He paused-but was answered only by sobs and tears. He was passing to the door, but checking himself, he turned back and said-" At least, Miss D.

do me the justice to believe, that, in my conduct, before you I was not acting a part. No-whatever I have been-whatever I may be-I was not a hypocrite. I acted uprightly-and really meant to be what I professed-Farewell-for ever farewell!"

So saying, he dashed the stale tears from his eyelids-and hurried from the room and the house.

"Mr. Lefevre !" cried the agitated grandmother, "leave us not thus."

66

"O, stay! stay!"-exclaimed Miss D—, roused by the voice of her relativé, to a sense of his departure, and losing all restraint on her feelings.

Lefevre did not obey-did not hear. He had fled to the stable-thrown himself on his saddle, and, in an instant, the shoes of the horse were ringing on the pebbled court yard. The chords of her heart answered to every sound. She has

tened to a window that commanded a corner of the road. She saw Lefevre turn the angle-and disappear-she felt it was for ever!-She clasped her hands in anguish a sense of suffocation rose to her throat she hurried to her closet to weep and sigh in secret!

Lefevre sighed not-wept not-spoke not--thought not. The vultures of remorse and despair were busy at his heart; and he surrendered it as a victim, without an effort or a wish for its preservation. He was alive only to a sense of wretchedness; and, he hurried over the road, which, an hour ago, had been so pleasing to him, as if he felt that change of place might bring relief. Wretchedness, however, like happiness, is not the inhabitant of places but of persons; and Lefevre found himself at home, without any mitigation of his pains. He locked his door, and threw himself on some chairs that were near it, overcome with that stupor which follows bodily exhaustion, and acute mental sufferings. Thus he lay for some hours.

When he was aroused, it was by the

voice of his hostess, inviting him to take refreshments. These he refused, and seating himself at his bureau, undesignedly began to look over the correspondence of Miss D. It was full of kind sentiments and felicitous anticipations, sweetly veiled in modesty. His heart sickened as he glanced on them. He folded the whole in one parcel; and, having directed it to the writer, he cast it back into the drawer. The same drawer contained her miniature likeness. He seized and opened it. It had an amiable and smiling expression. It spoke of tenderness supported by dignity. His hand trembled his lip quivered-he threw it from him-and then instantly snatched it up again, and, without looking on it, thrust it in his bosom. He walked the room awhile, and then cast himself on his bed, rather to change his posture, than in reference to sleep. Sleep, for that night, he had not, if that term involves repose; for, through the whole of it, he had either a wakeful or dreamy sense of his misery upon him.

On the morrow, Lefevre arose-not

to more wretchedness-but to a more distinct perception of the sources of his wretchedness. In any supposable circumstances, such a stroke must have been severely felt; but, in his circumstances, there was every thing to aggravate the blow. He was rejected-but his conscience compelled him to justify the hand that repulsed him. He had, how improperly soever, identified his return to virtue and religion, with his union to Miss D—; and, now, he could not separate them. "Yes," said he, and it was the first sentence he had uttered since he left Sevenoaks—“I have lost her, and with her I have lost every thing. I seem to have been raised by an angel's hand from the pollution of the world-but it was only to make my fall the deeper. I am ruinedand it is all my own fault-but-no-it is all my own fault! If I had never known vice-never forsaken religion-this heavy stroke had never come upon me! Wellit cannot be worse."

In this desperate state of mind, what was to be done? Reason and hope would

have urged him to remain exemplary in his conduct, with the prospect of its yet influencing the mind of Miss D; or, if no expectation could have been rested here, they would have pressed him into the paths of religion, as the only ones favorable to his peace. But alas! from the voice of reason and hope, the soul of Lefevre now was alienated. His pride would not allow him to look on one, who had decidedly rejected him; and who, by that rejection, had made herself his superior; nor would it suffer him, to bend in humility, under the chastising rod of Providence. Pierced as his bosom was with the shafts of the spoiler, he still exposed it to his foe! Like the silly hind, he was alive only to his wounds, and not to the quarter whence they came-he sought rather an opiate to lull his pains, than the hand of divine skill to operate on the seat of them.

In such a temper of mind, to one who had acquired the habit of drinking, and who had, indeed, only weakened without having fully conquered it, what a temptation must spirituous liquors have presented.