Our intimacy still continues; and whenever I read one of her sparkling letters, or pay her a visit, and see how healthily and heartily she enjoys life, I can scarcely conceive that she was ever the love-sick, romantic Meta Hallowell of former days; and I see with delight that she is now under the influence of the most beautiful, the most holy of all feelings—true, spiritual love; and that she retains only a smiling, pitying recollection of that season of her past life, when she had for awhile lingered in the depths of mortality, held down by the enervating influence of that hollow mockery—love for an unworthy object. * * * * * SONG. FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE WALTER HERRIES, ESQ. WOULD thou wert mine own wife, I’d fold thee in these arms, And shield thee on this faithful breast Secure from all alarms. Thou shouldst be with me ever, And in gladness or in gloom, Thy presence like a sunbeam Should life’s every hour illume. The heaviest toil of life, love, The weary weight of care, Cheered by thy smile serene and true, Most gladly I would bear, And though forced by sterner duties From thy gentle side to roam, I would know an angel blessed me From the fireside of my home. Would thou wert mine own wife Then cherished in this breast, Thou’dst dwell in tender joyousness A dove within her nest. Thus, hand in hand together, We would tread the path of life, While flowers of joy should greet thy steps— Oh! would thou wert my wife. * * * * * THE TWO PORTRAITS. BY HELEN IRVING. CHAPTER I. “—his spirit wholly turned To stern ambition’s dream, to that fierce strife Which leads to life’s high places, and recked not What lovely flowers might perish in his path.” L. E. L. “Life, with all its hues and changes, To thy heart doth lie, Like those dreamy Alpine ranges In the southern sky; Where in haze the clefts are hidden, Which the heart should fear, And the crags that fall unbidden Startle not the ear!” BAYARD TAYLOR.