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—Oret Quowt BLK MAB eK one

THE EXAMINER.

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We ny ncaa SATII the hands of his rival, as a moderate equivalent for the LPSRAY URS. joint. seach agi ender eee ian anne Lady Chadleigh had not been cruel enough to leave ’ her lord without some objects on which to exercise those domestic virtues, for which he was so justly celebrated. She had been just five years married, when she took her departure, as I have stated; and she left behind her, for the consolation of her spouse, along with an extensive essortment of macaws, avadavats, lapdogs, and other A friend, who watching from above, sundries, three children—two sons and a girl. The Whene’er in Error’s path we trod, * ‘macaws, &c., were easily disposed of, but there was no Still sought ws with reproving love ; 'getting rid of the children; so Sir Arthur called in a That friend, that secret friend, is Gop ‘ jgrim old spinster sister, who, for fourteen years, dating iT coal ‘from that day, presided at the baronet’s tea-table, and There is a friend, a faithfal friend, ‘ruled his little flock. At the end ofthat period she died, In every chance and change of fate, ‘and much about the same time died also the unfortunete Whose boundless love doth solace send, | Lady Chadleigh, forsaken and heart-broken, im some When other friendships come too late! \suecure town in France. A friend, that when the world deceives, Lady Chadleigh’s name had been prosc7ibedin Sir And wearily we onward plod, — Arthur’s presence none dared mention it, and, with the Still comforts every heart that grieves; | exception of littke Mary, the daughter who, since in- That true, that faithfal friend, is Gop ! ‘fancy, had never seen her, no human being appeared to \feel the smallest concern about the event. Little Mary Chadleigh, however, felt it deeply ; with yearnings of un- availing affection, she had always elung to the idea, that some time or other her mother would come back,

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THE TRUEST FRIEND. There is a friend, a secret friend, In every trial, every grief, To cheer, to counsel, and defend,— Of all we ever had the chief!

How blest the years of life might flow, If one unchanged, umshaken trust ; 4f man this truth would only know, And love his Maker, and be just! Yes, there’s a friend, a:constant friend, Who ne’er forsakes the lowliest sod, Rut in each need, His hand doth lend; That friend, that treest friend, is Gop! , Cuas. Swary,

unknown to her, and her childish eagerness to learn something of her mother, had been systematically re- pulsed with a mysterious discouragement, in which she had come gradually to acquiesce. But though she had long learned to look upon her mether’s absence as in some way a necessary and unavoidable privation, and jeven asa natufal thing, and asa matter of course, which scarcely required to be accounted for, yet her mind had been constantly busted with one thought, that at last she would return, and love her as she wished to be loved. And nowcame these strange tidings, never looked for in her childish dreams, and these black dresses, te tell her that all the Tittle plans and hopes that had silently fluttered her innocent heart so many a time fur many years, must end for ever; that the being for whose return she had been watching and wishing ever since she could remember, was never ‘to come again. ‘I‘kis was a sore shock ‘to the poor girl, and she wept, in the solitude of her chamber, with a vehemence of ‘grief and a sense of desolation, which, to one unac- quainted with the cherished reveries, the castle building ofthe heart, which had been her secret happiness from eatliest childhood, would have been unaccountable. Years passed on—new objects and associations began te fill her reveries ; ‘her secret sorrow wore away, and this early grief — bet a sad, and scarcely unplea- santremembrance. 1 was a very young man when first THE FATAL BRIDi&. T saw Miss Chadleigh, and I have seldom been so much °EING A CONTRIBUTION FROM THE REMINISCENCES | Struck by any combination of beauty, grace and expres- OF A BACHELOR. sion, as when she entered the room at one of Lady ——’s (Founded on an event which actually occurred.) 2808 She was at this time about mineteen, beautifully ormed, and with the bearing of natural mobility ; her The story which I am about to relate, carries me back eyes dark and lustrous; and her features, as I thought, somewhere about half a century; at which time, it is exquisitely beautiful. The prevailing expression of her ueedless to say, Dublin was, in point of society, avery face was melancholy, with perhaps some slight cherac- different city from what it now is. It had then a resi- ter of haughtiness; but when she smiled, there was such cent aristocracy, and one whose equipages and house-|a rippling of dimples, such an arch merriment in her keeping were maintainedupon a scale which put plebein lovely eyes, and such a revelation of little, even, pearly competition oat of the question. 1 do not mean to offer! teeth, as made her perfectly enchanting. ‘ Well, any wngracious reflections upon the existing state of thought J, as I watched with absolute facination the Dublin society. We have now, alas! more tuft-hunters| movements of this lovely being, ‘if beauty the most en- ‘han tufts to boast of; magnificent pretensions based,|chanting be any longer the potent influence it once was, ‘ike the Brahmin’s world, nobody ‘can exactly say upon there is no scheme of umbition to whose realization such what, strive and strain’to fill the void, which a legiti-| loveliness as yours may not aspire. How little did I nate aristocracy have left; and men, whose grandfathers dream of what was coming! —but what matters it? the thing isafterall but natural.; I wasso much attracted—my interest and attention What was a metropolis, is a capital no longer; and it is so irresistibly engaged, by this beautiful girl, that [ ob- but lost time sighing after the things that once were, or served her with scarcely any intermission, daring the snarling at these that are. ‘entire evening. It would be ridiculous to say that I was At the time of which I speak, there resided in Dublin’ actually in love; I was not absurd or romantic enough 4 Certain werthy baronet, whom I shall call Sir Arthur (which you will) to get up a sentimental and hopeless

SORROW. Sorrow—sorrow—full of sorrow ; Not atone within the street But—if it could accents borrow— Would the self-same strain repeat! Youth of struggle and endurance ; Weary manhood downward hurled; Age, but with one last assurance Centered im another world!

‘Scrrow—sorrow—fell of sorrow Year to year we onward go; Seeking hope in that to-morrow— Which, when sought, deceives us so! ‘Oh, affection, friendship, kindness, Often are ye found asleep ; ‘Often pass ye by in blindness Wretches that but live to weep. Cuas. Swain.

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Chadleigh. He was then considerably past sixty, and| was @ venerable monument of what was called hard| Ving, in all its departments. He had been, until gout lisabled him, a knowing gentleman on the turf; he was! 1 deep player and a deep drinker, and covered, with en, exterior of ‘boisterous jollity, a very cold and selfish, aeart. He was thoroughly a man of the world, and what was then an essential ingredient in that amiable charac-| ‘er, whenever occasion prompted, a very determined | duellist. Whatever good nature he was possessed of, was expended on society at large. In his dealings with | his own family, he was arbitrary and severe; and if he’

passion, at a moment’s notice, and that too, without hav- ing exchanged one word with the object of my aspira- tions. Nosuch thing. The feeling with which I gazed on Miss Chadleigh, was one of the profundest admira- tion, I admit, yet untinctured with any, the least ad- mixture of actual ‘tenderness. I observed her with the deep and silent pleasure with which beauty of the highest order may be contemplated, without the slightest danger to the heart; and indeed, of the philosophical nature of my admiration, [ had full assurance in the fact, that I remarked with hardly one flutter of jealousy, the atten- tions, evidently not ill received, which were devoutly

x. ee as a young man, [ not unnaturally felt in him, As] observed this hero of a hundred stories in the goss) of the day, his massive, but not crippled form—his bie. face, in which few could have traced the vestige of the handsome traits which rumour assigned to hig earl youth, and upon which,in the intervals of hrs tempestuom, good humour, | thought I could clearly discover stamp of those sterner and imperious attributes With which general report had invested him ;—as I looked op this fierce, crafty, intemperate, but at the same ¢ strangely enough, by no means unpopular man of world, it was impossible to avoid the trite but contrast which, in a thousand such cases, is forced the mind, as often as, turning from him, my eye reste; upon his beautiful child. How could a creature go ex. quisitely lovely, so accomplished in every natural grace —and, if expression might be trusted, at once go re. fined, so noble, and so sensitive—have ever g a root se gnarled, bitter and unsightly! Yet his child she doubtless was; for the world, with all its jealous and censorious curiosity, had never once questioned the parentage of Sir Arthur’s children, and in this the world was tight. For poor Lady Chadleigh had begun her married life a good and faithful wife, and under cirenm. stances less unhappy, might have been pure and ho- noured to the last. But the insults of callous profij

and be fond of her. The reasons of the separation were| had alienated and exasperated a heart at once and

impetuous. She had been a spoiled child, and became

aruined woman. Habitually ungoverned, she was jn-

‘capable of forbearance. With little principle and less udence, she suffered a restless sense of to

r into extravagance of conduct—intended, but with- out effect, to pique Sir Arthur, and wound at least his pride into jealousy; and in this mad enterprise the un- happy woman had at {ast effectually compromised herself, and was forced to the terrible necessity of flight. Her fall was not that ef an impure, but of a vengeful spirit It was the act ofa bitter and passicnless suicide, who would squander gy live to bring home one of remorse, or any other feeling to the heart ya a indifference. Poor thing! the world understood her character and despised her; for want of a due contempt for Sir Arthur’s apathy, and a proper acquiescence in his profligate courses, she had given herself to ruin.

‘ Who is that officer,’ I asked a friend, whom accident brought close to ine im the crewded room—‘that good looking fellow who has been so markeé in his devotions to Miss Chadleigh all the evening?”

‘Oh! that—don’t you know?’ he replied. ‘ Why that is Captain Jennings—Jennings the aid-de-camp—a de- villish handsome fellow ; the women are quite mad about ‘him, and he knows it.’ E

‘Miss Chadleigh appears intimate with him,’ I ob- served.

‘Yes, so she iss he was a friend of young Chadleigh’s, who died, or was taken in some battle im India,’ he an- swered. :

* So, one of her brothers is dead then ?’ I interrupted.

‘Yes; I believe the native army made him a prisoner, and treated him in the usual way,’ replied he. ‘I heard the particulars; they were deuced horrid; but I don't quite recollect them now.’

_ “And, Miss Chadleigh—has not she a second brother? 'T inquired.

‘A second brother! Yes, he answered. ‘ A pleasant fellow: but a perfect devil for wildféss, She was fond of the other brother, and in a sad way I believe, when the news came; but that isa year and a half since There, now, you can see young ‘Chadleigh—the young man going to take Miss Chadleigh away.’ | He nodded to indicate the party, and I followed the direction of his eye.

Young Chadleigh was a decidedly well looking man, with a frank and rather distinguished air, and dres: | with an almost feppish attention to the prevailing fashion. ‘I had just time to observe that he and Jennings chattea familiarly for a minute or two, and appeared to be on ithe friendliest terms of intimacy. sia | ‘Well? thought I, ‘after all, he may be but a friend. _ Whether it be impossible to contemplate such beauty as Miss Chadleigh’s with perfect stoicism, and that, \without knowing it, I was really a littie jealous, ] cant ‘say; but I certainly had watched the young captains attentions: with a slight but disagreeable sense of rest- \lessness, and experienced, I know not how, a certaim ‘relief in the reflection I had just made. It had, however, hardly visited my mind, when it was again disturbed. | Miss Chadleigh, leaning on her brother’s arm, W2* ‘passing so close as almost to touch me, whom she had ‘unconsciously inspired with so much adiairation, when

2 nti. “tania wali al e i , 4 ; ; : : i- “iG possess any natural affections, he had managed to! paid her by a singularly handsome young officer, in a| Jennings, following, presented her with her fan, acci

get them all admirably under control, and never was! <nown, under any circumstances, to suffer from their! over indulgence. This old gentleman had been blessed, | in his prime, with an helpmiate; but Lady Chadleigh, | naving been, in her own way, about as domestic a per-| son as Sir Arthur, ‘one fine morning, at three o'clock! precisely, when her spouse was entering upon his fourth| oottle of claret im the ‘parlour, absconded with young Lord Kildeikin, The happy pair were overteken at; Havre by the baronet, who, at ten-paces, duly measured, | shot ‘off Kildalkin’s thumb—a feat which satisfied his| honour, as-some of the sterner brethren ofthe +hair-trig- ger averred, at much too reasonable a rate. The worthy baronet, ‘however, oz his return, explained satisfactorily *o aselectcircle of friends. ‘ For) said he, “had I shot ‘rim ‘through ‘the'head, Tshould net have known what the

———tiodlo mith Lady's.” sAeit was, ‘he'leftlnis wife iin,

perfectly irresistible cavalry uniform. This gentleman was the afterwards too-celebrated Captain Jennings, ‘That evening remains impressed upon my memory with the vividness—what do I say ?—with fifty times the vividnessof yesterday. I think I see old Sir Arthur now, as he sat at the whist table, with his crutch beside him—for gout had claimed him as its own—his fiery

face and heavy brows, overcast with the profound cail-

culations of his favourite game, and his massive frame, shaking all over with the stentorian chuckle with which he greeted the conclusion of each successful rubber, while he slewly pocketed the guineas, and rallied and quizzed his discomfited opponent, with ferecious good hamour. [ looked at this old man with some curiosity. I had never seen him befere, and in his past life were not afew ‘passages-of daring, and adventure, such as might “warrarit (that‘cudlified degree of interest which,

‘dentally forgotten. As she took it with a gracioys ismile, she blushed. Yes, I could not be mistaken, for ia more beautiful blush I never beheld in my existence: iand, to make the matter worse, I thought { perceived ithat, as he placed the light weapon of coquetry 1 on |hand, his own rested upon her’s for a second longer ths” was strictly necessary, and in doing so conveyed the slightest possible pressure to her little ivory fingers. I felt, I know not how, disposed to be affronted and ir- censed, and actually stared, with no very iviling Cx- pression, full upon Captain Jennings, as he mace bis retreat, with a lurking smile of vanity and triumph * ‘his lip. My ill-bred stare was unobserved, and I coul on reflection, scarcely help laughing at the menrey © the emotion which had inspired it. But, after all, ¥ ny should 1?—the nature ofthe beast pervades ts @!.. Sor lpresence of beauty iis « woeful stimulus ‘to ttinprosonet

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