While we

vision is withdrawn for a moment, and heaven opens on the view of Faith. converse with nature, we are but a step from God. He it was, who arrayed her in all the loveliness we survey; and it is He, who still upholds her by the word of his power.' She bears his image; and, though transgression has deprived her of that unsullied reflection of it, which our parents contemplated in Eden, the divine impress is still legible in her features, and it demands no

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understanding deep-skilled in science,' to read in them the characters of his purity, benignity, and truth.

Emily seemed, in this respect, to have im. bibed, from her infancy, a portion of her mother's amiable sensibility. The sublime scenery, with which the place of her nativity was surrounded, afforded her a peculiar, though an indefinable, pleasure. Often, even in early childhood, would she steal away from human reach; and at the hour when day and evening meet,' be found musing over some flood or fell, thinking those 'unutterable things,' which a youthful imagination delights to conjure up in its visionary

wanderings, while as yet she was unconscious of the charm that bound her to the solitude she sought.

Westward from the recess where the mansion of du Blesne stood, and rising to a considerable height, is an eminence, detached in a measure from the mountain which overlooks it from behind, as if they had been rent asunder by some convulsion of the elements. At present, indeed, its appearance indicates only neglect and desolation. The people of the earth are gone down from its shadow, and have left it; and the fowls of heaven remain upon its ruin.' But at the period of our story, still within the memory of man, no trace of decay was visible. If to-day is seen only some solitary pine lifting its head amidst the brushwood, it was then covered with trees, disposed with an art so delicate as to blend, in a manner which had all the effect of unintentional embellishment, the almost innumerable shades of foliage, with which the beneficent Creator has adorned this globe, so clothed with beauty, even for the rebellious, and yet preserving undiminished the Jomantic wildness of the scene.

Through these a walk had been constructed, which commanded, from openings purposely left, the picturesque diversities of wood and water, mountain and valley, which are so strikingly characteristic of the higher borders of the Leman Lake; and imperceptibly conducted you with many devious windings to the summit of the hill. But as you ascended, there projected in front, rather more than midway up the acclivity, a rock or crag of precipitous formation, though not remarkable for its dimensions, so situated as to permit the eye, which had attained its elevation, to range at will in every direction, that excepted, in which the prospect was bounded by the intervention of the eminence, to which it was attached. This spot, the loveliest of that lovely glen' which embosomed the abode of her fathers, Emily had early chosen as suited to those fond imaginings,' which are, alas! but too illusory for the breast of one, doomed to be conversant with the dark and trying realities of life ; and which, whoso values the happiness of their offspring, will endeavour with caution,

though from their tenderest years, to counteract. It was a spot, indeed, that well might attract an ardent fancy, nor yet ill calculated to lull the tumults of the bosom acquainted with sorrow.

The boundless store

Of charms, which Nature to her votary yields:
The warbling woodlands, the resounding shore,
The pomp of groves, the garniture of fields:
All that the genial ray of morning gilds,

And all that echos to the song of even :

All that the mountain's sheltering bosom shields;
And all the dread magnificence of heaven'—

seemed here to combine their efforts to invite, and fix, the attention. Nor was any aid, that art could superadd, wanting to complete the loveliness of the scene, which bore, to the delighted gaze of Emily, the semblance of some Elysian paradise, than which the creative genius of poets had feigned nothing more fair.

Round this rock had been planted, under her direction, many a tree and shrub. As they grew with the successions of seed-time and harvest, their intermingling branches had been twined into an arbour, which, rendered yet more secluded by some tall and spread

ing oaks and elms, that had long found there an unmolested retreat, now lent her a welcome umbrage when the suns of summer impelled her to seek a shadow from their heat. Hither often would she retire to meditate, and conceal herself from a world of which meanwhile she knew but little, except from books, and the conversation of her parents, or the discourses of the pastor, whom she reverenced as the pious preceptor of her youth. They said the world was evil; and she believed them. They told her of its dangers; and she willingly consented to shun its snares. She had yet to learn from the book of inspiration, and the volume of her own breast, that it is totally depraved—yea, 'at enmity with its God.' And she was still to be taught, by woeful experience, that'man, born of woman, is of few days, and full of trouble,'—a lesson, in the sequel, indelibly engraved upon her heart.

The year was now rapidly drawing to a close. Hoary December was scattering his frosts around; and the winds, ever and anon, were heard howling dismally over the adjacent steeps. 'The night had been winter in