Intemperance is a vice which is generally considered of the masculine sex. In the pictured scenes of the ravages it has wrought woman is seldom introduced but as the patient victim of brutality, or as the admonishing angel of transgressing man. There are instances on record, however, of a sad reverse. Not alone in the lower classes of life, amid the dregs of society, but in higher walks, where intelligence, wit, beauty, and wealth, virgin worth, wedded love, and Christian grace, are all cast as unvalued offerings at the beastly shrine of intemperance. One of these fatal examples (of which, to the honour of our sex be it said, there are so few) once came under the observation of the writer. Her character and history form the subject of the following sketch. Mr. Manly first met Anne Weston in a ball-room. It was on the evening of the Fourth of July, and the fairest ladies of the country were assembled to celebrate the national jubilee. He was a lawyer, and had been the orator of the day; an eloquent one, and therefore entitled to distinguished attention. He came from an adjoining town, of which he had recently become an inhabitant, and now found himself in a scene which scarcely presented one familiar countenance. He was a very proud man, and had the air of one who felt himself too superior to the multitude to mingle in the general amusement. He stood with folded arms, as remote as possible from the dancers despising those who were engaged in that exercise on such a sultry night. In vain the obsequious master of ceremonies begged to introduce him to this and that fair lady. He declined the honour with a cold bow, declaring his utter disinclination to dancing. He was told that his disinclination would cease as soon as Miss Weston arrived. She was the belle of the place, the daughter of the richest gentleman in town--had received the most finished education, and refused the most splendid offers. In short, she was irresistible, and it was predicted that he would find her so. It cannot be denied, that the fame of this all-conquering lady had previously reached his ears, but unfortunately he had a detestation of belles, and predetermined to close his eyes, and shut his ears, and steel his heart against her vaunted attractions. He had never yet sacrificed his independence to woman. He had placed his standard of female excellence very high. He had seen no one that reached its altitude. "No," said he to himself, "let me live on in singleness of heart and loneliness of purpose, all the days of my life, rather than unite myself with one of those vain, flimsy, garrulous, and superficial beings who win the smiles, and fix the attention of the many. I despise a weak woman, I hate a masculine one, and a pedantic one I abhor. I turn with fear from the glittering belle, whose home is the crowded hall, whose incense the homage of fools, whose altar the shrine of fashion. Can _she_ sit down contented