uttered an exclamation of delight. Just as the carriage stopped a girlish figure intercepted the rays of that beacon-lamp, the folds of the curtains were gathered hastily back, a radiant face flashed for a moment, like the evening star, on their vision-then disappeared.

In an instant the door was opened. The music of light footsteps was heard. The star-beams of bright eyes were seen; and Florence-L'Eclair, as she was simultaneously called by the two friends, was in the arms of both. In that moment of joy, so intense as to be allied to anguish, Marcus remembered his Own daring lines

Be mine the lightning's arrowy gleam,
Though death be working in its dart,
I'd bask beneath the scorching beam,

And bind it burning to my heart.

He felt the realization of his wish. He had indeed climbed the mountain steeps of fame, he clasped in his arms the electric flame, and knew that its radiant glories might one day be his. Florence, who with the wild impulse of joy had flown to meet the travellers, thought not that others might also hear the coming wheels, and hasten to greet them. She had forgotten the existence of her stately aristocratic uncle; of the mild but prosaic Mrs. Lewis. Thought, feeling, memory, were for the moment all fused in the lightning, whose incarnation she was.

cus.

Very cold and stately, and formal was the greeting Mr. Alston awarded to MarThe threatened insolvency of Mr. Bellamy had reached the inmates of Wood Lawn, and his adopted son no longer found favour as such in the eyes of one who was so exceedingly careful to have irreproachable companions for his nephew and niece. He had witnessed with overwhelming astonishment and sovereign displeasure the meeting between him and Florence, and determined that very night to exercise his authority as a guardian, and forbid all farther intimacy, or even intercourse. The co-heiress of Wood Lawn should be taught more aspiring views, and the young Adonis placed on his true level. But all the ice-bergs of the polar seas could not chill the glowing heart of Marcus. He scarcely saw the stiff, perpendicular form that stood with glacial mien on the threshold; he was

conscious of but one thing, the presence, the love of L'Eclair, for thus his spirit baptized her. She stood now beneath the light of the chandelier, both hands clasped in those of her brother, her eyes upturned to his face, and flashing back the rays that illumined them.

"Why, Florence, what a magnificent girl you are," exclaimed Delaval, releasing one hand from her loving clasp, and pushing back the wild flowing ringlets from her brow. "I begin to think there can be such a thing as a handsome brunette. Warland, did you ever see any one so wonderfully beautiful in two years?

"Oh! don't ask him," she cried, placing her hand, laughingly, on her brother's lips, to imprison the flattering words. "He never was guilty of a compliment, never-and least of all to me. Don't take away his sublime truthfulness. It is his greatest charm."

"No compliment could be so great in this instance as the simple truth you admire so much," answered Marcus. 66 You are right in saying that you are the last person I should think of complimenting."

The words were not much, but the manner in which they were uttered gave them volumes of meaning. The bloom of the carnation glowed through the soft olive of her cheeks. They certainly presented a beautiful contrast as they stood side by side in the brilliant light that sparkled from above on the bright mirror of their faces, and which each reflected back to the other; she representing the warmth and resplendence of her own sunny South-he, the purity and vitality of the northern clime, whose breezes had given a tone of manliness to his face and form, wanting in the person of the youthful graduate. His hair, too, those glorious locks, seemed to have caught a shadow from the mountains, 'neath whose brow he had been so long resting, that softened while it deepened their golden splendour.

Mr. Alston, who had been absent a few moments, was struck on his re-entrance by the proximity of these two radiant figures, and the increasing danger of this juxtaposition.

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Florence," said he, in his cold, measured tone, with that insufferable wave of the hand he deemed so majestic and aweinspiring, "you had better go and see if

man all farther intercourse with one who, I am sorry to say, seems utterly unconscious what is due to herself or her friends." "I defy your authority, sir, since you thus abuse it," she cried. "All the respect due to my mother's brother I have ever paid you. For the care you have taken of my interests and property I have been duly grateful; but you never had, and never will have, any authority over my affections. If you knew me a little better, you would discover that the very attempt to restrain them only gives them greater strength and power. Marcus Warland my inferior-your inferior-any man's inferior! I should like to have you to prove it, sir. The time will come, when he will soar so high above you, even in rank, that you will feel honoured by his slightest notice. Beauty!" repeated she, with a smile of disdain. "I hope I am above being infatuated by mere beauty; but the strong will, the lofty spirit, the generous heart, these are fascinations whose power I am not ashamed to own, whose power has made me what I am."

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"You are a very self-willed and unmanageable young lady; that is what you are." 'Well, uncle, I am just of age nowGeorge is of age; you are not obliged to trouble yourself any longer with the management of my rebellious will; you seem to have forgotten this circumstance."

"I did not expect such an ungrateful return for all my care," said Mr. Alston, walking with stately steps the length of the library, then turning to retrace them; "I thought I had inspired some little affection, some faint respect, but I see I have been mistaken. Long years of watchfulness and anxiety are forgotten, as though they had never been."

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'No, no, dear uncle, they are not forgotten," exclaimed Florence, springing forward and seizing his unwilling hand in both her own; "I may be wilful and unmanageable, but not ungrateful; oh, no. You have been very kind to two orphan children, indeed you have. I would not be disrespectful, or independent of your authority; but when you say such terrible things as you have to-night, you turn my blood to flame, and I know not what I say. I really feel as if there were a deep scar here," added she, putting her hand to her forehead, "a blistering one. But let us

understand each other fully; for I would not, willingly, pass through another scene like this. That you may not believe that I have been actuated to-night by a bold and unmaidenly impulse, I will show you proofs of a long and heart-felt communion." Opening a rosewood cabinet, she took out a packet of letters, tied with a blue ribbon, and continued, -"These letters, dear uncle, I have received from Marcus Warland, under cover of my brother's, while he has been resident in a northern clime. These letters I have answered under the same fraternal authority. For two years our minds, hearts and souls have been holding the closest, the most sacred communion. For two years I have been feeding on the heavenly wisdom of his written words, and growing in mental grace and purity. Oh! these letters," she exclaimed, with a kindling counte nance, apparently forgetting whom sne was addressing, and pressing them with an impassioned gesture against her heart, "how they have exalted and purified my inmost being! They are the transcript of an angelic nature; the breathings of an immortal spirit. Can you blame me, because my soul bounded to meet the soul that had been transposed, as it were, into my own? That my heart sought the heart that governed and ruled my own, even when mountains heaved and rivers rolled between us?"

Mr. Alston gazed upon the spirited, passionate beauty of his niece with feelings kindred to awe. There is a sublimity in passion, which even the coldest natures are constrained to acknowledge. He felt himself baffled, resisted. He had expected to intimidate, by an unwonted exercise of power. He was himself controlled by an influence he could not understand. Once before, he had bowed before this young girl's will, when he would have compelled her to accept the addresses of Pellam, for whom she cherished the most sovereign scorn. Like Acre's valour, he felt his authority oozing gradually away, having effected nothing but a few blustering and pompous speeches. Florence saw and triumphed in her power, but she was too generous to do it openly.

"Am I released, uncle?" asked she, with a sweet, exacting smile. "It is so long since I have seen George."

"I see it is useless to detain you," he answered. "I have fulfilled my duty conscientiously and irreproachably. If you are indeed beyond my authority, and reject my counsels, you must abide by the consequences, whatever they may be. But be assured of one thing, niece, never will give my consent to an ill-assorted marriage, never!

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"It never shall be asked, uncle, be assured," cried she; never. And now, if you are tired of my company, I will not detain you, for, if you please, I would rather remain here for the present."

Seating herself on the window-seat, she veiled her face with the curtain, while her uncle walked into the parlour with slow and creaking steps. Marcus and Delaval were walking in the piazza, impatient for the termination of the conference. The library window opened into the piazza, and the moment they saw the dark ringlets twisted with the scarlet folds, they eagerly approached. There was a bench outside of the window, on which they seated themselves, while Florence sat within, the lamplight behind her, the starry heavens before her, with certain living stars mingling their beams with those that glittered in the sky.

"So you liked the north," said she, addressing both. "You became naturalized, acclimated, domesticated there. You have returned, I know, with divided hearts. How many times have I been wishing for a pair of fairy wings to bear me to the top of those empurpled mountains, to the banks of that magnificent river, and more than all to the charming home of that dear, delightful Judge Cleveland. Did you tell him you had a sister, who had fallen irretrievably, inextricably in love with him from a two-fold description? I think you said Mrs. Cleveland was a frail, delicate woman."

"Most inveterately healthy and invariably charming, and intensely devoted to her excellent husband," answered Dela

val.

"The North is a glorious country. I honour its institutions, I respect its inhabitants, and love even its snows and icicles; but better do I love the soft and dewy South. I would not exchange its balmy blossoms for the diamond icicles of the North, nor its genial gales for the Hyperborean blasts."

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"Do not make a noble cause ridiculous by exaggeration," cried Marcus, or give me all the laurels, which should, by right, be divided between us. I think we have both done much towards dissipating erroneous opinions, cherished toward our southern institutions. It is astonishing how little is really known of our domestic manners and relations, when so many northerners live and dwell among us; and it is surprising, too, that while the sons and daughters of the North are scattered all over our genial soil, deriving wealth and happiness from its fertile bosom, so few children of the South plant themselves on the granite hills of New England. They go, as we have done, to drink of the thousand streams of knowledge that flow from their fountain-heads of science and literature; but having quenched their thirst and invigorated their spirits, they return once more to the well-springs of the heart that gush forth to meet them, in their own fair sunny land."

While Marcus was speaking, Delaval had risen and sauntered down the gravel walk, picking up the white pebbles that glimmered in the star-light, and throwing them across the dewy grass. One would have supposed, from his careless motions, that he scarcely knew of what he was thinking; but he was well aware of the subject of his thoughts. If he looked up to the deep blue of the night-arch, it reminded him of the sapphire eyes of Katy; if he noticed the boughs of the acacia swaying in the breeze, it recalled her graceful figure floating on the music of the dance. The roseate daughters of the North, charming as they were, had not won his allegiance from the blue-eyed maiden, with the magnolia cheek and the willowy eye-lash.

In the meantime Marcus and Florence continued their conversation, by the shadow of the curtain, and it seemed to deepen