purchase, is immediately magnified by Perhaps you into a useless luxury. you'd like me to go without shoes, Mr. Macsimum? I might save you a little money in that way."

"Chut! chut! Mrs. Macsimum, let us have no quarrelling. This misfortune cannot be helped. It is one of the chances of trade, and we must bear it. To-morrow, at twelve o'clock, our paper will be protested, and all the street will know it. Until then, let us put the best face on matters; and at this ball to night, be careful not to betray yourself. For there is always a chance of retrieving as long as the affair is secret."

"I could cry if it were not for this ball," said Mrs. Macsimum, with an intonation and compression of the lips that would seem rather to indicate that she could scratch. But a servant announcing the arrival of Cremollino the hairdresser, she controlled her feelings. Her husband was excluded, and in a few moments a pair of fat Italian hands were twisting and crisping her hair into the intricate labyrinths prescribed by fashion.

"Larami must have had some intelligence of this," murmured Mrs. Macsimum; or she would never have been so insolent."

TEMPTATION.

THE earliest guest that was whistled in, that evening, through Mrs. Macsimum's magnificent portals in Fifth Avenue, was Mr. Sillery Payne.

"Be civil to him, my dear," whispered Mr. Macsimum to his wife, as he heard the name announced, "he is one of our chief creditors."

Mr. Sillery Payne was a New York celebrity. Rich, travelled, sufficiently handsome, with a low, sweet voice, and a hand and foot of marvellous smallness. He had gone through all the phases of an American who had been born wealthy. Had gambled, gone abroad, fought a duel in Paris, got imprisoned in Austria, "presented" in London, and finally returned with an accomplished Italian valet, and an astounding reputation for bonnes fortunes.

In a few moments after his arrival, he was seen gliding up the spacious drawing room to the small boudoir in which Mrs. Macsimum received, and where she sat in all the glory of the apricot silk and Indian scarf, with an uneasy smile

fastened as it were to her lips, and the unreal bloom of rouge reddening her cheeks.

"I got your message. Thanks!" whispered Mr. Sillery Payne, sandwiching the sentence between a couple of audible compliments. "How charmingly your rooms look to-night, Mrs. Macsimum !"

"The flowers are pretty I think,” replied the lady, assuming a pretty air of total unconsciousness of the whisper.

They would be if their queen were not present," said Mr. Sillery Payne, with so dévoué an air that the stupid commonplace was immediately elevated into a compliment.

“Mr. Payne, I forbid compliments for this evening, and shall banish all who transgress the edict," and a juvenile threatening with her fan accompaned Mrs. Macsimum's prohibition.

“The sun might as well compel the flower to remain closed in daytime. Compliments are the incense which the divinity of beauty forces from us.”

"You have disobeyed my edict. You know the punishment. Go!"

"Well, as I see a whole tribe of invited ones flocking in to pay their compliments to you, I will accept my exile with a good grace. For I would rather be away from you altogether, than be in your presence and not be able to talk to you without restraint."

"Flatterer, get thee behind me!"

"Meet me in an hour in the winter garden;" and without waiting for an answer, Mr. Sillery Payne with a careless bow turned upon his heel and sauntered off to quiz the ugly Miss Rhinebeck who was occupying a huge sofa in profound solitude.

"By the way," said Mr. Sillery Payne, as, an hour afterwards, he and Mrs. Macsimum were slowly walking arm in arm in the huge winter garden that opened into the ball-room. "By the way, I see my friend Madame Larami sitting in the hall. What part is she to play in the night's entertainments ?"

Mrs. Macsimum bit her lips. This had been what she dreaded all the evening. Larami had vowed not to quit the house until Mrs. Macsimum had given her the sum she required, and was sitting patiently in the hall waiting until some one interrogated her, when it was as likely as not that she would burst out with an exposé of the entire business. Mrs. Macsimum, however, summoned up courage, and replied in an off-hand manner.

Really, Mr. Payne, I don't know what to think; this offer is so strangeyet if it were sincere, I think "

"It is, it is, sincere! You know not, you can never know, how I have yearned for this hour. With what crazed longings I have waited for the chance that was to enable me to assume the hallowed position of your friend. It may seem cruel, but I cannot help feeling rejoiced at this little annoyance of yours, since it gives me the opportunity of hastening to your assistance. It is the selfishness of love!"

“Mr. Payne, I must not listen to this. My husband".

"Your husband! Excuse me, dear Mrs. Macsimum; but do you think that your husband is capable of understanding you? Can he comprehend that sublime, yet tender nature, in which a living well of affection is inclosed, and which requires only the touch of the inspired hand to flow out in a glorious stream? Oh! no, dear friend. nature is one that can never match with yours!"

His

This bombast, uttered, as it was, in the most melodious of voices, and accompanied by pressures of the hand and tender and eloquent glances, seemed to Mrs. Macsimum,-whose judgment in such matters was regulated by Indiana and the Mysteries of Paris-the very acine of impassioned pleading. In spite of the old theory of boarding-school misses, women of thirty are far more apt to be carried away by a bit of romance than the bread-and-butterest of young girls. It is their last chance, and they make the most of it. Mrs. Macsimum, therefore, could not long resist such flattering eloquence, and soon bestowed on Mr. Sillery Payne that confidence for which,

according to his own account, he would sacrifice so much. She told him how this bill of Larami's was hanging like the sword of Damocles over her head. How that pertinacious milliner was determined to have the money or expose her: and how she dared not ask her husband for so large an amount, because--because (here she stammered a little) he had been so very liberal to her lately.

"Now, my dear Aurelia," said Mr. Sillery Payne, taking her hand at the same moment that he assumed the prerogative of calling her by her first name,

my dear Aurelia, there is one little fact connected with this business which you have omitted to mention. I do not, however, need any information on the subject. I am in full possession of all the particulars. Mr. Macsimum's paper will be protested to-morrow. I see you know it already-well, you now see how impossible it is for him to assist you."

"It is! it is!" cried Mrs. Macsimum, utterly humiliated, and trying hard to prevent her tears from streaking her cheeks, "I see it all, and am a miserable woman!"

"As to this little affair of Larami's, dear Aurelia-Eh! what's that?" and he started, as something rustled through an alley of huge kalmias.

"Oh! it's the pet Lory, I suppose; he sleeps here every night.'

"Ah, indeed!" ejaculated Mr. Payne, much relieved, "about this affair of Larami's," he continued, "nothing is simpler. I will just go into that small room there, and write a cheque, which I will hand her in your presence. As for your husband's failure, I, being chief creditor, can lessen the weight of the blow considerably; nay, I can save him, and I will, Aurelia, if you will only consent to call me friend. Now, try once."

'My friend," murmured Mrs. Macsimum, leaning upon his shoulder. "Thanks, dear Aurelia! Now let me go and appease this infuriated milliner."

As they stepped from the dusky conservatory into the small study which opened off one end, a gen 'eman, seated at a table writing, met their view. He turned, on hearing their footsteps, and they recognized Mr. Macsimum.

"Ah! is that you, Payne?" he cried, smiling pleasantly, "you catch me doing a little business on the sly. Well, well, I'll have done with it for to-night, for I can see you want a tête-à-tête with my wife." So saying, he gathered up a couple of slips of paper on which he had

been writing, and with a sort of quizzical adieu, left the room.

"Happy mortal!" sighed Sillery Payne, as he wrote a cheque for the amount of Larami's bill; "he "he is not suspicious."

"He has never had cause," said Mrs. Macsimum, indignantly-then, recollecting herself, she colored violently, and cracked one of the delicate vanes of her fan.

Sillery smiled.

"Now, Aurelia," said he, “let us go and see Larami."

"Pardon me, Mr. Sillery Payne," said Mr. Macsimum, presenting himself smilingly at the door, just as that gentleman was about to emerge with the enchanting Aurelia on his arm. "Pardon me,

Mr. Sillery Payne, you may spare yourself the trouble. I have just had an interview with that amiable modiste."

Mrs. Macsimum shrieked, and gliding to the nearest sofa, disposed herself in the most approved comatose attitude. Mr. Sillery Payne fiddled with his breloques, while an air of unpleasant silliness, commencing at his boots, began to spread itself gradually over his entire figure.

"I am immensely indebted to you, Mr. Payne, for the interest that you take in my wife's affairs, and would be only too happy that she should avail herself of your liberal offers, if there was any longer a necessity for it. Thanks to some conversation which I happened to overhear in the conservatory".

A renewed shriek from Mrs. Macsimum on the sofa, and sudden assumption of a more striking pose.

"Which I happened to overhear," continued Mr. Macsimum, entirely oblivious of his spouse's efforts to obtain sympathy-"and was consequently enabled to be beforehand. Madame Larami, Mr. Sillery Payne, I have the honor to inform you, has just been paid in full."

"I am happy to hear, Mr. Macsimum," answered Mr. Payne, with sarcastic emphasis, "that your affairs are in so flourishing a condition. I trust that they will remain so until after to-morrow."

"When I drew that check, Mr. Payne, to pay for my wife's follies, it was the last money that I had in the bank. I gave it willingly, sir, because I preferred being a pauper myself, to my wife being a beggar. As I went to the door, sir, a telegraphic dispatch from Boston met me, which alters the face of my affairs considerably; and if Mr. Sillery Payne will present those claims on the firm of Macsimum & Bullrush, which he holds, to-morrow at twelve o'clock, he will find little traces of insolvency in their bank account."

At this juncture, Mrs. Macsimum seemed to be restored suddenly to animation. She forsook her elegant attitude, and came over timidly, but with an air of penitence, whether honest or not I dare not speculate, to where her husband stood.

George," she said, in a low voice, "you have read me a lesson. Will you complete your nobleness by forgiving me?" My dear," answered her husband, "I have too much to blame myself for, not to be lenient to others. You may learn one thing, however, Aurelia, that Madame Larami is a dangerous woman to hold any power over you. She has been known," and he fixed his eyes upon Mr. Sillery Payne, "to be in the pay of certain fashionable gentlemen for the worst purposes."

There!

"I see I see it all now," murmured Mrs. Macsimum, hiding her burning cheek upon her husband's shoulder. "Hush! think no more of it. are you not engaged to Mr. Payne for this dance? Mr. Payne! my wife clai:as your hand, and may I pray that this conjugal exhibition may be no bar to that friendship which you so feelingly solicited."

Mr. Sillery Payne bit his lip and bowed. With an inward curse, he took Mrs. Macsimum's hand, and was soon whirling her off in a waltz; but it was observed by the guests that they did not dance together again that evening.

By a singular coincidence, the same moment saved Mr. Macsimum's credit and his wife's reputation.

VOL. IV.—43

LITERATURE.

AMERICAN.-Is the taste for metaphysical studies on the increase in the United States, or is it simply accidental, that three new works on Intellectual Philosophy make their appearance on nearly the same day? President MAHAN, of Cleveland College, President WAYLAND, of Brown University, and Dr. HICKOCK, of Union College, have all favored us with their views of the แ "Science of the Mind," within a few weeks. Mahan's book is the most thorough of the three, treating of the entire phenomena of mind, empirical and rational; while Dr. Hickock's is confined to the empirical branch, and Dr. Wayland's gives only elementary views. The latter makes the least pretension to originality and depth, and the former the most; but Dr. Hickock is superior to either in real elevation and consistency of thought. President Wayland adopts, for the most part, the peculiar tenets of the Scottish school of metaphysicians; Dr. Hickock, those mainly of the Kantians; and Mahan combines the two into a kind conscinian eclecticism. It is thus curious to see three of the most distinguished teachers, in three of our leading seminaries, coming to quite different conclusions in respect to the principles of what they still call " science."

a

President Mahan divides the intellectual faculties into primary and secondary-the primary being sense, consciousness, and reason, whose functions are intuitional; and the secondary being the understanding, judgment, association, memory, imagination, &c. President Wayland divides them into the perceptive faculties, consciousness, original suggestion, abstraction, memory, reasoning, imagination, and taste. Hickock has still another arrangement, which is that of sense, understanding, and reason. There is here a considerable difference of classification, but it is increased when they come to speak of the functions assigned to these supposed faculties.

Dr.

The great stumbling-blocks of all the metaphysicians are those conceptions which are sometimes called necessary ideas, such as the thought of space, time, cause, substance, infinity, &c., &c. They are greatly more puzzled as to how

these get into the mind than George the Third was as to how the apples got into the dumplings. Some suppose space and time, for instance, to be mere conditions of the sensibility, mere forms which are necessary to render the perception of the external world possible; others regard them as laws of the understanding, or, in other words, as necessary categories of the notion-forming power; while others, again, speak of them as conceptions of the reason. Dr. Wayland adopts a new name entirely for the faculty in which they originate, calling it "original suggestion," which is a good name for his thought, if not for the assumed faculty. The idea of time and space is thus put through a series of transformations from nothing at all up to an absolute, eternal, and necessary existence; and a skilful analyser may prove one view of it just as well as another. In fact, this is true of nearly all the controversies of the metaphysicians, that you can successfully demonstrate and refute all sides alike, while it makes very little difference to any practical interest, whether the one or the other is held. They resemble the disputes of the schoolmen as to what number of angels could dance upon the point of a needle, and, whether determined upon this side or that, are equally interesting and important. It may be an object of consequence to determine whether a ghost sees out of his eyes or without eyes, but the great majority of men do not care the snap of a finger whether it does or not.

The truth is, that the greater part of these metaphysical speculations are utterly empty and worthless abstractions, and have no other effect than to waste the interest of those who are engaged in them, and delay the advent of true science. They are an attempt on the part of men to breathe in vacuo-to subsist and move about in a space where there is nothing to subsist upon-and the sooner, then, they are drummed out of the domain of study, the better for the world. As it is impossible for man to conceive of any object, except as subsisting in some form, the sooner these schemes of pure thought, and these researches into things in themselves are banished, the sooner we shall get relieved of the chimeras and gorgons of the void inane.