"But I do not like eccentrics, Miss Langham-an eccentric woman is invariably an Amazon, both in body and mind.” "That my poor friend can only be so in mind, Captain Bathurst, I think, you must immediately allow."

"I readily do; for, with the exception of her eyes, her appearance is feminine."

"And can you except her eyes ?-Oh! Captain Bathurst! all the world admires her eyes!"

"In a man's head, so perhaps should I; they are eyes fit for a hero, a bandit of Salvator Rosa, or a brigand of Pinelli ; their lids never fall-they look as if they could not be daunted.

Jeannette at this moment exchanged smiles with her friend.

"Acknowledge at least that they can speak."

"I do-daggers!"

Jeannette held up her hand in token of dissent, and Ba thurst continued:

"I would have a woman, and especially a young woman, be to the mind as to the eye, all softness. I would have her look like Ariel, as if she could dissolve into thin air; and her look should be but typical of her mind and heart. Do you not agree with me?"

Jeannette, who felt that she at least was made of sterner stuff, answered smilingly, but firmly, "No, I cannot.”

Lindsay Bathurst smiled too, but incredulously, for Jeannette appeared to him at that moment exactly the being he had described; and long, very long did she exist to his imagination as he had thus painted her.

It is thus that we frequently create an imaginary good, and mould what we meet with to its likeness. How often is reality clothed in a fiction of our own creation, and the visible substance rejected for the impalpable shadow !

But this error, though it did injustice to the character of Jeannette, did no injury to the impression she was making on the mind of Captain Bathurst; and it is possible, if neither had met the other again, this dinner would have always been an agreeable recollection to both.

The last person they discussed was Mrs. Crosbie, who at tracted their attention by exclaiming, in a tone above that of every other speaker-"La! now, sure, Major Barnard, you must be mistaken!"

Major Barnard, with praiseworthy seriousness, explained. He had vainly attempted to rectify Mrs. Crosbie's notion of wasps being old bees, by assuring her that they were young hornets.

Everybody, except the Miss Crosbies, laughed; and Jeannette, in reply to Captain Bathurst's "Very good?" said, "I wish she would not thus expose herself."

"Is Mrs. Crosbie, then, in the habit of saying things so very amusing?"

"Unfortunately she is."

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By-the-by, I think I have heard of her-was it not this same intelligent person who discovered the black knight in Ivanhoe to be the Duke of Wellington ?"

"Oh! very likely; for she affects literature."

"And talks of her house in Grosvenor Squaw, and of her son as a most astonishing buoy."

"Why, you must have certainly met her before, Captain Bathurst.'

"I find, on a second survey of her features, that I have had that divertissement. In point of amusement, she is worth all the world beside,-yet, I confess, I had forgotten her. Alas! and alas! Miss Langham, your sister is rising -must you go? I have but this consolation, that

Other strains of wo, that now seem wo,
Compared with loss of thee, will not seem so.'

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CHAPTER XXII.

Love framed with mirth, a gay fantastic sound.-COLLINS.

My soul would drink those echoes. O that I were
The viewless spirit of a lonely sound,

A living voice, a breathing harmony,

A bodiless enjoyment-born and dying

With the blest tone that made me.-MANfred.

IN the evening, charades were acted, a quadrille was danced, piquet, ecarté, and chess were played; Miss Langham sang duets with her brother and with Captain Bathurst; and Jeannette, at the request of her father, accompanied herself on the guitar to a little Spanish air, which he muchloved. She sang the English words to it, beginning,

"Toll not the bell of death for me when I am dead."

There is a pathos in the melody, when sung even indifferently, irresistible to lovers of plaintive music. But Jeannette did it ample justice. It was an old favourite of her own. She had sung it, till to herself every line was fraught with more of meaning than the poet gave. It was this additional interpretation of her own that enabled her to touch so deeply the feelings of those who listened. Many thanked, many applauded, some flattered her; but her imagination was for the moment raised beyond the reach of plaudits or flattery. Yet a few minutes afterward when she received a bow of acknowledgment from Captain Bathurst, she felt a flutter of pleasure at her heart utterly at war with her previous train of pensive meditation. She was conscious of it, and strove to expel the agreeable intruder. The endeavour gave a deeper colouring to her cheek, a rich lustre to her eyes: They were radiant with sensibility and with happiness; for oh! let none deny it, there are passing moments, owing indeed their charm to vanity, that do impart happiness-brief indeed, but still happiness, and delightful, if not exquisite.

Mr. Langham accidentally looked towards her, as her retreating blush made her appear to be turning pale from heat.

"Jeannette, my love, this room is, I fear, too warm for you."

"No; these heavy flowers oppress me," she said, removing at the same time from her forehead a white rosewreath that was pressing on her brow.

A rose-wreath, more or less, would be to most people of slight importance,-they would look neither better with, nor worse without it; but to real beauty every thing seems of moment. Lindsay Bathurst gazed on Jeannette, now that her fair forehead was exposed to view, as if he had beheld her for the first time. Perfect as he had before considered her, she seemed now a changed, and even a more beautiful being than before.

"Another, yet the same," broke from him half uncon sciously, and met the ear of Mr. Langham, who had a good memory, and loved quotation. To quote appositely, and without pedantry, always secured his favour as well as his attention; and he maintained, that the power to do so was an elegant species of wit. Quotation, he said, was not only the parole of the literary world, but of refined life. In the simplest conversation he himself, from the corners of his memory, would bring out "beautiful old rhyme," either to grace or elevate his subject, as it might happen. He repeated to Jeannette the line which had pleased him; and Captain Bathurst, hearing that he did so, came towards them.

"I have been longing," he said to Jeannette, "to tell you how much I like your singing."

"Do you, indeed, admire that melancholy song? I love it much, but that is from long acquaintance and old associations."

“And I too love it much, though it reduced me from an excess of good spirits to something like depression." "I am sorry," said Jeannette, laughing.

"Nay, you must neither laugh nor be sorry. I had been quaffing largely of the opiate of delusion ;-I had been for some hours dreaming of earth as it is not, filled with undying beauty, canopied with cloudless skies, &c. &c.; but I do not mean to trouble you with all I thought."

"Oh! pray.do."

"No-I dare not; for you would regret, though I do not, that your voice, in such an hour as this, should have made . me think of sorrow, grief, bitterness, and death.”

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"If you dislike such emotions, which I confess, thus vaguely felt, are to me a pleasure, I must avoid singing that song to you again."

"On the contrary, if I might, I would say, sing it for ever, it fills all my heart, and does me good."

"Had you," said Jeannette, timidly, "ever heard it before?"

"Never! but, like Jessica, I am always sad when I do hear sweet music, I have moreover a creed of my own with regard to the influence of sweet sounds, which ought to be new to us, yet are not so. Did you never, Miss Langham, feel intimately acquainted with strains heard for the first time?"

"Often, very often, the wild, irregular, and long-drawn tones of the Æolian harp have made me feel it, as well as every gradation of studied composition, from the simplest melodies to the most complicated harmony. How do you account for it ?"

"In what the world would call a romantic and irrational manner; but I see I must not enter on it to-night, for every body is departing.--Good night--good night!"

Jeannette, when alone with Matilda, felt inclined to communicate to her some of her many thoughts, but knew not how to cominence. Her mind was in a state of extreme activity, and a single word could have inclined her to entire. confidence or to perfect reserve.

Matilda observed carelessly, "This Lindsay Bathurst is not quite so disagreeable as I expected to find him."

"No, not quite, I think," said Jeannette, in reply. "Good night, dear Matilda, for I am tired to death."

And feeling ashamed to praise any one of whom her sister spoke so slightingly, Jeannette quickly departed to her own room, lest she should give utterance to her own very different impressions.

Her earliest opinions of this young man remaining untold, very possibly increased that reserve, which it is the nature of all deep feeling to encourage, and which Jeannette so uniformly preserved towards Matilda, in the progress of her acquaintance with him..