of love are stronger and deeper as he knows that we shall soon see them no more.

The sun set-but, before the fiery radiance which glowed in his warm track had given place to the pale lustre of the cold moon, George Stanly clasped his delighted and faithful wife to his exulting bosom, and folded in his arms their only child. He is at this time a prosperous man, and a most affectionate husband; and often he wanders with his Constance-who has regained half the loveliness of her former days-to that lonely hill, with the green forests waving around, and the winding river gleaming below.

SCENES FROM LIFE.

MULTITUDES of the young and happy, bent only on their own cheerful occupations, may be ignorant of the nature of a pawnbroker's business. We all derive benefit from the wants and distresses of our fellow creatures. The physician thrives best in times of sickness, and the lawyer flourishes amid trouble and discord. But the pawnbroker seems more directly to deal with the wretched. The poor who have no other method of meeting the exigences of the times, apply to him for money. The interest which they pay is generally exorbitant, and they are demanded to leave in pledge some article of considerably more value than the sum obtained. They who have no friend and no hope, save such as spring up in the interested traffic of the world, bring here their little treasured remains of better times, and sacrifice them to the relentless persecutions of fate.

As I was passing down Chatham street the other day, my attention was arrested by a sign of "unredeemed pledges for sale." The room, at the window of which this notice was exposed, was a low miserable hole, cumbered with various objects heaped together by wretchedness or folly, and dark as if the blessed beams of the sun disdained to enter the filthy den, which so evidently

betrayed the recent visits of penury and guilt. The articles hung out at the door to catch the eyes of the passengers, and those which the dim light rendered visible within, were, in many instances, valuable, and sometimes spoke of happier scenes; altogether, the collection seemed so intimately associated with want and desperation, and so fraught with melancholy histories, that before I had distinctly formed any intention, I found myself in the gloomy apartment. A little withered up old man, with wrinkled face and a stoop of the shoulders, as if he had been all his life counting over his gains, waited my commands behind the counter. His small eyes peered at me through a pair of white glasses, which appeared to add to their inquiring gaze. He stuck his pen behind his ear, took off his spectacles, wiped them, and replaced them upon his pointed nose; cast a satisfied look around his shop, over the gleanings of a hundred wrecked hopes and fortunes, and then waited my wishes with that composed and unmeaning politeness which, in great cities, becomes the common property of the good and bad.

I looked around me a moment with considerable curiosity, and my fancy, ever busy in drawing pictures of misery or bliss, presented many an image of distress which the good man's articles of trade had conjured up. The window was ornamented with old silver watches dangling at the ends of steel chains and dirty brass keys. A flute, cracked, like the fortunes of its owner, showed that some lover of music had yielded his instrument to the hardness of the times; and I pictured him to myself, whistling his old tunes, with his hands in his pockets, going home-if he had a home-on a cold wintry night, without a great coat. "Poor fellow," thought I, "perhaps he has a heart generous and aspiring as Alexander or Cæsar perhaps he has learning, wit, talent, and virtue-yet all could not save him from the frowns of fortune." Near the flute stood a cane of very dashing appearance, with a great horn handle, worn smooth by the hand that, alas! had now bidden it a last farewell. It was ornamented with leathern tassels, after the fashion of canes, and a slight pull drew to my sight a shining blade, a foot and a half in length. "Some broken down gentleman," said I to myself, "has left this—some warm

hearted, fiery brained disciple of honor and pleasure, whom his own extravagance has deprived of houses, horses, gigs, watch, money, and forced at last to a separation from this constant friend-this fidus Achates

to raise a few shillings for one more supper of oysters, or a ticket at the theatre, or a dun." Great coats, under coats, and pantaloons, hung upon pegs around the room; tables, looking-glasses, portable desks, &c., were lying around, and at the door, with very particular splendor, was displayed a uniform coat, which, notwithstanding that the tawdry ornaments were a little worn, and one or two of the buttons, whether in the tumult of battle or by the mere influence of time, had disappeared, made a conspicuous part of this motley exhibition.

"Can I supply you with any thing today?" said my friend behind the counter. "These things, sir, are generally as good as new, and I can afford to let you have them cheap."

"I cannot see any thing of which I am in want at present," said I, and was leaving the shop.

"But let me show you some of my more valuable stock, sir. There are breast pins, rings, watch seals, keys, &c., of almost every kind, and much cheaper than they can be bought at any jeweller's. Please to look at

them."

To oblige the man, I looked over one or two little boxes which he placed in my hands, and with sated curiosity, was about to return them, when my eye was struck with a ring which I had seen before,

It is at least five years since I knew Ellen G———. There were many other girls of my acquaintance, who were more calculated to dazzle by their charms, or to delight by fashionable accomplishments, than she, yet I never was more happy than in her society. I was but a boy then, and scarcely knew what it was to love; but I always regarded her with a feeling much too warm for friendship. I never thought of marriage, for I had a thousand other things to engage my attention; yet, when I sat by her side, and ran over to her the various adventures which had fallen under my observation, I did think I was her truest friend; and that, if opportunity would but present itself, I would do more for her

than for any one else in the world. At that time, as I said, I never dreamed of matrimony; and if I had, I think it would then never have occurred to me that Ellen would have united her fate with mine; I should have deemed that she aspired to some higher object, and repressed in my bosom every rising wish as the offspring of a saucy imagination.

She left the city some time afterward, though not before I had pressed upon her acceptance a diamond ring of some value, as a token of friendship much warmer and deeper than even I suspected.

I had since heard she was married, and happily settled in one of the southern states. I mused a moment upon what I might have been, and wished I could shape a destiny for her as bright as her own lovely image. Her sweet, happy face, and clear soft voice, passed through my imagination, and then, as we awaken from some enchanting dream, to resume the cold ceremonies of the day, I turned from my contemplations and dismissed her from my mind.

As the pawnbroker spread out his box of jewelry upon the counter, I seized the ring, and beheld engraved within it the letters E. G.

With great pains I succeeded in discovering her lodgings. I found her in the deepest distress. She had been married to an officer of the navy, whose character was as noble as his attachment to her was devoted. For some time he enjoyed her society, and they lived in happiness together; but he was ordered off to a sickly station, where there were few opportunities of communicating with each other. His letters became less and less frequent, and her share of his pay which she drew from the navy agent, and which barely enabled her to support herself and one child, was at length stopped by the news that her husband had been carried off by the yellow fever. Without friends, or any means of support, she had attempted to live independently by means of her needle; but misfortunes were too heavy for her constitution. When I saw her, her fine form was wasted down almost to a skeleton, and her lovely face, once so radiant with health and pleasure, now bore the deep

1

marks of time, sickness, and sorrow; each of them a sufficient foe to a flower so delicate as woman's beauty; but, united, alas! who shall paint the ravages they make upon the face and the heart.

She had long been in absolute distress, for the want of a small sum to purchase the necessaries of life; and it was a very little while after my first visit that I saw her laid in her grave, and heard the earth shovelled upon a bosom which had known hopes as pure, and affections as fond, as any ever formed by nature.

"Oh, my dear, dear husband!" exclaimed a beautiful young creature to a fat morose-looking elderly gentleman, who sat in the drawing room of one of the most fashionable boarding houses in the city-"Oh, my dear husband, will you do me one more favor, and that will satisfy me for a month?"

"What is it, my dear? You know I can deny you nothing."

"Why, I have been walking today with Miss W

and we stopped in at Mr. Marquand's jewelry store, and Mr. M. showed us such a set of jewels. I must

have them."

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'But, my dear, you have just spent two hundred upon your personal decorations—and, I should think

"Ah, now-you don't know any thing about it," interrupted she, flinging her white arm over his broad shoulder, and putting her delicate and snowy hand, glittering with rings, beneath his double chin. "Ah, nowI must have them. I cannot possibly do without them. Miss W- is going to appear tomorrow night in such a dress, and if I do not get them, I am sure I shall be very unhappy."

"Well, well, my dear, you shall have them. There—” and taking out his pocket book, he displayed a bunch of notes carefully laid between other papers, which slept in its capacious bosom till avarice or speculation should draw them forth, to be rendered back fourfold.

"Oh, let me see," said his bride, while the shadows passed from her face, and her red pouting lip curled again into its accustomed smile: "here are one, two,