to await the result of her coquetry, and his conduct was an example of stoicism, which Zeno himself might have acquired credit by imitating. Lydia, meanwhile, was not without anxiety and self-reproach. Her sense of justice she might perhaps have stifled; but she had not yet brought her mind to contemplate an eternal separation (to use the lover's language) from Reuben, without emotion; and her pride was sorely piqued at the apparent indifference with which he received the intelligence of her defection; but Brainard pressed his suit with so much earnestness, and his riches pleaded his cause so powerfully, that Lydia's parents were much inclined to favour him. True, they had the reputation of being very pious people, and no considerations would have induced them to advise a breach of a solemn engagement. Thus far their consciences admonished them; so they just allowed their daughter to do as she pleased VOL. I. C pleased in the affair; and when she applied to them for counsel, secretly hoping they would advocate the cause of Reuben, they merely observed-" That it was for her to decide her happiness was at stake; and as Reuben, by not more manfully asserting his right, had tacitly relinquished her, they thought she was at liberty to consult her own inclina-. tions." In short, to give the result of the affair as concisely as possible, three weeks from the time of Lydia Romelee's return from Boston, saw her the wedded wife of Horace Brainard, and journeying with him to his home in South Carolina. Poor Reuben! she left thee; but I shall not and will a single reader, who has a heart of any compassion, grudge to accompany an unfortunate lover a few lines further? Reuben Porter neither cursed the fickleness of his lost love, nor thanked God he was rid of her; he kept quietly at at work on the house he was fitting for her reception; and although the woman where he boarded thought his eyes, for several successive mornings, looked red and swollen, as if he had passed sleepless nights, and his appetite nearly failed him, yet he never complained; so no one dared insult him by a shew of compassion, which is, on such occasions, to a refined or sensitive mind, the most exquisite cruelty. In a few months he paid his addresses to a very amiable girl. She was not a beauty; but sufficiently pretty to be agreeable, and in every requisite for a good wife, far superior to Lydia Romelee. They married-acquired a handsome property-lived very happily together, and were much beloved by all their acquaintance. Reuben was never heard to allude to his own disappointment but once. His wife bore him several girls in succession; and some one was observing to him, that they thought a family of sons far preferable for a farmer, and that one girl was quite sufficient for any family. "No," he replied, " give me a dozen rather:" then added, laughing, " I am not partial to only daughters; you must remember I was jilted by one." From this observation, people inferred he attributed the fickleness of Lydia's conduct more to her injudicious education, than to her heart. CHAP CHAPTER III. The lily's hue, the rose's dye, Who but owns their magic sway— Who but feels they all decay. BURNS. MRS. Brainard, as in future we must call her, did not bid adieu to New England without emotions of regret, and even some feelings of compunction. The parting from her parents, from whom she had experienced nothing but kindness and indulgence, was painful in the extreme-she felt she had liberty to weep; and when the carriage reached the last height that overlooked the village, where she had passed so many bright days, and which she was now leaving, perhaps for ever, she leaned forward to catch another look, and a C 3 torrent |