I do well recollect the time when these two beings first met. It was on the eighteenth anniversary of Eliza’s birth—and at a _fête_, given by her father, in honor of the occasion. It was in May, the month of flowers; and though a moonless night, yet the bright stars looked down in myriads on the happy earth. Eliza was all joy and animation. Before her lay the rich fields of pleasure, and she seized on every moment as one of gladness, and of happiness. She did not know that in her path, there lay a serpent that would soon destroy her. Gordon De Severn, like some fiery comet, attracted every eye, and spell-bound the poor maiden that happened to come within the hearing of his magic words. Exclusively on that night, did he appropriate Eliza to himself. She listened, enraptured at every word he spoke, and fell at last a victim, to the snare he then laid. He played his part so well on that night, that he fairly captured the fair one’s heart—and for the first time in her life, she retired, to a sleepless pillow, bedewed with tears. De Severn admired her, but he was not in love. For several months after their first interview, he was almost a daily visitor at her house. He courted her—and he won her. She believed him, when he told her, that he would be her friend. She believed him when he said, that he loved her. She trusted, when he deceived. She fell because she loved one too much, that proved himself a villain, and not because she was base. She departed from virtue, not because she was in love with vice, but to oblige one that she loved much. She fell—and this vile seducer is now sporting in the sunshine of wealth—and has friends, and is received into the houses of the honorable, and is caressed, and is smiled upon; while the poor injured one—Eliza Wharton, is abandoned by the world, and by her relations, to pine in some sequestered spot, and die of a broken heart. How often does it happen in this world of ours, that the betrayer receives honor from the hands of the people, and the betrayed is scoffed at and reviled, for being so credulous as to believe even a tale of—Love. Jackson, Tenn. * * * * * THE INVITATION. BY E. G. MALLERY. Come, altho’ fair is thy southern clime, Where the sea-breeze fanneth thy cheek, And the stars come forth at the vesper chime, With a beauty no tongue may speak; Tho’ the moon-beam slumbers upon thy brow As it slumbered in hours of yore; And the night bird’s song has the same tone now In thy life’s bright spring that it bore; Come, tho’ from streamlet, from hill, and from plain, Rush a thousand fond memories forth, And cluster around thy light step to detain— Oh! come to our home in the North!