his shirt sleeves, and tugging at the oar, was his younger brother, Walter. These two boys (or young men, as they were more likely to have called themselves,) were each born to an inheritance as different as the dispositions which they carried along with them. Arnold was heir to an entailed estate, which would, at some future time, afford him the possession of an almost princely fortune: Walter had no other dependance than upon a clear head and ready hand. Gladly would Arnold have shared half his wealth with Walter; but Walter, since he was not born with a title to it, scrupled to receive the slightest pecuniary obligation from his brother. Perhaps, had their hearts been laid open, pride would have been found the only quality in which they resembled each other; but Arnold's pride was of an open domineering character, while his brother's was so deep and hidden, as to be scarcely discernible in his outward actions. Arnold's characteristics, as a boy, were indolence and indifference; the one arising partly from constitution, partly from the knowledge that he should never be called upon for exertion; the other from a general distrust of kindness, and latent suspicion that his money, not himself, was the object of attraction. Walter would have been enthusiastic almost to madness, had it not been for the common sense and correct feeling which kept all the exuberance of his mind in check: thus he was accustomed to pursue his favorite employments in secret, to rise early, and sit up late, to labour and endure, with a pertinacity that was almost certain to ensure success. What his favourite employments were, and what the degree of mental power he was capable of exercising, few people suspected, and none knew; for he was careless at school, and made little progress in the beaten track of learning. Arnold was more successful in his aquirements, as he was solicitous that nothing should be wanting to complete the dignified and imposing character to which he aspired. Every one might discover, at the first glance, that Arnold was the gentleman; and it needed as little penetration to see that

Walter would one day be the man of upright and steady usefulness, of strict punctuality, promptness, and integrity in the common affairs of life. Arnold never called a servant or ordered a horse, but they were ready on the instant. Walter hated that any one should do for him what he was able to do for himself; but when he did require service from his mother's domestics, he could obtain it as readily for love, as his brother could for fear. Arnold held no communication with what Walter was accustomed to call the useful classes of society; but Walter listened to their complaints, redressed their grievances as far as he was able, and showed them respect by a thousand little acts of consideration, richly worth their cost. Arnold's face was of a handsome, proud, and melancholy cast, finely moulded, but cold and inanimate ; and the glance of his beautiful dark eye was generally directed to distant objects, or wandered on in listless and dreamy vacuity; while Walter, much below his brother in stature, was equally inferior to him in all that could strike the attention of the superficial observer. His eyes were blue and clear, and usually concentrated in their look, as if the faculties of his mind were fixed upon some powerful image, or strong focus of light, revealed only to his inward vision; his lips were thin, firm, and compressed, and all his movements decided, prompt, and energetic; he had, besides, in very early life, an uncommon flow of animal spirits, so that, before he began to think deeply, he played with more vivacity than any other boy. At the time of the fishing party, the change in his character had but just appeared. Some rude attempts at mechanism, closely concealed in the remotest corner of his private closet, bore testimony to earnest and grave thought; but he had too much of the boy about him still to sit long at any employment and he now laughed, shouted, and rowed with unrivalled strength and determination.

It was a glorious day. The sun shone out in cloudless light; the boat glided swiftly over the waters; the trees bent down their feathery boughs as if to soothe the rippling

stream that foamed and fretted against the rocky shores, and the birds sung sweetly in the distance, until startled from the branches, they winged their rapid flight away from this region of peace and beauty. All things above, around and beneath, wore the garb of nature's holiday; and even Arnold, charmed out of himself, sent forth his deeptoned voice in a wild and melancholy song. At length they reached the basin or broad space in the river, where their sport was to begin. Lightly every foot sprang from the boat, and Agnes, no less eager than the rest, seizing the line which Walter had prepared, took her place beside a drooping birch and waited for her prey.

Arnold alone, of all the party, declined to enter into their amusement. Striding from rock to rock, he quickly disappeared from their sight, and, winding round a high point which jutted out into the stream, seated himself like an eagle upon its height, exalted, in his own ideas, to as great a superiority over the merry creatures he had left, as this solitary rock was above the shallow waters rippling at its base. On his difficult and circuitous path he had gathered handfuls of fern and wild flowers, each little group a picture of woodland beauty, enough to send the spirit up to Heaven in the incense of gratitude; and now the misanthrope amused himself by casting them one by one into the stream below, moralizing as they dropped from his fingers and fluttered in the summer wind upon the emptiness and worthless of all things. Wearied as man must naturally be with that system of reasoning which tends to establish the non-existence of useful ends, and wise purposes in the creation, Arnold at last descended from his height and joined the party below. Some were reclining in laughing indolence upon the rocks; some pursuing their amusement in solitary silence; and others exulting in the triumph of a first bite; while Walter was busily employed in leading Agnes away from the deceitful and slippery shore, to some safer standing-place, arranging her tackle, and doing every thing for her except draw out her luckless victims.

Arnold looked upon his brother and his fair cousin with the same sneer of contempt with which he had first regarded the group of idlers and the patient solitaries farther up the stream. He made no remark; but his countenance and his character were so well known to all, that they bore along with them an influence more readily felt than explained. Agnes laid down the line and said she was weary; Walter took it up and walked off with an air that showed his will, if not his power, to catch every fish in the river; the idlers rose and wondered when the party would think it time to eat; the solitaries gave up their fruitless task and gathered round their friends; while Agnes, ever the first to perceive and turn away the dark spirit of discontent, ran for the baskets of provisions, and began to place around upon the rocks the welcome viands which Mrs. Percival had prepared; and fortunate it was for her endeavours to maintain good humour and good will, that they were backed by the keen and healthy appetites of the whole group. Even Arnold could eat; and Walter, after being summoned by the shrill notes of the bugle, came wandering up from his retreat.

Agnes had chosen for the place of refreshment a sort of picturesque cave or hollow by the side of the stream, where they were shaded from the sun by the branches of the feathery birch, and lulled by the ripple of the water at their feet.

"Is it not happiness to be here!" exclaimed the delighted girl, as Arnold took his wonted place beside her; but there was no answer in his face to any voice that spoke of happiness, and she appealed to Walter the last of a row of boys seated on the opposite side of their sylvan temple. He answered from his clear blue eyes with such a look as the wounded and weary, the deceived and the deceitful, try in vain to assume; a look that lasts but seldom beyond the days of our childhood; a look that reminds us of a higher and purer state of existence, and tells more of what we might be than what we

are.

"Are you weary?" asked one.

"Weary? never!" exclaimed Walter, and he bounded forth again like a young fawn upon the dewy plain. Arnold and Agnes were left alone to their meditations, for Agnes knew that her grave cousin was no favourite with the boys; "and therefore," said she to herself, "as no one wishes for his company, I will stay with him, that he may not be left entirely alone."

"So you really like the sport of fishing," said Arnold.

"Oh! yes," replied Agnes, "I like to look into the bosom of the clear water where it is shaded from the sun, and to see the rocks and pebbles and wild weeds on the shore. As for the fishing, I don't care much about that, only it makes an object."

"What a pity," said her cousin, "that you cannot find a better object. I was thinking, as I looked down upon you from the rock, that amongst all the savage wonders of creation, man was the only animal who had refinement enough in his cruelty to make one living creature a bait for the destruction of another. The tiger, the cat, and all that relentless tribe, are accustomed to sport with their victims before they devour them; but when we see the lion catch the butterfly and hang it out as a lure for the birds of the air, that he in his turn may prey upon them, then may we truly say that the lion in his nature is noble and generous as man. I watched you this morning for hours, as I sat alone; but with most amazement my eye dwelt upon the figure of a fair young girl, who snatched out in triumph the poor inhabitants of the stream, and left them on the sandy shore to pant away, in lingering agonies, the miserable remnant of their lives."

Agnes bent down her head, and blushed in silence. At last, after many fruitless attempts to smile, she said, "You are too severe, Arnold, upon a small matter; yet now that I think of it seriously, I cannot say

At this instant, a loud splash was heard in the water, and a general cry arose from the party. "Walter, poor Walter, has fallen in!"

Arnold did not stay to hear more. He was an excellent swimmer, and from the first impulse of a naturally kind heart, he leaped into the stream. The hollows amongst the rocks were so deep and deceitful, that it was some time before he succeeded in finding and dragging his brother to the shore. Agnes was at his side in a moment, chafing his temples, his hands, and his feet, but apparently without avail.

"Let us carry him," said she, "to the nearest house;" and directly all the boys of fered their services, for Walter was the pride, and the joy, of every heart, the prince of comrades, the king of good fellowship and glee.

Arnold took upon himself to direct who should assist and who should not, walking at the head of the party, and pointing out a cottage at a short distance from the river. Here he stood over his brother in a calm and collected manner, ordering such means to be tried as he believed to be most rational and efficacious; but no sooner did the glow of life return to the cheeks of Walter and joy to the watchful eyes around him, than Arnold withdrew from the group, and only returned to reassure himself of his brother's safety, and recommend to the boys who had had excitement enough for one day at least, that they should seek the boatmen and make the best of their way homeward. "And for you, Agnes," said he, "I give you your choice: If you prefer remaining with my brother, you shall; if not, I shall endeavour to supply your place." On which Agnes decided at once to stay, and Arnold walked off with the rest.

When Walter had fully recovered the possession of his faculties, his gratitude was beyond bounds. Starting from the bed upon which he had been laid, he. dressed himself in a grotesque suit of clothes belong

ing to the cottager's son, and then placing a chair beside the fire for Agnes, assured her over and over again, that he was perfectly well, and that she alone was in danger of suffering. All her kindness and care only redoubled his protestations that he felt nothing but health and gladness, and when the carriage sent for them by Mrs. Percival, arrived at the door, he assisted his gentle cousin with as much alacrity and politeness as if his recent exploit in the water had been nothing but a dream. The time before they reached home was spent in mutual congratulations that things had been no worse: for "Oh!" said Walter, "it might have been you dear Agnes, instead of me!"

CHAPTER II.

PERHAPS the kind reader will not unwillingly pass on with me over the space of a few short and uneventful years, supposing by a slight effort of the mind, that according to the usual course of time, the old will have grown more grey, the young more grave; that a few venerable heads will have been laid in the quiet tomb, and a few warm hearts have awakened to the conviction that life is not altogether a garden of flowers, that the sun of human happiness does not always shine, and that the pictures of imagination to maintain any claim to truth, must, like the world which they flatteringly represent, have their revolutions of night and day.

In the next place, let us look in upon the parlour of Mrs. Percival, where a comely matron with whom time has had none but gentle dealings, plies her quick needle, ever and anon glancing round to ascertain the perfect and systematical adjustment of books, pictures, and vases of summer flowers, with which her elegant apartment is profusely adorned. At the opposite side of the table, a pale girl dressed in deep mourning is bending over a half-finished drawing. A

girl-no! when she raises her head, and fixes her grave and earnest eyes upon the countenance of her aunt, you see at once, that Agnes Forester is no longer a girl. But why that "sable stole," and meekly braided hair,-and why the absence of all those ornaments with which her doating father used to delight to see his child adorned? The fact, that Mr. Forester had been called away to his long home, must account for one part of the change, and the melancholy truth that he had left behind him but a scanty pittance for his daughter, now thrown actually upon the kindness and protection of her aunt, must account for the other. The anguish of the first grief which ever assailed her heart, had given to the once happy face of Agnes a tinge of melancholy, while certain difficulties arising out of her present situation with a feeling of dependance, and a strong desire to adapt herself in every way to what a strict sense of propriety might require, added a gravity to her look and general deportment somewhat beyond her years. Her aunt, too, though of a disposition naturally kind, frank and generous, had just that prompt decided matter-of-fact way of speaking, which, accompanied with a vein of dry sarcastic humour, has a direct and powerful tendency to seal up the fountains of a young and tender heart. To magnify small grievances, and brood over half conceived anxieties, and "weep we scarce know why," are amongst the weaknesses of youth, while our portion is yet so pleasant, our summer so bright, and our hopes so little scathed, that we can afford this expenditure of feeling without any adequate cause. But when watched with critical inspection, and coolly questioned as to the direct origin of our tears, we learn not to cease to weep,-alas, no! but to weep only in private, and to wear for the public a mask, whose unmeaning and impenetrable aspect, bids defiance to that scrutiny which time and experience have not yet prepared us to bear. Thus Agnes Forester, in the presence of her aunt, was a correct, amiable, and well-behaved young lady, but little more; for the full tide of her warm feelings was only per

mitted to flow without restraint in secret and solitude.

"Which of your cousins do you like best?" asked Mrs. Percival, all on a sudden, and fixing upon her niece a look, sharp as the needle she had just drawn from her work, while Agnes, startled no doubt by the abruptness of the question, blushed the deepest crimson.

"Why do you hesitate, child?" continued the aunt, "as if I had plunged you into a metaphysical dilemma."

"It is a subject I never thought of before," said Agnes, “and it requires time to decide upon."

"But which could you best spare? for, as they are both likely to leave me soon, I am constantly weighing and balancing the losses I shall sustain."

"That's very true, and I should be ungrateful indeed if I did not miss him sadly; but if he went out into the world, I should have the happiness of knowing that he would always make friends, and obtain good will from every living thing around him. While for Arnold I should feel such dreadful anxiety, lest his character should not be properly estimated. Besides, who would he find to love, or to love him, amongst the multitude; or who would ever dive into, and discover, the excellent qualities that lie buried in his heart.

"And pray, may I ask what those excellent qualities are ?"

"Oh! a deep, mysterious. Byron-like sort of virtue."

"I am equally in the dark," replied the aunt, "with regard to the virtues of the no

ture."

"I knew," said Agnes, "that Arnold was constantly talking of college, but I did not understand that he really meant to go."

"I hope he does," replied the mother. "He wants knowledge of men and manners; he wants association with the world, to give him a better opinion of it. But this is nothing to my purpose; I want to know which of them you could best spare. I have weighed the matter myself, and drawn my own conclusions; and now I ask you, just to know whether you agree with me."

Agnes leaned back in her chair; and while playing with her pencil, and fixing her eyes upon the fire, gave her mind up to itself, more than she was wont to do in the presence of her aunt."

"Why, Arnold," said she at last, "is more my companion; he rides and walks with me more than Walter does."

"And yet Walter trains your horse, and takes care of your dog, and feeds your birds, and does ten times more for you."

"A wild, recklessness, disinterestedness, something, I hardly know how to give it a name."

a

"And the names you have chosen, my dear niece, are so little adapted to my preconceived notions of moral excellence, that I confess I hardly understand you. But, passing over his wildness and recklessness, as qualities which I, as a mother, am not capable of appreciating, let me ask in what way he has ever shown his disinterestedness?"

"Oh! in a thousand ways, dear aunt, you did but know him better. Was it not he who saved his brother from a watery grave?"

"And would not your Newfoundland dog have done the same ?"

"I cannot talk with you," said Agnes, half vexed and half amused, "you turn everything to ridicule."

"Ah! do not mistake me," replied her aunt; "nor think that a mother can turn to ridicule the melancholy infatuation of her own child, and of one whom she loves dearly as her own. I thought you had been better taught, Agnes Forester, than to call that virtue which glitters only in the distempered dream of a delirious poet. Depend upon it, there is little virtue in those charac

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