lapse of ten years. The more I thought it over, the more convinced I felt that I could never have known the full truth; the more particularly as there was no wedding-ring on her finger. I resolved to learn the facts of the case from her own lips. Under any circumstances it was a plain duty not to neglect the cousin of my late wife. Of course I could not tell how much of the past she might wish to conceal, or what injury it might do her, if I raked it out of oblivion."

"You saw her, George!" I exclaimed, interrupting his story. "I do hope there is nothing wrong about her."

"No, no, poor girl," he replied; "but she has been deeply, wickedly wronged. I am, however, glad to find that I was not mistaken in her after all. She told me the truth willingly, with no wish to cast more blame on any one than she could help.

"It seems that her brother turned out very unsteady. A distant cousin, in whose office he had been placed, discovered some trifling petulation he had been guilty of, and turned him adrift with only a few dollars in his pocket. He managed to work his way out here, and to the rage and indignation of his aunt, notified them of his intention of remaining until he could get a situation. Poor Laura was threatened, on the penalty of being turned out of the house at once, if she breathed a word of this to me; and it was arranged that he should be sent back, and a little money given him to support him until he could get his living as

best he might. Laura of course was miserable enough; but what were her feelings when Mrs. Granger told her that I had discovered the existence of her brother, and on the plea of his damaged reputation, had refused to fulfil my engagement!

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Knowing full well the life of humiliation and vexation she would be obliged to lead with her aunt under these circumstances, Laura formed the sudden resolution of returning to the east with her brother, and braving the storms of life with him. She had money enough to pay her passage, but with nothing over to support herself until she could get a situation. She dwelt very little on all the sufferings she endured in that dreary, friendless portion of her history. When they left, she and her brother changed their names from Manners to Manning, thinking the better to avoid recognition. Her great difficulty lay in her getting a first situation; but that once surmounted, her amiability and her accomplishments did the rest. Her poor brother died just as he was made mate of a merchant vessel, having worked himself up from before the mast. She had never heard anything of either her aunt or cousin from the time she left them until I told her of their death. She greatly relieved my mind by telling me that Marion had never heard of her cousin's arrival, and was therefore as much deceived by her poor mother's invention as any of us."

"But, George," I said, "what would Mrs. Granger have done if Laura had stayed and

seen you? her falsehood must have been discovered then."

Yes," he replied; "but she knew her niece's impulsive character well enough, and so timed her communication as to secure a riddance of both encumbrances at once. She knew that Laura loved her brother, and that I was the only link that bound her to the place." "Where is she now? Poor Laura!" I exclaimed; "I wish I had known all this before."

"So do I," replied George; "not but what Laura is happy enough now. I took her at once to Mrs. Percy's."

"Why did you not bring her here ?" I asked. "Because she would not come until she knew what you would say about the end of the romance," he replied. "You do not always approve of my decisions, you know."

"What!" I exclaimed ; "you do not mean to say that you have asked Laura to be your wife, after all? Well, I will congratulate you, with all my heart."

I did not need that George should confirm my surprise in words; I could read it in his face that I was right.

Laura did not visit me again until she came as Rosa's step-mother; and I do not believe we shall ever regret my brother's choice of a governess or a wife.

A BASHFUL MAN'S LOVE.

I at

I was in love. I, whose bashfulness had been my bane from infancy, who had only dared admire lovely woman at a distance-and that a pretty wide one-and who consequently regarded matrimony as a sort of paradisaical felicity, into which I might never hope to enter, and single-blessedness a doom to which I must hopelessly and helplessly resign myself. last had the misfortune (it could hardly be considered anything else for one of my unhappy temperament) to fall in love. I had reached my thirty-fifth year, and had never yet ventured to invite a lady to an evening entertainment, and never asked a lady to waltz with me, though for two years my eyes, with my heart in them, had followed a certain dark-eyed fairy, and I thought many and many a time that I would have given half my fortune to put my arm about her waist in the dance. Yes, for two years I had worshiped this girl, though it was some time before I was myself aware of it. I knew that something unusual was the matter with me; but could not tell what it was. She talked with me very sweetly when she might have been in the society of younger and gayer beaux, who were dying to carry her off. I knew from this that her heart was kind; but I

never dared to more than talk with her: I never asked her to dance with me; I never performed for her any of those little attentions which a man of tact will always find opportunity for, and which that young milksop of a Tompkins, who was always talking, yet never said anything, could do with such exquisite grace and self-posession. If I attempted anything of the kind, my confusion was sure to plunge me into some awful dilemma. Ah! the miseries of a constitutionally bashful man! Words fail, utterly, to convey an idea of the mental torment which one of these harassed and unfortunate individuals endures, especially if he has been so indiscreet as to lose his heart to a charming young creature who carries arrows in her eyes, a snare in the net-work of her black braids, and irresistible spells in her voice and smile, and no one could be more wretchedly alive to the truth of this than myself, when I at last became fully convinced that I had made an "unconditional surrender" of my so long-guarded heart to the bright young conqueror, Louise Darcy.

I came home from "down town" one day feeling tired, ill, and disgusted with business life and city scenes generally. I lounged into the sitting-room, where my mother was engaged with some fancy-work, and commenced a rehearsal of my troubles. My infirmity or misfortune, call it what you will (and it was both to me), had so debarred me from the society of ladies in general, that my relations with my mother were only the more intimate