Women are taught to keep their affection, like a rare gem, hidden from all eyes in the casket of their heart; and it is not till, by some mishap, the key is lost or stolen, that man finds out what a treasure there is within. Beatrice heard Villars name the day of his departure without an apparent emotion. She saw that day approach, too, as calmly as she had heard it appointed. It is true, that her cheek grew a little paler, and that her eyes would often rest upon the ground; that in singing her voice would tremble, and that she did not seem so fond of music as she had been formerly. But she would laugh when any one called her thoughtful, and assured her mother that she had never been in better health. Villars, as I have said, had made a firm resolution to depart; but, like most other resolutions in this changeable world, it was not destined to be kept. The day previous to that which he had fixed for his departure, the mother of Beatrice was struck with apoplexy, and in two hours after, the fair creature that he loved was an orphan, alone in the wide world, drooping in sorrow, and clinging to him for support in her affliction. Could he leave her? He never asked himself the question. He stayed, and after a time Beatrice became the bride of Armand Villars. New feelings now began to spring up in his heart. The sweeter, gentler associations of existence now began to cling round him, and mellow the harshness of his character, like the green ivy twining round the rugged bark of the oak, and softening its rude majesty. Life took a new aspect. A brighter sun seemed to have risen over the world. He forgot the past, and in the delight of the present found a boundless store of anticipation for the future. There are few whose fate has been so desolate, that one clear day has not, at some time, shone through and brightened their existence. Oh, it is like being in a boat upon a summer sea! Every circumstance of joy dances round us, like the ripple of the waves in the morning sun. Heaven seems to smile upon us like the clear blue sky, and the breath of time wafts us gently, but swiftly, on our course, while hope points onwards to the far faint line of the horizon, and tells us of a bright and golden shore beyond. And who is there, that, when all seems sunshine, would look around him for a cloud? Villars dreamed; but that dream of joy was soon to be broken. The tie which linked him to social being was soon to be rent. Beatrice died, and with her every gentler feeling of his bosom; and his heart became their sepulchre, never to be opened again. Villars became old in an hour. There is no such thing as time. It is but space occupied by incident. It is the same to eternity as matter is to infinite space--a portion out of the immense, occupied by something within the sphere of mortal sense. We ought not to calculate our age by the passing of years, but by the passing of feelings and events. It is what we have done, and what we have suffered, makes us old.