which she had served, Jack had acted in the steward's | Those grounds, which so long lay a reproach to the department, though she had frequently done duty as national taste and liberality, are now fast becoming a fore-mast hand. In strength and skill she admitted beautiful, are already exceedingly pretty, and give that she had often failed; but in courage, never. to a structure that is destined to become historical, Having been given reason to think her husband was having already associated with it the names of Jefferreduced to serving in a vessel of war, she had shipped son, Madison, Jackson, and Quincy Adams, together on board a frigate bound to the Mediterranean, and with the ci polloi of the later Presidents, an entourage had actually made a whole cruise as a ward-room that is suitable to its past recollections and its present boy on that station. While thus employed she had purposes. They are not quite on a level with the met with two of the gentlemen present; Capt. Mull parks of London, it is true; or even with the Tuileand Mr. Wallace. The former was then first lieu-ries, or Luxembourg, or the Boboli, or the Villa Reale, tenant of the frigate, and the latter a passed-midshipman; and in these capacities both had been well known to her. As the name she then bore was the same as that under which she now "hailed," these officers were soon made to recollect her, though Jack was no longer the light, trim-built lad he had then appeared to be. Neither of the gentlemen named had made the whole cruise in the ship, but each had been promoted and transferred to another craft, after being Jack's shipmate rather more than a year. This information greatly facilitated the affair of the doubloons. or fifty more grounds and gardens, of a similar nature, that might be mentioned; but, seen in the spring and early summer, they adorn the building they surround, and lend to the whole neighborhood a character of high civilization, that no other place in America can show, in precisely the same form, or to the same extent. This much have we said on the subject of the White House and its precincts, because we took occasion, in a former work, to berate the narrowminded parsimony which left the grounds of the White House in a condition that was discreditable to the From Charleston the travelers came north by rail-republic. How far our philippic may have hastened road. Harry made several stops by the way, in order to divert the thoughts of his beautiful young bride from dwelling too much on the fate of her aunt. He knew that home would revive all these recollections painfully, and wished to put off the hour of their return, until time had a little weakened Rose's regrets. For this reason, he passed a whole week in Washington, though it was a season of the year that the place is not in much request. Still, Washington is scarce a town, at any season. It is much the fashion to deride the American capital, and to treat it as a place of very humble performance with very sounding pretensions. Certainly, Washington has very few of the peculiarities of a great European capital, but few as these are, they are more than belong to any other place in this country. We now allude to the distinctive characteristics of a capital, and not to a mere concentration of houses and shops within a given space. In this last respect, Washington is much behind fifty other American towns, even while it is the only place in the whole republic which possesses specimens of architecture, on a scale approaching that of the higher classes of the edifices of the old world. It is totally deficient in churches, and theatres, and markets; or those it does possess are, in an architectural sense, not at all above the level of village or country-town pretensions, but one or two of its national edifices do approach the magnificence and grandeur of the old world. The new Treasury Buildings are unquestionably, on the score of size, embellishments and finish, the American edifice that comes nearest to first class architecture on the other side of the Atlantic. The Capitol comes next, though it can scarce be ranked, relatively, as high. As for the White House, it is every way sufficient for its purposes and the institutions; and now that its grounds are finished, and the shrubbery and trees begin to tell, one sees about it something that is not unworthy of its high uses and origin. the improvements which have been made, is more than we shall pretend to say, but having made the former strictures, we are happy to have an occasion to say (though nearly twenty years have intervened between the expressions of the two opinions) that they are no longer merited. And here we will add another word, and that on a subject that is not sufficiently pressed on the attention of a people, who, by position, are unavoidably provincial. We invite those whose gorges rise at any stricture on any thing American, and who fancy it is enough to belong to the great republic to be great in itself, to place themselves in front of the State Department, as it now stands, and to examine its dimensions, material and form with critical eyes; then to look along the adjacent Treasury Buildings, to fancy them completed, by a junction with new edifices of a similar construction to contain the department of state; next to fancy similar works completed for the two opposite departments; after which, to compare the past and present with the future as thus finished, and remember how recent has been the partial improvement which even now exists. If this examination and comparison do not show, directly to the sense of sight, how much there was and is to criticise, as put in contrast with other countries, we shall give up the individuals in question, as too deeply dyed in the provincial wool ever to be whitened. The present Trinity church, New York, certainly not more than a third class European church, if as much, compared with its village-like predecessor, may supply a practical homily of the same degree of usefulness. There may be those among us, however, who fancy it patriotism to maintain that the old Treasury Buildings were quite equal to the new, and of these intense Americans we cry their mercy! Rose felt keenly on reaching her late aunt's very neat dwelling in Fourteenth Street, New York. But the manly tenderness of Mulford was a great support to her, and a little time brought her to think of that weak-minded, but well-meaning and affectionate relative, with gentle regret, rather than with grief. Among the connections of her young husband, she found several females of a class in life certainly equal to her own, and somewhat superior to the latter in education and habits. As for Harry, he very gladly passed the season with his beautiful bride, though a fine ship was laid down for him, by means of Rose's fortune, now much increased by her aunt's death, and he was absent in Europe when his son was born; an event that occurred only two months since. The Swash, and the shipment of gunpowder, were thought of no more in the good town of Manhattan. This great emporium-we beg pardon, this great commercial emporium-has a trick of forgetting; condensing all interests into those of the present moment. It is much addicted to believing that which never had an existence, and of overlooking that which is occurring directly under its nose. So marked is this tendency to forgetfulness, we should not be surprised to hear some of the Manhattanese pretend that our legend is nothing but a fiction, and deny the existence of the Molly, Capt. Spike, and even of Biddy Noon. But we know them too well to mind what they say, and shall go on and finish our narrative in our own way, just as if there were no such raventhroated commentators at all. Her har Jack Tier, still known by that name, lives in the family of Capt. Mulford. She is fast losing the tan on her face and hands, and every day is improving in appearance. She now habitually wears her proper attire, and is dropping gradually into the feelings and habits of her sex. She never can become what she once was, any more than the blackamoor can become white, or the leopard change his spots; but she is no longer revolting. She has left off chewing and smoking, having found a refuge in snuff. is permitted to grow, and is already turned up with a comb, though constantly concealed beneath a cap. The heart of Jack, alone, seems unaltered. The strange, tiger-like affection that she bore for Spike, during twenty years of abandonment, has disappeared in regrets for his end. It is succeeded by a most sincere attachment for Rose, in which the little boy, since his appearance on the scene, is becoming a large participator. This child Jack is beginning to love intensely; and the doubloons, well invested. placing her above the feeling of dependence, she is likely to end her life, once so errant and disturbed. in tranquillity and a home-like happiness. THE BELLE. BY MARY L. LAWSON. SHE stands before the mirror-she is fair, Like passing clouds that float o'er summer skies; Long, long in anguish flows the burning tideDark storms of feeling sweep across her breastIn loneliness there needs no mask of pride To nerve the soul, and veil the heart's unrest, Amid the crowd her glances brightly beam, Her smiles with undimmed lustre sweetly shine: The haunting visions of life's fevered dream The cold and careless seek not to divine. Night after night unheeded glides away Yet longing, oh! how oft-to be alone; Friends that had shared her girlhood's happier day, Fair pictured scenes long vanished from her sight, But this one hour has crowned in deep despair While loftier thoughts to nobler purpose given Than those long wasted amid fashion's glare, And deep resolves the future shall be fraught With holy deeds, her earnest musings shareThough in the dance her step no more may glide, The glittering circle miss its chosen queen, Around the vacant place a closing tide Will leave no record where her form was seen. But where the widow's tear-drop may be dried, And where the orphan wanders sad and lone, Where poverty its grieving head may hide, Will breathe the music of her voice's tone; And if her face was blest with beauty rare 'Mid gilded sighs and worldly vanity, When heavenly peace has left its impress there Its loveliness from earthly stain is free. LE PETIT SOULIER. A STORY: IN TWO PARTS. BY IK. MARVEL. PART I. I HAVE said that the Abbé G- had a room in some dark corner of a hotel in the Rue de Seine, or Rue de la Harpe-which of the two it was I really forget. At any rate, the hotel was very old, and the street out of which I used to step into its ill-paved, triangular court, was very narrow, and very dirty. broken panes, and an old placard pinned against the frame?" "Ah, who knows! perhaps a chiffonier, or a shop. man, or perhaps-" and the abbé lifted his finger, and shook his head expressively, and continued, "It is a strange world we live in, mon ami." What could the abbé mean? I looked up at the window again; it was small, and the panes were set in rough metal casing; it was high up on the fourth or fifth floor. I could see nothing through but the "Is it in the same hotel with you?" said I. At the end of the court, farthest from the heavy gateway, was the box of the concierge, who was a brisk little shoemaker, forever bethwacking his lap-dirty yellow placard. stone. If I remember right, the hammer of the little cordonnier made the only sound I used to hear in the court; for though the house was full of lodgers, I never saw two of them together, and never heard them talking across the court from the upper win-window belonged. Small it must be, I knew, for in dows, even in mid-summer. At this distance of time, I do not think it would be possible for me to describe accurately all the windings of the corridor which led to the abbe's door. I remember that the first part was damp and low, and after it I used to mount a crazy stone staircase, and at the top passed through a passage that opened on one side upon a narrow court; then there was a little wicket of iron, which, when it turned, tinkled a bell. | Sometimes the abbé would hear the bell, and open his door down at the end of the corridor; and sometimes a lodger, who occupied a room looking into the lastmentioned court, would draw, slyly, a corner of his curtain, and peep out, to see who was passing. Sometimes I would loiter myself to look down upon the lower windows in the court, or to glance up at story resting above story, and at the peaked roof, and dot of a Icop-hole at the top. A single small door opened into the court, and occasionally an old woman, or bustling, shabbilydressed man would shuffle across the pavement; the faces at the windows seemed altogether sordid and every-day faces, so that I came to regard the quarters of the abbe, notwithstanding the quaint-fashioned windows and dim stairway, and suspicious quiet, a very matter of fact, and so, very uninteresting neighborhood. As the abbé and myself passed out sometimes together through the open-sided corridor, I would point into the court, and ask who lived in the little room at the top. "Ah, mon cher, I do not know," the abbe would say. Or, "who lives in the corner, with the queer narrow window and the striped curtain?" "I cannot tell you, mon cher." I tried to picture satisfactorily to my own mind the appearance of the chamber to which the little that quarter few were large even upon the first floor, and looking upon the street. Dirty, too, it should surely be, and comfortless, and tenanted by misery, or poverty, or sin, or, very likely, all together. Possibly some miserly old wretch lived there, needing only a little light to count up his hoard, and caring little for any intrusive wind, if it did not blow away his treasure. I fancied I could see him running over the tale of his coin by a feeble rushlight-squat, perhaps, on the dirty tile-floor-then locking his box, and placing it carefully under the pillow of his straw pallet, then tip-toeing to the door to examine again the fastening, then carefully extinguishing the taper, and after, dropping into an anxious, fevered sleep. I even lingered very late at the abbe's room, to see if I could detect the old man; but there was never any light to be seen. Perhaps it was the home of some poor gentleman who had seen better days, and whom necessity obliged to deny himself the poor luxury of a centime light. Possibly it was a little shopman, as the abbé had suggested, struggling with fortune-not scrupulous in honesty, and shunning observation; or it might be (who could tell) a sleek-faced villain, stealing about in the dusk, and far into the night, making the dim chamber his home only when more honest lodgers were astir in the city. All sorts of conjectures came thronging on me, and I cast my eyes up, day after day, at the little window, hoping some change of appearance might give plausibility to some one of my fancies. Week after week, however, the corridor wore its old quietude; the striped curtain in the wing window, and the yellow placard in the suspicious window at the top, still kept their places with provoking tenacity; Or, "whose is the little window with so many and I could never, with all my art, seduce the good natured abbé into any bugbear story about the occu- | stranger still to find them in the humblest window of pant of the dim chamber on the court. so dismal a court. I dare say I might soon have neglected to look up at all, had I not observed one day, after my glances had grown very careless, and almost involuntary, a rich lace veil hanging against the same little window where had hung the placard. There was no mistaking it-the veil was of the richest Mechlin lace. I knew very well that no lady of elegance could occupy such apartment, or, indeed, was to be found (I mean no disrespect to the abbé) in that quarter of Paris. The window plainly belonged to some thievish den, and the lace formed a portion of the spoils. I began to be distrustful of late visits to the abbe's quarters, and full of the notion of thievish eyes looking out from the strange window-I used half to tremble as I passed along the corridor. I told the abbe of the veil, and hinted my suspicions. There was a mystery about the matter that perplexed me. Every one knows, who knows any thing about Paris, that that part of the city along the Rue de Seine, between the Rues Jacob and Bussy, and though very reputable in its way, is yet no place for delicate ladies, not even as a promenade, and much less as a residence. It is assigned over, as well by common consent as custom, to medical students, shop-men, attorneys, physicians, priests. lodging-house keepers, market-men, sub-officials. shop-women, second-class milliners, and grisettes. Indeed a delicate lady-and such only, I was sure could have left the foot-print in the court, and be the owner of the shoe I had seen-could hardly pass through the Rue de Seine without drawing the eyes of all the lodgers on the street. Dried up hag faces "It is nothing," said he, "princes have lived in would have met the apparition with a leer; the worse corners." "And yet you are not curious to know more?" "Mon cher, it is dangerous to be too curious, je sins un pretre." Some days after-it was on a winter's morning, when a little snow had fallen-I chanced to glance over into the court on which the mysterious window looked, and saw the beautiful foot-mark of a lady's slipper. It was scarce longer than my hand-too narrow and delicately formed for a child's foot, least of all the foot of such children as belonged to the Rue de Seine. I could not but associate the foottrack-so small, so beautiful, and so unlooked for in such scene-with the veil I had seen at the window. Through all of my morning's lesson-I was then reading La Grammaire des Grammaires-I could think of nothing but the pretty foot-track in the snow. No such foot, I was quite sure, could be seen in the dirty Rue de Seine-not even the shop-girls of the Rue de la Paix, or the tidiest Llorettes could boast of one so pretty. I asked the abbé to walk with me; and as we passed the corridor, I threw my eye carelessly into the court, as if it were only my first observation, and said as quietly as possible, "Mon cher abbé, the snow tells tales this morning." The abbe looked curiously down upon the footmarks, ran his eye rapidly over the windows, turned to me, shook his head expressively, and said, as he glanced down again, "O'etait un fort joli petit soulier." (It was a very pretty little shoe.) "Whose was it?" said I. "Mon cher, I do not know." I still kept up, day after day, my watch upon the window. It shortly supplied me with an important link in the chain of observations. I saw lying within the glass, against which the veil yet hung, nothing more nor less than the same little shoe, I thoroughly believed, which had made the delicate foot-marks on the snow in the court. Not a prettier shoe could be seen on the Boulevards, and scarce one so small. It would have been very strange to see such delicate articles of dress at any hotels of the neighborhood, and porters would have turned to stare, and she would have had very suspicious followers. I loitered about the outer court of the hotel, under pretence of waiting for the abbé, in hope of seeing something which would throw light upon the mys terious occupant of the chamber. But the comers and goers were all of the most unobtrusive and ordinary cast. I ventured to question the concierge concerning his lodgers. They were all bons gens. "Were there any ladies?" The little shoemaker lifted his hammer a moment while he eyed me-"But one, monsieur; the wife of the old tobacconist at the corner." I asked about the windows in the little court, beside which I passed-did they belong to his hotel ? He did not think it. I prevailed on him to step with me a moment into the corridor, and pointed out to him the window which had drawn so inuch of my attention. I asked if he knew the hotel to which it belonged? He did not. It might be the next, or the next after, or down the little alley branching out of the Rue de Seine I asked him of the character of the neighborhood. It was a good neighborhood, he said-a very repu table neighborhood. He believed the lodgers of the quarter to be all honnêtes gens. I took occasion to loiter about the courts of the adjoining houses, frequently passing the oppos.te side of the way, with my eye all the time upon the entrance gates. The lodgers seemed to be ever inferior to those who passed in at the court where the abbé resided. One individual alone had attracted my attentica He was a tall, pale man, in the decline of life, dressed in a sort of half-uniform; he walked with a stoopics gait, and seemed to me (perhaps it was a mere fancy as much weighed down by care as years. Several times I had seen him going in or coming out of the court that opened two doors above the abbe's. He was unlike most inhabitants of the neighborhood in both dress and air. I ventured to step up to the brisk little concierge in the court one day, and ask who was the tall gentleman with the tarnished lace who had just entered? "It is un Monsieur Very," said the concierge. "And poor Monsieur Very lives alone?" said I. "How should I know, monsieur?" "He always walks alone," said I. "It is true," said the concierge. "He has children, perhaps?" said I. "Très probable," said the concierge. concierge, I reached the hotel of the abbé an hour earlier than my usual morning visit, and took the occasion to reconnoitre the adjoining courts. The concierge, my acquaintance of the week before, was busy with a bowl of coffee and a huge roll; and, just as I had sidled up to his box for a word with him, who should brush past in great apparent haste, but He was little disposed to be communicative, yet I the pale, thin gentleman who had before attracted my determined to make another trial. "You have very pretty lodgers," said I. " observation. I determined to step around at once into the open "Pardon, monsieur," said he, I do not under- corridor of the abbe's hotel, and see if I could detect stand you." any movement-so slight even as the opening or shutting of a door in the chamber of the narrow "Pretty-very pretty lodgers, said I. "You are facetious, monsieur," said the concierge, window. smiling. "Not at all," said I; "have I not seen (a sad lie) a very pretty face at one of the windows on the back court?" "I do not think it, monsieur." "And then there are no female lodgers?" Sometimes, in my fancies, the object of wonder was a young maiden of the noblesse, who, for imputed family crimes, had hid herself in so humble a quarter. Sometimes I pictured the occupant of the chamber as the suffering daughter of some miserly parent, with trace of noble blood-filial, yet dependent in her degradation. Sometimes I imagined her the daughter of shame the beloved of a doating, and too late repentant mother-shunning the face of a world that had seduced her with its smiles, and that now made smiles the executioners of its punishment. In short, form what fancies I would, I could not but feel a most extraordinary interest in clearing the mystery that seemed to me to hang about the little window in the court. Unconnected with the foottrack and the slipper, the window on the court would have been nothing more than half the courts to be seen in the old quarters of Paris. Or, indeed, the delicate foot-prints, and articles of female luxury would have hardly caught attention, much less sustained it with so feverish curiosity, in any one of the courts opening upon the Rue de Rivoli, or Rue Lafitte. The concierge next door, I was persuaded, knew more of his inmates than he cared to say. I still, as I have said, glanced my eye, each morning, along the upper angles of the court, and sidled now and then by the gate of the neighboring hotel; but the window wore its usual look-there was the veil, and the placard, and the disjointed, rattling sash; and in the neighboring court was, sometimes, the tall gentleman picking his way carefully over the stones, and sometimes the stumpy figure of a waiting woman. Some ten days after my chat with the neighbor It was earlier by a half hour at the least than I had ever been in the corridor before. The court was quiet; my eye ran to the little window-at a glance I saw it had not its usual appearance. A light cambric handkerchief, with lace border, was pinned across it from side to side; and just at the moment that I began to scrutinize what seemed to me like a coronet stitched on the corner, a couple of delicate fingers reached over the hem, removed the fastening, first on one side, then on the other-the handkerchief was gone. It was the work of an instant, and evidently done in haste; but I still caught a glimpse of a delicate female figure-sleeve hanging loose about the arm a short way below the elbow, hair sweeping, half curled and half carelessly over a cheek white as her dress, and an expression, so far as I could judge, of deep sadness. I shrunk back into a shadow of the corridor, and waited; but there was no more stir at the window. The yellow placard dangled by one fastening; a bit of the veil was visible, nothing else, to tell me of the character of the inmate. I told the abbé what I had seen. The abbe closed his grammar, (keeping his thumb at the place,) shook his head slowly from side to side, smiled, lifted his finger in playful menace, and--went on with his lesson. "Who can it be?" said I. "Indeed, I cannot tell you, mon ami," said the abbé, laying down his book with a look of despair. The morning after I was again in the corridor a full half hour before wy usual time, but the window wore its usual air. The next day, again I was an hour beforehand, and the abbé had not put off his priest robe, in which he goes to morning mass; still there was no handkerchief at the little windowno wavy mesh of hair-no taper arm-no shadowy form moving in the dim chamber. I had arranged to leave for the south in a few days, and was more than ever anxious for some explication of the mystery. A single further mode only occurred to me; I would go to the concierge next door, and under pretence of looking for rooms, would have him conduct me through his hotel. It had dismal corridors, and steeper stairways than even the abbe's. I was careless about the second and the third floors; and it was not till we had mounted a half dozen crazy pair of stairs, that I began to scruti |