"I do know it! I know that you have chilled its better feelings by the dictates of reason, and from long obedience to stern prudence, you cannot, dare not love! You have seen the sincerity of my passion, and you have trampled on the purity of that love which adores you! Hear me, dear Isa," I continued, seizing her hand and arresting her departure, "hear my unworthy love. I am a wretched, desolate being, and live alone."

"Lionel!" said she, suddenly interrupting me, "I do not love you! You have noble qualities, and a genius which promises the highest distinctions of fame. Forget your idle passion, and be assured that I shall ever retain for you the most affectionate friendship. Enter into the busy throng of the world, and you will quickly gain that chastened wisdom which can laugh to scorn all your boyish dreams of romance, and in the race of ambition you must and will forget your fancied sorrows. Is it not true that

'Love seldom haunts the breast where learning lies
And Venus sets—ere Mercury can rise.'"

"I did not reckon on insult," I replied with much temper, "nor did I wish you to read me a homily on the extravagance of that passion which you alone have caused. You may scorn, yet I can love."

Lucy, accompanied by Arthur Ludwell, appeared at this moment, and relieved me from a scene of distress, confusion, and embarrassment. They returned with Isa to the parlor; and I, in a state of tempestuous feeling and subdued pride, sauntered to the shores of the Chesapeake. A whip-poor-will seated on the leafless branch of a ruined oak, was carolling his funereal notes to the responsive echoes of the forest. The moon was rising far in the East, and the broad sea before me had already flushed its rippled surface in her mellow light. Here and there in the fretted horizon, might be dimly discovered the diminished sail, or the frail bark of the silent fisherman. All nature was slumbering in deathlike solitude, while I alone was the rude string whose vibrations jarred into discord the peaceful scene around me. In the bitterness of wounded pride I solemnly resolved to conquer my unrequited passion. I returned to Chalgrave, proud, stubborn and unconquerable. I looked up to its dreary grandeur and my eye caught the light form of Isa flitting athwart a window. My obstinacy vanished like the mist of the morning, and I was again the creature of love, hope, and imagination.

On the succeeding day she quitted Chalgrave. Her parting interview was simple and affecting. A kiss for my mother—a tear for Lucy, and a smile for me, were the little legacies her affections bequeathed. With strained eye and intense interest, I watched the chariot which bore her away, and when it had sunk into the forest, I turned off to meditate on her virtues and dream on her beauty. My old nurse gently touching me, placed in my hand a little packet which she said Miss Isa had left for me. I tore off the envelope, and a golden locket fell at my feet, on which was inscribed in faint though legible lines, "Dinna forget." That momento is now on my heart—a holy relic of the wreck of my happiness.

For the Southern Literary Messenger.

TO H. W. M.

When the cup is pledged, and the bright wine flowing,
At the festal board, in the halls of light;
And gentle eyes, like stars are glowing,
In the cloudless sky of a summer's night:
Oh! breathe but my name o'er the wine, for yet
I will dare to believe that all will not forget.
When the moon looks out on the leafy bowers,
Where the gladsome daughters of beauty are wreathing
The brightest and fairest of all the flowers,
To crown their altars with incense breathing,
Oh, name one flower for the absent one,
Who forgotten by thee is remembered by none.
In that home, to thee brightest and best upon earth,
Where the spirits thou lovest are yearning to greet thee,
When round the light of the household hearth,
The smiles and the tears of affection greet thee,
Mid the beam of the smile and the glow of the tear,
Shall a thought ever whisper "I wish he were here?"
For if life were changed, and its beamings of gladness,
Were shrouded in gloom by the veil of sorrow,
And the pale cold shade of unaltered sadness,
Found no ray of hope in the coming morrow;
Each pang could but render more precious to me,
The friendship of M——, the beauty of B.