gained the character of a flirt. It seems very unfortunate that we are placed under the necessity of making that decision which must influence our whole destiny for life, at that very period when we least know what life is."

"It is inexpedient," said I, "to entertain several lovers at once.' "I found it inexpedient," said Elizabeth, "to entertain several lovers in succession. My first lover won my heart by flute playing. He was a lieutenant in the navy, visiting in the neighbourhood. My father disapproved the connexion, but I said that I would not live without him, and so a consent was extorted; but, alas! my flute player's ship was ordered to the West Indies, and I heard of him no more. My next lover, who succeeded to the first rather too soon in the opinion of some people, was a medical man, and for a marriage with him a reluctant consent was obtained from my father; but before matters could be arranged, it was found that his business did not answer, and he departed. Another succeeded to the business, and also to my affections, and a third reluctant consent was extorted; but when the young gentleman found that the report of my father's wealth had been exaggerated, he departed also; and in time I grew accustomed to these disappointments, and bore them better than I expected. I might perhaps have had a husband, if I could have lived without a lover."

So ended their sad stories; and after tea we walked into the garden. It was a small garden, with four sides and a circular centre, so small, that as we walked round we were like the names in a round robin, it was difficult to say which was first. I shook hands with them at parting, gently, for fear of hurting them, for their fingers were long, cold, and fleshless.--The next time I travelled that way they were all in their graves, and not much colder than when I saw them at the cottage.

ODE TO AN INDIAN GOLD COIN.

WRITTEN IN CHERICAL, MALABAR.

SLAVE of the dark and dirty mine!

What vanity has brought thee here ?

How can I love to see thee shine

So bright, whom I have bought so dear?
The tent-ropes flapping lone I hear,
For twilight-converse, arm in arm ;

The jackal's shriek bursts on mine ear
When mirth and music wont to charm.

By Cherical's dark wandering streams,
Where cane-tufts shadow all the wild,
Sweet visions haunt my waking dreams
Of Teviot loved while still a child,
Of castle rocks stupendous piled
By Esk or Eden's classic wave,

Where loves of youth and friendships smiled,
Uncursed by thee, vile yellow slave!

Fade, day-dreams sweet, from memory fade!
The perish'd bliss of youth's first prime,
That once so bright on fancy play'd,

Revives no more in after-time.

Far from my sacred natal clime,

I haste to an untimely grave;

The daring thoughts that soar'd sublime Are sunk in ocean's southern wave.

THE MISERS OF ANTWERP.*

THE story and fate of the two misers of Antwerp are now nearly forgotten; a tradition rather than a true history. Even the celebrated picture which represents these men tells no more of their story than a sign-post does respecting the country it designs; but like this it is a good starting-post. From curiosity respecting this picture, I have been enabled to make out the following particulars of their lives and subsequent fate. If less appaling than the wholesale butcheries of modern times, it was once considered a tale of fearful interest.

It was in a narrow street turning out of the Rue de la Mer, that a house had remained untenanted for many years, from a reputation it had very generally acquired of being haunted. Ill-fame had done its worst upon the building, and had exorcised all good and cheerful spirits from the building: its many stories of broken windows, with their high gable ends, alone attesting it had once been of some importance. About the period of the commencement of our story, it again received inmates, but of a nature perfectly suited to its present gloomy appearance. Two old men were allowed to occupy an unfurnished apartment and its adjoining closet. Some compassionate neighbours bestowed a straw mattress and a little covering, pitying, perhaps, the ill-sorted union of old age and beggary; this, together with a small stove, a saucepan, a lamp, two chairs, soon despoiled of their backs to convert into fuel, a deal table, a large wooden trunk, and small iron chest, were all these new comers added for the comfort of their home.

The habits of these men, abiding in a house supposed to be haunted, strangers too in the good town of Antwerp, occasioned for a while much curious remark and observation; but even the active principle of curiosity will die of inanition; and their unvarying daily history at length silenced and baffled suspicion. In the course of time the very oddity that had occasioned remark seemed natural and appropriate. It was not known by what train of circumstances, and their corresponding action on the mind, these two brothers-for such was the legal as well as characteristic relationship between them-had adopted the gentlemanly vice of avarice; or if from early youth it had been their natural tendency, moulded into character by the thousand accidents that fashion men's minds. In the town of Antwerp they were never otherwise known than as men of penurious habits, about whom there hung some mystery, by many supposed to be the mystery of wealth.

From "The Keepsake," 1833.

However this might be, one brother alternately remained at home, whilst the other bent his way to the bridge that used to cross the Rue de la Mer when a canal ran through it-on this bridge to post himself indifferently in the summer or more inclement seasons, to ask alms from every decent passenger, plying a thankless trade from break of day until the waters reflected dimly the decaying light.

The appearance of these two misers,—though wretched in the extreme, half clothed and fed, the hungry look of their tribe upon them, the compressed and indrawn life, the clutching grasp of the long, lean, withered hand closing on every cent with all the strength left in the attenuated body,-had nevertheless in it an air of decayed gentility, which, despite the offensive whine of mendicity, induced most passengers to drop a little solid charity into the eager palm of either beggar-I say their appearance, for in the gaunt famine-struck form, in features, voice, even in the pace of person, one could not be identified apart from the other, save after close and minute observation.

It might have been a curious spectacle to have watched these two wretched old men after the entrance of him who had been plying his productive trade upon the bridge; the quiet grim smile with which he counted his day's gain into the other's hand; the mutual satisfaction with which it was added to the contents of the wooden trunk already so weighty with copper coin, that no single man could raise it. Then would they silently sit down to the supper which he at home had prepared, Stale fish, the refuse of some neighbour's dinner; or, as a luxury on fete days, a boiled morsel of half-dried pork, of which they previously devoured the fat and fragrant soup, formed the materials of this repast. With such dainty fare, their equanimity of temper was unlikely to be disturbed by the intrusion of visitors; nor were they ever known to ask a neighbour into their room. It was a curious fact, that even a hungry dog never whined to them for food; it would seem the wretched curs were disciples of Lavater, that they looked in the pinched faces of the brothers, and felt an appeal to their compassion would be vain. Their affection for each other, which appeared their strongest feeling after their love of hoarding money, was not unmingled with suspicion, for each never failed to count their valueless treasure after the other. After supper, however, came their hour of delight; then were the cold and pain and tauntings of the day forgotten; then did the bitter revilings of those without charity seem music to their very souls; a genial heat warmed the lagging blood in their shrunk veins; the triumph, not less delicious because untold, was theirs. A turbaned monarch of a land of slaves has less his soul's desire gratified, than our two humble, despised, and solitary men, when, after renewed examination of the well-secured

door and windows, first by one and then another pair of peering grey eyes, the coffer before mentioned was placed on the table. Then with their stools touching each other in exquisitely delicious approximation, the iron box was opened, and the misers began to count their gold; the feeble glimmer of an ill-fed lamp lighting a board spread with golden treasure.

Curiosity had wholly died away respecting these men, when new food was given to the gossips of the neighbourhood by the sudden introduction of a beautiful high-spirited girl, the newly acknowledged daughter of the younger of the misers. Of all the possible additions to this confined family circle, none could seem so utterly inappropriate. It appeared from the unwary prattle of the girl to the neighbours that she had been placed at school from her earliest recollections by an old childless lady, whose companion her mother had been, who had died in giving her birth. Whatever, in other respects, the conduct of her father, it was known after the old lady's death, that at least he had so far acted honourably as to have made the young woman his wife. The property of her benefactress died with her; and thus the child of her adoption became, from a free, gay, petted girl, delighting in the sunshiny air, the inmate of a dwelling far more gloomy than a cloister, for there the mind may make its own creations of delight; whereas the moral gloom that invests the covetous and niggardly mind poisons every healthful spring of existence, nor fails to exercise its pestilential and restrictive power over the brightest natures subject to its influence.

At first the young girl wept and prayed, entreated with soft, childish pleadings, and then stamped with passion, haughtily demanding as a right, sufficient food and clothing, and free egress, in lieu of wretched fare and rags, and unwholesome confinement; but when she found that neither passionate nor gentle sorrow moved either father or uncle to the slightest variation of expression in speech or feature, a sort of numbness fell upon her mind. A “go to, child, you cost enough already, you are no offspring of mine to love such wanton waste, but you will learn better;" then a feeble falling back upon his seat, and a murmur, was all the reply she usually received. “Why did the old fool die, to send this plague upon me in mine old age," was the most sensible impression Rebecca ever contrived to make. Finding that her own more ductile and youthful mind must bend or break against the stony coffer of a miser's heart, the girl suddenly seemed to change her character; and from haughty sullenness and violent reproaches, to sink into no ungentle if enforced acquiescence. Famished with hunger, she at length learned to partake of their distasteful meal, and sought on every occasion to exert the wisdom of the weak against the strong. The contest might in the end