middle height, his head well placed, and his finelydeveloped features set off to every possible advantage by a scrupulous attention to neat and even gentlemanly attire, Joseph Huntley might well have been pronounced the handsomest youth in the village of Craythorpe. When he took off his hat, however, there was invariably mingled with admiration a feeling for which it was difficult to account. Those skilled in physiognomy would have observed that his forehead was too low, and that a peculiar contraction of the brows denoted the vicinity of stormy passions; the mouth was mean in expression, but as it usually extended into a smile, discovering even and beautiful teeth, the defect escaped general notice; and Joseph Huntley was accounted, as I have said, the handsomest youth in the retired village of Craythorpe. What he was in reality actions will tell better than words; but my readers must permit me to remind them that, in books as well as in actual life, it takes time for character to unfold itself.

About fifteen months after Abel Darley had complained of Joseph Huntley's bad workmanship and careless habits, his zeal for his daughter's happiness triumphed over his fears, and he gave all that he valued upon earth into the keeping of one she loved, "not wisely, but too well."

The father shuddered involuntarily, and turned pale, as he presented her hand to the gay bridegroom;

H

and all present were dismayed by an oversight of the sexton, who opened the prayer-book at the funeral, instead of at the wedding, service. The clergyman had absolutely read the first few words before the error was discovered. Old women grouped in the churchyard to talk over the unlucky omen; and the bride's companions blessed her with a tearful earnestness, rarely to be seen among the youthful at a rustic wedding.

Alas, for the loneliness of the father's hearth, when it is deserted by a beloved, an only child! Often did Abel Darley lift his eyes from the Bible, whereon (perhaps for the first time since his fire-side was first left desolate) he looked without receiving instruction-often did he raise them from the sacred page, and gaze upon the long candle, wondering why it waxed dim-and then, remembering that the hand which trimmed it was away, and another's, sigh heavily, and pore again over the book, without, however, brightening the light, or calling to the little serving-maiden to do so for him;-then, when the clock chimed ten, he read aloud as usual the evening prayer, and commenced the simple hymn that consecrates the name of Kenn more than the mitre which crowned his brows. He had taught Grace, when a child, to sing with him, alternately, a verse of this gentle strain; and when he finished the line

"Beneath thine own almighty wings,"

he paused for a few moments, expecting to hear her voice, so low, so soft, so like the murmuring music of a young bird's warblings before it knows its own powers of song; then, as if the truth came suddenly upon him, that her melody had gone to delight another's dwelling, the old man burst into a flood of tears, and, covering his face with his hands, wept long and bitterly, even to the solitary hour of one, when, like a troubled child, he retired to his bed, and sobbed and slumbered until morn.

"Grace, what are you in such a bustle about?" inquired her husband, as she busied herself with more than usual diligence to set all things in order in their clean and cheerful-looking cottage.

Grace silently pointed to the watch that hung over the chimney-piece.

"Well," replied he, "and what then? I see it is rather late; but this is Sunday, and we who work must have a holiday sometimes."

"And so we should, Joseph. But do you not hear—" "What?"

"The church-bell."

"Well?"

"Come then, dearest, and make haste, or we shall be late, and that will not be right."

"Then, I suppose, it will be wrong. But I do not think I shall go to church to-day."

"My dear, are you ill?" inquired his wife, looking affectionately in his face.

"Never was better; but I don't feel inclined-is that so very extraordinary ?"

"Oh, Joseph! you will surely not stay from church!—what would the clergyman think?—what would my father say? You will not suffer me to walk all through the lanes by myself, dear Joseph !"

"But you are not obliged to go. It is very proper to attend church; but to tramp such a distance through all weathers!-why it rained almost the whole night!"

"It is beautiful now; the air is so clear, and the birds are singing so gaily! Oh, do come!"

"I will not, so do not teaze me; I must take a long walk after dinner."

"Dear Joseph," she continued, kissing him, though her eyes were filled with tears, "and must I indeed go by myself?"

"If you go, you must most certainly," he replied, returning her caress at the same time with all his usual affection.

It was the first solitary walk she had taken during the last seven months since her marriage, in fact; and she thought that, considering her situation, it was rather unkind of Joseph to permit her to go alone.

Almost every tree--certainly every stile she passed -was hallowed by some remembrance connected with

the playmate of her childhood-the lover of her early youth-the husband of her affections. When she looked on the dew dancing amid the delicate tracery of the field-spider's web-when the joyous whistle of the gay blackbird broke upon her ear-gazing silently on all that was really fresh and beautiful in nature-she felt that, instead of warming, it fell chillily upon her heart. And yet all was as usual-the bright sun, and the smiling landscape. Why, then, was she less cheerful? She was alone! No one she loved was by her side, to whom to say, "How beautiful!"

The knowledge, the painful knowledge, which this, and a few other similar circumstances, conveyed to Grace, as to the real state of her husband's religious sentiments, made her a wiser but a sadder woman. Conscious that he had deceived her in one instance, she dreaded to ask herself if the deception extended also to minor matters. He no longer deemed it necessary to keep up even appearances, and not unfrequently jested at the simplicity of his wife's once believing him "a saint;" although, when she first became a mother, he seemed pleased and amused with the infant, and either was, or affected to be, touched by the earnest prayers and supplications she poured forth, that the child might be blessed, and become worthy of the name and calling of a Christian.

Had Grace made a parade of her feelings, her