only fall the faster, and clasping her babes convulsively to her bosom, she would find a melancholy pleasure in the sympathy of her child. But all these things were now forgotten by the boy. He lay in the deep sleep of infancy; and as he slumbered a smile played across his little face. Perhaps he was dreaming of the angels in heaven. James Stanhope was a young man of good family, a fine personal appearance, and the manners of a gentleman. Destitute, however, of a fortune, he obtained a livelihood by acting as a clerk in a public office. He moved in good society, and enjoyed a moderate income, which, by proper economy afforded him, at least once a year, the means of spending a fortnight at one of those public places of amusement to which beauty, wealth, and fashion annually resort. During a visit to one of these summer pleasure haunts he met, and formed an acquaintance with Miss Howard, a young lady, scarcely seventeen, a beauty, and an heiress, who was spending a month at the watering-place, with a maiden cousin for a chaperon. An intimacy was the result of a casual introduction, which soon ripened into that most dangerous of all things to two young hearts—an acknowledged friendship. In one short word, they loved, and loved as few have done. But Stanhope, while he addressed the younger, did not neglect the older cousin; and the consequence was that the simple-hearted spinster fancied that it was her company to which the handsome young stranger was attracted. She thus shut her eyes effectually to the increasing intimacy between the young people, and their love had become not only unconquerable, but so evident as to be the theme of general remark, before the deluded chaperon, became aware of Miss Howard’s entanglement. She was then thunder-struck at her own indiscretion. She was more: she was enraged at the deception which had been practised upon her, or rather which she had practised upon herself. Dreading, moreover, the consequences of Mr. Howard’s displeasure, she determined at once, by flying from the place, to escape the attentions of Stanhope. Her carriage was instantly ordered to the door, their baggage hastily collected, and with scarcely an hour’s warning, Miss Howard was torn from her lover’s presence, without a moment being afforded her to communicate with him. She was not able even to wave him a silent adieu, as he was absent that morning on a ride. Disturbed by a thousand fears lest her lover should think her faithless, and compelled to listen to the bitter recriminations of her cousin, when sympathy was rather needed for her tortured mind, the poor girl lay back in the corner of the carriage and wept with a bitterness of heart such as she had never experienced before. Oh! who can picture the agony of one thus rudely torn from the object of her love. Life seemed to her to have lost its charm. Death, in those first moments of crushing anguish would almost have been welcome.