Where time seems young, and life a thing him. "I am willing to accept of your divine. All tastes, all pleasures, all desires combine kiss; And if there's heaven on earth, that heaven is surely this." apology on condition that you relieve me from your presence. You are a perfect stranger to me, and I wish to be alone." "Still, sir," she replied, coldly, "I must repeat what I have said-I do not know you. My memory of the past is as of an idle dream, that it is folly "Have you forgotten me so soon, No, he did not feel love in his heart, Kate?" said he, feigning a tone of rebut he felt it stimulating his passions, proachful tenderness. "Can you not and they urged him to the excesses of remember Henry Fitz Osborne? You vice, cowardice, and shame. He loved him once; at least you told him thought that Kate, bowed down as she that you did, and he was credulous must be by grief; humbled as he had enough to believe you. Is it possible no doubt she was by misfortune, could that you have grown so cold and not withstand his blandishments and changed, that the past is forgotten to endearments: that she could not refuse you?" the temptations it was in his power to present besides, she had loved him once! even he believed that she had loved him with fondness and devotion; and these pure feelings he intended to recur to now. I may have known should be as snares to assist the meshes a person of the name you mention, but of the net he hoped to weave about her. he has long been a stranger to me, nor It was perhaps fortunate for Kate that have I a single feeling in common with Fitz Osborne was not sober, and that him. Whatever I may have felt tohis inebriety prevented his acting with wards him in times past, has long that finesse and tact for which he was since been obliterated from my meso remarkable, as well in affaires de mory, and can never be revived. I caur as in affaire des affaires. All repeat, sir, that I do not know you; the thoughts that we have been so long and I again request that will leave you in describing, passed through his brain me. Your presence is an insult to me, in a moment; and before Kate had and is offensive." gone thirty yards, he was at her side "Nay, Kate," said he, attempting to again, and his plan of operations was take her hand, which she withdrew determined on. with evident repugnance, "do not be "Dear, dear Kate!" said he, with an so harsh and scornful. I cannot be appearance of tenderness and contri-lieve that you have quite forgotten me, tion, "I must implore your pardon for though you say you have; for I love my rudeness towards you. I did not, you yet-I love you dearly, Kate, and even for a moment, imagine who you my heart tells me that you are not as were, andindifferent to me as you seem. If you will but confess that I am right, and consent, I will take you to a home "My name is Miss Middleton, sir," said she, haughtily, as she interrupted where we will live together, and enjoy | you have encumbered me with a prelife as it never was conceived but in sence that is as hateful as it is disgustthe wild dreams of a love-inspired poet; ing. Know, for you compel me to tell where you shall have boundless wealth, you, that I would rather be employed and all that wealth can command-in the most humble capacity; I would carriages, attendants, jewels, attire: rather drudge as a household menial there is nothing that you may wish for just sufficient of the coarsest food for, Kate, however impossible, but at to sustain life; I would rather submit your desire shall be at hand, to gratify myself to tortures such as the cruelest the wish as soon as you can pronounce imagination could devise, than consent it. And we will love each other, wildly, to be your wedded wife, even though, madly, and fondly; and without that in addition to your boasted wealth, you formality and restraint that makes wed-owned the riches of Peru and Golcon. ded life irksome and intolerable. We da! Leave me, wretch! and cherish will have no chain of corroding iron to the thought, that if I did not hold you mar the pleasures of our home; but in the deepest scorn, I might, perhaps, we will be bound by a wreath of fair-deem you worthy of being hated!" est and sweetest flowers, that shall be 66 stronger, because we wear it with our free will and do not feel its weight. What say you, Kate? Speak to me, and say that you will be mine; say that you will be my love, my angel, and in every thing but that which makes the tie a burden, my wife!" Kate attempted several times to interrupt him while he was speaking, but he would not be interrupted, and her efforts to escape from him were equally unavailing he perseveringly kept beside her, and did not give her an opportunity to reply until he had concluded. When she did answer him, it was with a swelling heart and flashing eyes that were swimming in tears, prompted by virtuous indignation and outraged delicacy. "You are a coward and a villain !" she said, as she gave utterance to her feelings, "or you would not have dared to add this outrage to the insults you have already offered me, nor would Nay, nay, my pretty scorner," exclaimed Fitz Osborne, stung to the quick, and maddened by her words, and, in the contemptible appearance he made, even in his own eyes, forgetting the policy he had marked out for himself, "you must teach your lips another strain than this; let others have their gall-I'll take nothing from them but honey, the sweetest that ever was distilled." Saying this, he scized her round the waist, and attempted to kiss her; he pushed aside her veil, and approached his face to hers, in spite of her efforts to prevent him. She felt her strength leaving her, and she shrieked aloud for assistance. Fitz Osborne had not observed a person walking behind them, who had probably overheard a portion of their conversation, and who, on hearing Kate cry for assistance, immediately interposed, and thrust him unceremoniously aside, while he politely offered his protection to the lady. This was done in such a summary manner, that Fitz Os-tent rage; "and in the mean time, sir, borne was not prepared to offer any you are welcome to the spoils of your opposition; but in an instant, as soon as gallantry. You are an interesting he saw how matters stood, he turned couple, certainly, and quite appropriateupon Kate's protector, and raised his ly matched, too; who can doubt it, when cane to strike him. The blow was im- one is a quixotic beggar, and the other pending, but before the weapon could is a public street-walker. Ha! ha! descend, Fitz Osborne found himself ha!" and with a forced laugh Fitz Osmeasuring his length upon the pave-borne turned his steps in another direcment, felled by a well-directed coup de tiou. main from the stranger. He arose immediately, and drawing a short dirk from his sword-cane, he rushed upon the person who had given him his first lesson in the art of self-defence; but Kate perceived his intention, and placed herself between them to prevent it being effected, while Carrol (for it was he who had afforded her such timely assistance) smiled scornfully as he assured her that he was in no kind of danger. "He is a craven, as well as a ruffian," said Carrol, looking at Fitz Osborne, who paused when he saw Kate interpose her own person between him and the object of his attack; "the last, he has proved himself by his conduct towards you; and the first, by his fear to use the cowardly weapon that he has drawn only for the purpose of frightening a woman!" "Another word of impertinence or insult," said Carrol," and I will repeat the chastisement you received but a moment ago." But the threat was use less, for Fitz Osborne was out of hearing of it. The blow that he had received had sobered him, and he was now as anxious to avoid a street altercation, that might compromise his reputation, as he had been careless, while under the influence of liquor, of the consequences either to himself, or to the object of his persecution. He directed his steps towards his home, but with what different feelings from those he had experienced when leaving the Hamilton House !—when pride and vanity were gratified to their utmost limit, and when fulsome adulation made him feel that he was some degrees at least superior to the rest "You are an impertinent scoundrel, of mankind. Now, there was not a sir!" said Fitz Osborne, as, with a mix-wretch, however base-there was not ture of anger and shame, he recognised a man, however degraded, who, if he Carrol; "and you shall hear from me before you are a day older." "As you please, sir," replied Carrol, carelessly: "I only request that we hear no more from you for this evening." "I'll be revenged upon you both!" said Fitz Osborne, boiling with impo could have seen his bosom laid bare, would have envied his feelings at that moment. He had seen the being who had once been fondly attached to him, and who had reposed with trusting love on his faith; and, in the cold-blooded villany of his heart, he had thought to make her a victim to his guile and treachery he had prematurely com- | know that you were in America; "for mitted himself, and had dared to expose it was but a few days ago, when speak his base purposes to her pure mind; and he heard her words still ringing in his ears; he felt their withering scorn in his very soul, not with regret or penitence, but with deep and bitter mortification; the mortification of baffled villany. He had exposed himself to Carrol, too! The intellectual, moral, and virtuous Fitz Osborne! had been discovered by the man against whom he had already conceived a settled dislike, attempting violence upon a weak girl; he had received personal chastisement at the hands of that man, and in the presence of that girl, and to his feelings of mortification were added malignant hatred and an unsatisfied desire for revenge. He knew that Carrol had been acquainted with Kate Middleton, and that he must discover the utter and unmitigated baseness of his attack upon her; and this thought alone was wormwood to him. Indeed, so striking was the contrast between the feelings he now experienced, and those that had inflated him in the earlier part of the evening, that it rendered Henry Fitz Osborne, for that night at least, a man with whom few would have been will ing to change places. ing to Miss Lewison about you, I told her that I thought you had not yet returned from Europe." Kate told him of the death of her father, and of their return some time before. "And did not Mr. Fitz Osborne,” said Carrol, "know of your return before this evening?" "I believe he did," Kate replied, "though it is the first time I have seen him. I met him by accident, and he grossly insulted me." Carrol hesitated as he asked her if she had been out alone? She told him that she had: that her brother was ill, and that she was compelled to attend to some business, and had been detained much later than she expected. "Times are much changed with us," said she, "since you knew us: we have not only lost my dear father, but lost also fortune and friends." Carrol told her that his circumstances, too, had been very materially altered since they had met last, and that, like her, he discovered the change which it made in the feelings of the world. When they reached her home, there was a struggle in Kate's bosom between latent pride and natural politeness.― She wished to ask Carrol to come in, but the thought of the humbleness of her abode made her hesitate. The former feeling, however, she quickly mastered, and yielded with grace and cordiality to the latter. But Carrol "Indeed," he said, "I did not even declined intruding at that late hour; As soon as Fitz Osborne had left them, Carrol offered to protect Kate to her home, although he did not recognise her until she had thanked him by name for his assistance. He was surprised and delighted to discover who it was he had befriended. though he begged permission to call again at an early occasion, as he was desirious, he said, to renew an acquaintance which he considered one of the most agreeable he had ever made. Kate was grateful for this attention, slight as it was, for she felt that it was sincere, and she promptly and ingenuously responded to it; but she requested Carrol, when he should visit them, not to mention before her brother the occurrences of that evening, as she was fearful, for Edgar's sake, of the consequences to Fitz Osborne, if they were made known to him. By that, and all the rights of knighthood else, what I have spoke, or thou canst worse Will I make good against thee, arm to arm, devise. KING RICHARD THE SECOND. Mrs. Middleton had been greatly terrified at Kate's absence, and her appearance with Carrol was quite a relief to her rapidly augmenting fears. "REALLY," said Wharton to Carrol, Kate told her what had occurred, and as they sat together in Carrol's room, Mrs. Middleton's indignation at the the following morning, "you would dastardly conduct of Fitz Osborne was have been much amused at Betterton's only equalled by her gratitude toward description. I was standing at my Carrol for his gallantry and manly door when he passed at about eleven assistance. They both agreed to con- o'clock, and we sat and smoked segars ceal the circumstance from the know.until after one. You know he cares ledge of Edgar; for though he was for no one, so they all came in for a generally mild, amiable, and tractable, share of his ridicule. He said that yet, in a case of this kind, nothing could prevent his seeking Fitz Osborne, and he would be more likely to shoot him like a dog in the public streets, than to seek any other, or more legal redress or apology. Elkton sang a song and made a speech; and the latter he prefaced by observing that it was the custom in Europe, when compliments were paid to great men, to vocalize their merits; and, with the aid of a tuneful liar, to besmear them with praise." "I never heard of such a custom," said Carrol. "Nor I, nor any one else," replied Wharton; "it was only a pretext used by Elkton to let the company know that he had been to Europe. But the |