete ascendancy in the dwelling of the old tailor.