_May 1st_.--Since writing the above, I have been favored with a duplicate of your letter in the handwriting of a lady, and cannot close this without acknowledging my obligations for the flattering postscript of the fair transcriber. In effect, my dear Marquis, the characters of this interpreter of your sentiments are so much fairer than those through which I have been accustomed to decipher them, that I already consider myself as no small gainer by your matrimonial connection. Especially as I hope your amiable amanuensis will not forget at the same time to add a few annotations of her own to your original text. I have just received information that the convention of Maryland has ratified the proposed constitution by a majority of 63 to 11. -------- {156} Aimée's Sacrifice. A Tale. Chapter I. The sun was sinking in the horizon, and the sky was overspread with a glorious array of many-colored clouds--those hues which artists so vainly try to reproduce on canvas, and which it is still more impossible to describe in words. It was a soft, balmy summer evening, the 14th of August, and nature seemed as if ready to join with faithful hearts in keeping the coming feast and to give them a faint shadow of the glories of heaven. Very fair was the landscape which lay outspread before the spectator's eye from the churchyard of the little village of St. Victor, raised as it was on a slight eminence above the rest of the village. Beech-woods, softly undulating hills, fertile dales, cottages scattered here and there, and the sea shining like silver in the far distance, formed the delightful prospect; and the old curé, as he traversed the churchyard which alone separated the modest presbytery from the church, could never prevent himself from pausing to admire the wonderful beauty of the scene. On this evening particularly, he stood looking up into the gorgeous sky with the earnest, wistful gaze of one who would fain pierce through "each tissued fold" of that marvellous curtain of blue and gold.