spirit. Gently, and by degrees, did the influence of his congeniality fall upon my heart, filling it with a new and exquisite delight, which rendered even life itself, a blessedness I had never known before.

am capable. I have prayed to that God, whose | This was my situation for months-for years, when precepts I have so long neglected and forgotten, accident brought me into contact with a kindred and He will sustain me in the course I have chosen. The sincerity of my repentance will win mercy for me at last, and the keenness of my sorrow shall expiate my involuntary offences. To you, these offences have been great indeed; for, disguise it as you may, it was my unhappy infatuation, which first tempted you from the path of rectitude. Oh, Burton, will you, can you pardon me? Return to the career of honor and ambition, from which my selfish, criminal affection has beguiled you, and try, while you learn your own weakness and liability to error, to forgive and pray for mine.

We shall meet no more; for you judge me but correctly when you say I am not one to live beneath the roof of a husband whom in my heart I have wronged; and how deeply I have wronged mine, I knew not until this day. Farewell! I make you the only atonement in my power, when I fly from you forever! Oh, Burton! think not too harshly of me when I am gone; and to Rose, and to another, be a brother and a consolation for her who is unworthy their regret.

Seek not to discover me. When you receive this letter, I shall be far, very far from these scenes of misery; but my heart will bear within it, its own deep agony.

EMMA.

Months passed on as a dream, and I remained unconscious of the wrong I was perpetrating against you-against him—and against myself. But that period is now over, and I awake to the enormity of what I have done. You, who have known me so long, know that I would not stoop to an untruth, even to avoid shame; therefore, you will believe me when I say, that not until this day have I fully realized my position and my sin. I use no subterfuge of words to gloss over the fact,-I dare not thus play the hypocrite:-then hear me. While under your roof, bearing your own honorable name, I have suffered the bad passions of my nature to triumph over the good, and have loved another better, far better than ever I loved yourself! For this, I alone have been to blame, and I alone should suffer. I go to make atonement for the evil I have committed, and, fortunately, the means are in my power.

There is a Carmelite Convent in Maryland, of the strictest order, in which it is my intention to seek admission; and though prevented by your remaining in the world, from becoming a member of it in the full sense, I doubt not to be allowed the From Emma to her Husband. privilege of uniting in its prayers and penances. Kind, noble, and indulgent as I have ever found There will I spend the remainder of a life hitherto you, I know not in what words to inflict upon your so mis-directed in its aims. To you alone shall I honorable mind, the wound I am compelled to give confide my place of refuge, and I entreat you to it. But I feel that from me alone should come the conceal it from all besides. I now pray to you for knowledge of the evil I have done you. When a pardon for the wrong, and for the unhappiness that few years ago, you received from my dear father, I have caused you. I pray you to let me remain the hand of a daughter he so deeply loved, little undisturbed in the retreat which I have chosen, did he, or you, or even I, know the worthlessness and to which I shall have commenced my journey of the gift. He loved and respected you, and ere you receive this letter. May you judge me taught me to esteem the many excellencies of your less harshly than I judge myself, and learn to forcharacter. I had not then loved another, and I get one so unworthy of your good opinion. In hoped to find happiness myself, and bestow it upon your noble calling and high pursuits, there is much you, by our marriage. You were much older than to fill and interest the heart; and you, who are so myself, and I felt it an honor to be selected by one above the weaknesses of mankind in general, will, who stood so high in the opinions of men, to be I trust, soon be able to forgive, and to pray for the his wife. You treated me with kindness and con-unhappy Emma.

sideration, but I was not your equal; we both felt Under the circumstances in which I stood, I this you looked upon me as a child, to be petted and caressed; while I felt the contempt implied by such a course, and soon shrunk from you as from a superior a master; before whom the natural impulses of my soul were to be suppressed-its deep tenderness concealed. Immersed as you were in professional pursuits, from a participation in which I was excluded, my too active mind fell back in brooding moodiness upon itself, and my heart soon began to crave a sympathy with some less elevated being than him who kept it at such a distance. of the self-banished

could no longer desecrate your dwelling with my presence; I dared not risk the punishments of this life and the next, by a flight with him for whom I had erred; and in the home of a friend, I felt that I had no right to carry my wretchedness. These have been the reasons which prompted my choice of a future abode. Of my feelings, I have purposely forborne to write you; they, and the struggles of a contrite heart, are known to God alone. May He forgive me and comfort you, is the prayer

EMMA.

From Emma to Rose.

MY OWN DEAR ROSE :

He soon gave up his professional labors and confined himself to his own house, where my own family often went to visit him. To my little Emma,

Alas! how vain are the plans of mortals! The cholera, which so desolated our village in the year subsequent to Emma's departure, found in Mr. Delcour a fitting victim. He died in the arms of my husband, as I stood by, holding one of his hands in mine. He bequeathed to my own Emma every thing he possessed, while he left to his wife, his pardon and his prayers.

In this hour of agony, I can trust myself to write he became very much attached; but never but but few words to you, my friend, my more than sis- once, did he allude to his wife, after our first conHe then told me that he knew where ter; oh! why were you not also my example? But versation. you have triumphed! you have broken the spell she was residing, and had determined to leave her that bound me to madness and to misery, and for a year or two to her own reflections, when he pointed out to me the only solace of a wounded hoped to induce her to return to his home. He spirit. Yes, Rose, it is over! I have turned to condemned himself much for his want of sympathy religion for support, and on my bended knees have in her pursuits, and seemed far more ready to blame prayed for strength and for direction. These, I himself than her for what had occurred, repeattrust, have been granted me; and I am about to ing with strong emphasis-" There should be perfly from Temptation and Unhappiness, to the seclu- fect confidence between a married couple; but when sion of a Religious Life. Ask not where I am to she returns, I will act very differently, and she shall be-better, far better, that my retreat were known yet learn to love me." to none, and uninvaded by the memories of the past. Το you I leave the task of consoling the two unhappy beings, whom it has been my fate to injure and to grieve. May God sustain you in this act of Christian charity. To him, whose confidence I have abused, be a friend and sister in affection. And to the unfortunate, but innocent cause of all this evil, Rose, be a guide and a consolation. For myself, I ask but your prayers; you will pity my I felt it my duty to inform Emma of this event, past errors, and forgive my faults, when they are and as Mr. Delcour had confided to me, while dying, no longer before you; and, Rose, let them teach the place of her retreat, I immediately wrote to even you a lesson: To study well the dispositions her. I confess I was anxious to know how she of your daughters, and the characters of those to would then act; for I knew she was uncommitted whom you confide their happiness, ere you permit by any religious vow, which might preclude her the indissoluble bond of marriage to unite them. Love, based upon congeniality of taste and feeling, should alone sanction such a connection, for be assured, the heart that enters into this solemn obligation, without affection for the being it vows to honor and obey, will sooner or later experience it for another! Let not my name be forgotten in your family circle, and to your little Emma, present all that was once the property of your devoted friend,

EMMA CLIFford.

marriage with Burton, and I felt assured, he would now offer himself to her acceptance. Months had passed since I had lost all trace of this still valued friend, but I doubted not, that he was fully aware of every thing connected with the history of Emma.

In two months I received a reply to my letter. Emma had obtained a dispensation in her particular favor, (in consequence of her severe discipline during the year she had spent in the Convent,) and was permitted to consider it a portion of her noviciate. She wrote me, that on the 25th of November, (St. Catharine's day,) she would take the White Veil, preparatory to her finally giving up the world, and entreated my presence on the occasion; but at the same time begged me not to see her in

I offer no comment upon the letters you have just read, my dearest Ellen, for the heart that dic-private, as an interview might re-awaken thoughts tated them condemnd its own dereliction from duty of the past, which she had long been endeavoring too severely, for me to withhold my sympathy from to banish; adding, "I would not again, dear Rose, its sufferings. To Mr. Delcour, the flight of his disturb that peace of mind, which a perfect reliance wife came like a thunderbolt from Heaven, and so upon the truths and promises of religion, has at little had he suspected any thing of the kind, that length fully established." I need not tell you, that he asked me the name of the person to whom I was punctual to the day and hour specified, and poor Emma had become attached. Can you pardon me that I evaded enlightening him on the subject? But, alas! how little did either Emma or I myself understand that man! It is true, he had treated her more as a child, than as a companion; but he had loved her even as one loves a favorite and darling child, and his sufferings were deep and lasting.

VOL. XI-86

entered the Chapel of the Convent with feelings deeply and painfully impressed, by the solemn rites was so soon to witness.

The pomp and splendor of the Roman Catholic worship is too familiar to all, for me to loiter over details so imposing. The chaunting, performed wholly by female voices, blended in beautiful accord with the well-toned organ, and possessed for me a pe

euliar charm; for I associated it with the idea of into its holy bonds: this ceremony was performed the angelic choir, welcoming a sister spirit to the by each of the sisters respectively, when the bride courts above. The singers were unseen, as a cur- retired through the door at which she had entered. tain hung in deep folds before the recess, whence Agreeably to her wish, I did not ask to see her; issued such heavenly melodies. As the Chapel indeed, I could not then have commanded my feelbegan to fill, I thought of the rosy, brilliant, spark-ings sufficiently to do so. ling Emma Clifford, whom I had seen a few short years before, pledging her maiden troth, and lovely hand, in the midst of festivity, thoughtlessness and splendor, to the man she had so little understood. I thought, too. of him, now resting in the quiet grave; and my tears flowed freely, as I felt more deeply than ever, the awful responsibility of a contract so lightly entered into by the gay children of -Fashion and Luxury.

I never again beheld Emma Clifford, for as you may suppose, dear Ellen, I returned home completely subdued in mind and heart, by the reflections that grew out of the scene I had gone so far to witness. I hope their influence has been salutary.

Of James Burton, I can say nothing whatsoever; for he left our village the week after Emma's disappearance, and I have not heard a word from him A tall, elegant woman now entered the Chapel since. The night that he had received her letter, from an inner room: she was dressed in white, he had brought if to me, in the hope that I might aid with the symbolic wreath of orange blossoms on him in discovering her asylum: I took a copy of it, her brow, and the long white veil, used to desig- and made him promise to visit me as soon as his nate the Bride on the occasion. She was accom- mind was sufficiently tranquilized to talk on the panied by two of the sisters of the Order, and ap- subject. But five years have elapsed since he deproached directly to the foot of the altar. They parted from among us, and his name has become knelt together for a moment, when the Bride as- an almost forgotten sound: his virtues still live in cended to the rails, and was received by the Bishop, my memory, however, and my affections still cling arrayed in gorgeous vestments. What he said to to him as to a brother. Four months ago, I cut her, I was too distant to understand, neither did I this obituary notice from the columns of a Catholic hear the low response that followed; but the voice-newspaper: yes! it was the sweet, rich voice of Emma Clif- “Died, in the odor of sanctity, in the Carmeford, broken by affliction, deepened by suffering, lite Convent, in Maryland, Sister Mary Catharine, but soft and touching as in other days. Blinded by distinguished alike for her many virtues, and the my tears, I could not distinguish all the ceremonies strict observance of the severe discipline of the that passed; but at the removal of the veil, when Order to which she had devoted herself. Her her bright, luxuriant, and still superb hair was dis- piety, zeal, self-sacrificing spirit, and severe aussevered from her graceful classic head, I caught terities, were the theme of all who knew her. She one glance of the pale face and hazel eyes that I was a convert to the Roman Catholic Communion; loved so well, and could not repress my emotion. and retired from the frivolities of the world at the When I looked towards the altar again, the veil age of twenty-four years; giving up a high posihad been replaced with an appropriate address, and tion in society, and many friends who loved and the sisters were chaunting their hymns of praise. cherished her, to seek in the retirement of a ConThis taking of the White Veil is, you know, em-vent, that peace which the world cannot give.' blematical of the Bridal with Christ; to whose Her name in the world was Emma Clifford, and service the candidate promised to devote herself she was a native of one of the Southern States, for one year, when a still more painful ceremony, (the receiving the Black Veil,) follows. But you may not know, that the year which is spent intermediately in the solemn shades of the cloister, devoted to meditation, prayer, and a strict investigation of the conscience and feelings, may be also considered one of trial, for at its termination, the novice has the right of relinquishing her vocation, if she finds it no longer in accordance with her desires, and she can again return to the world. No one will censure her for doing so, and indeed the Priest is bound to investigate closely this fact, before he can complete the rite, which indicates "a wish to nestle still closer in the bosom of God."

but all allusions to her former state appearing distasteful to her sublimated mind, little is known of her early history. Requiescat in pace."

This, then, dearest Ellen, is the history you have so often urged me to give you, and you will now understand my reluctance to withdraw the veil from events so long past, but still so interesting to my feelings. Emma was dearer to me than a sister; and if she erred in judgment, her awakened principles prompted her to an atonement, which should plead for her to all who know how involuntary was her fault. The memory of her talents, of her surpassing loveliness, her amiability, and her high-toned, but impassioned feelings, often comes When I looked again, Emma had descended upon me, when surrounded by my own daughters, from the altar, accompanied by the two sisters, and and I ask myself, whether, with so much that was approaching first to the Lady Superior of the Order, excellent, a mother's care would not have moulded was kissed by her on each cheek, as a welcome her into perfect goodness. Had Mr. Delcour un

derstood the heart that was entrusted to his gui-I have sustained; and in the practices it enjoins, dance by her father, how different would have been I find quite enough to occupy my time and my afthe fate of both; and blessed and blessing, they fections. To say that I am a better man than might have shed happiness over a wide circle of when you knew me, would scarcely be a boast; but their fellow beings. But I must close this mourn- that I am a far happier one, you will understand ful tale, and leave you to extract the moral for yourself. Farewell! I will forward this packet in a few days, accompanied by a miniature of Emma, which is now being copied for you.

Your sincere friend,

St. Louis, Missouri.

ROSE.

P. S. I open my packet, dearest Ellen, to enclose a copy of a letter which has just reached me, from James Burton; ah, how nobly has he redeemed the faults of his past conduct. Once more I recognize in him the friend, the brother of my heart. His letter will tell you of a faith purifying and elevating in its effects; and proving how truly I spoke, when I said to Emma, that religion alone could conquer in a case like this. But read for yourself, my Ellen, the letter is from Florence.

Enclosed letter from Burton to Rose.
Florence.

MY DEAR AND EVER KIND FRIEND:

when I tell you, that for more than two years, I have been one of the Brotherhood of Mercy,* an Order established in this city for certain charitable objects, by some members of our holy religion. It is one of those touching means, whereby the Catholic can afford assistance to his suffering fellow beings, unseen, or rather unrecognized in the dark folds of the dress which envelops him. And in the constant ministration of its acts of benevolence, its members are aware that the heart is purified and strengthened, and rendered more acceptable in the eyes of Him who created it. Yes, dear Rose, religion has rescued me from myself; the evil passions which tempted me to sin, are, I trust, forever overcome by its influence; while the misanthropy into which I was very near falling, has been subdued by a love for my fellow men, and the desire to "do good in my generation." I felt that one duty remained for me to perform before, shutting my heart to the particular interests of life, I should give its energies to the general well-being of the human race. This duty was to bid farewell to you, friend of my early days, and to thank you for the kindness and affection with which you then honored me. Often are you mentioned in my prayers, and long will you dwell in the memory of your gratefully attached and devoted friend,

JAMES BURTON.

*The Brotherhood of Mercy is an institution established accident, sickness, or poverty. The members consist of all in Florence, in 1240, for the relief of persons suffering from classes and callings in the city; from the Grand Duke down

Letters, or more correctly, papers, from America have just reached me, wherein I see announced the happy departure to another world, of Sister Mary Catharine, of the Carmelite Convent in Maryland. I have thereby been induced to address to you, who have been so cherished a friend of her's, and so dear to myself, the following brief history of my life for the last five years. You will, I know, read with interest what ever relates to one you once honored with your regard, and pardon me for recalling myself to your memory. Accident to the humblest artizan. The dress is of black sack-cloth, having made me acquainted with the retreat of completely enveloping the person, and girded round the waist; your gentle friend, I followed her to the Convent, the hood falls to the breast, with two holes for the eyes : and after much solicitation, obtained an interview. each member carries a rosary. They move along the streets in perfect silence, summoned by the sound of a bell, until I will not dwell upon what passed between us. Let they reach the object of distress, when relief is immediit suffice, that I left her humbled and contrite; ad-ately administered, or the sufferer is borne by the Brothmiring her strength of principle, and purity of pur-ers to the Hospital, where he is nursed unto perfect recovpose, more than I can express; and satisfied that ery, regardless of his creed, country, or poverty.

no effort could win her from resolutions so firmly established. The misery, which, for several subsequent months, paralyzed my faculties, acted at length upon my frame, and a severe attack of ill. ness reduced me to the verge of the grave. The near prospect of death awakened in me a new train of thought, and I soon perceived how unfit I was to render an account of my past life. In an agony of remorse I prayed to be spared until I could prepare myself for that last hour, and mercy was accorded to my petition. Slowly, but surely, did health return; and strength of frame brought strengthened resolutions.

Religion has been to me a substitute for all that I have lost; a consolation for the disappointments

THE PAINTED LADY.

Perchance some gaudy painted flower,
Whose colors catch the eye,
May, for an idle, sportive hour,
Attract the butterfly :

But on such scentless leaves as these,
The worthy bee ne'er dwells,
Nor seeks for gaudy tints to please,
But sweets within the cells.
Hoosier-land.

On Texas' plains the Hero stood, his fiery mustang* teth-The prickly pear, it guards thy hall, which owns no other

With red deer's hide his feet are shod, the wolf's skin The mocking-bird's wild song, to rest shall lull thee 'mid shields his manly head,

And scarred his brow,-such may you meet, when a battle's The red pomegranate's flaming crest still lights those green, o'er, among the dead, luxuriant bowers.

Marked with arrows, and by fire, marred by tomahawk and

Who would know him? not his sire's; no, nor e'en his We take thee by thy iron hand: in peace, or war, our bromother's glance.

In th' Alamo's ditch, the vultures prey on their bold hearts, passed, drew up their leaves, and dropped their branches, "Patches overspread by mimosas, which as our horses

No more they fear the Prairie Child, whose lasso tamed Might have sought the cool shade at the noontide