cousin. Without implying any contrast to his own con. duct, I described that scene in which you threw yourself upon our sympathy, in the struggle between love and duty, and asked for our counsel and support; when Roland gave you his blunt advice to tell all to Trevanion; and when, amidst such sorrow as the heart in youth seems scarcely large enough to hold, you caught at truth impulsively, and the truth bore you safe from the shipwreck. I recounted your silent and manly struggles - your resolution not to suffer the egotism of passion to unfit you for the aims and ends of that spiritual probation which we call LIFE. I showed you as you were, still thoughtful for us, interested in our interests - smiling on us, that we might not guess that you wept in secret! Oh, my son — my son! do not think that, in those times, I did not feel and pray for you! And while he was melted by my own emotion, I turned from your love to your ambition. I made him see that you, too, had known the restlessness which belongs to young ardent natures; that you, too, had your dreams of fortune, and aspirations for success. But I painted that ambition in its true colors; it was not the desire of a selfish intellect to be in yourself a somebody a something raised a step or two in the social ladder, for the pleasure of looking down on those at the foot, but the warmer yearning of a generous heart; your ambition was to repair your father's losses- minister to your father's very foible, in his idle desire of fame-supply to your uncle what he had lost in his natural heir-link your success to useful objects, your interests to those of

your kind, your reward to the proud and grateful smiles of those you loved. That was thine ambition, O my tender Anachronism! And when, as I closed the sketch, I said, Pardon me; you know not what delight a father feels, when, while sending a son away from him into the world, he can speak and think thus of him! But this, you see, is not your kind of ambition. Let us talk of making money, and driving a coach-and-four through this villanous world,'-your cousin sank into a profound reverie; and when he woke from it, it was like the waking of the earth after a night in spring-the bare trees had put forth buds!

"And some time after, he startled me by a prayer that I would permit him, with his father's consent, to accompany you to Australia. The only answer I have given him as yet, has been in the form of a question: 'Ask yourself if I ought? I cannot wish Pisistratus to be other than he is; and unless you agree with him in all his principles and objects, ought I to incur the risk that you should give him your knowledge of the world, and inoculate him with your ambition?' He was struck, and had the candor to attempt no reply.

"Now, Pisistratus, the doubt I expressed to him is the doubt I feel. For, indeed, it is only by home-truths, not refining arguments, that I can deal with this unscholastic Scythian, who, fresh from the Steppes, comes to puzzie me in the Portico.

"On the one hand, what is to become of him in the Old World? At his age, and with his energies, it would

be impossible to cage him with us in the Cumberland ruins; weariness and discontent would undo all we could do. He had no resource in books and, I fear, never will have! But to send him forth into one of the overcrowded professions; to place him amidst all those 'disparities of social life,' on the rough stones of which he is perpetually grinding his heart; turn him adrift amongst all the temptations to which he is most prone; this is a trial which, I fear, will be too sharp for a conversion so incomplete. In the New World, no doubt, his energies would find a safer field; and even the adventurous and desultory habits of his childhood might there be put to healthful account. Those complaints of the disparities of the civilised world find, I suspect, an easier, if a bluffer, reply from the political economist than the Stoic philosopher. You don't like them, you find it hard to submit to them,' says the political economist; 'but they are the laws of a civilised state, and you can't alter them. Wiser men than you have tried to alter them, and never succeeded, though they turned the earth topsy-turvy! Very well; but the world is wide-go into a state that is not so civilised. The disparities of the Old World vanish amidst the New! Emigration is the reply of Nature to the rebellious cry against Art.' Thus would say the political economist; and, alas, even in your case, my son, I found no reply to the reasonings! I acknowledge, then, that Australia might open the best safety-valve to your cousin's discontent and desires; but I acknowledge also a counter-truth, which is this — ' It

Is not permitted to an honest man to corrupt himself for the sake of others.' That is almost the only maxim of Jean Jacques to which I can cheerfully subscribe! Do you feel quite strong enough to resist all the influences which a companionship of this kind may subject you to; strong enough to bear his burthen as well as your own: strong enough, also-ay, and alert and vigilant enough to prevent those influences harming the others, whom you have undertaken to guide, and whose lots are confided to you? Pause well, and consider maturely, for this must not depend upon a generous impulse. I think that your cousin would now pass under your charge with a sincere desire for reform; but between sincere desire and steadfast performance there is a long and dreary interval, even to the best of us. Were it not for Roland, and had I one grain less confidence in you, I could not entertain the thought of laying on your young shoulders so great a responsibility. But every new responsibility to an earnest nature is a new prop to virtue; and all I now ask of you is to remember that it is a solemn and serious charge, not to be undertaken without the most deliberate gauge and measure of the strength with which it is to be borne.

"In two days we shall be in London. - Yours, my Anachronism, anxiously and fondly,

"A. C."

I was in my own room while I read this letter, and I had just finished it, when, as I looked up, I saw Roland

standing opposite to me. "It is from Austin," said he; then he paused a moment, and added, in a tone that seemed quite humble, "May I see it? and dare I?" I placed the letter in his hands, and retired a few paces, that he might not think I watched his countenance while he read it. And I was only aware that he had come to the end by a heavy, anxious, but not disappointed sigh. Then I turned, and our eyes met, and there was something in Roland's look, inquiring — and, as it were, imploring. I interpreted it at once.

"Oh, yes, uncle," I said, smiling; "I have reflected, and I have no fear of the result. Before my father wrote, what he now suggests had become my secret wish. As for our other companions, their simple natures would defy all such sophistries as-but he is already half-cured of those. Let him come with me, and when he returns he shall be worthy of a place in your heart, beside his sister Blanche. I feel, I promise it-do not fear for me! Such a charge will be a talisman to myself. I will shun every error that I might otherwise commit, so that he may have no example to entice him to err."

I know that in youth, and the superstition of first love, we are credulously inclined to believe that love, and the possession of the beloved, are the only happiness. But when my uncle folded me in his arms, and called me the hope of his age, and stay of his house - the music of my father's praise still ringing on my heart-I do affirm that I knew a prouder bliss than if Trevanion had placed Fanny's hand in mine, and said, "She is yours."