Literary Cadet And Rhode Island Statesman

MISCELLANY.

[From the Bower of Taste.]

"LOVE IN A MIST."

It was a beautiful night. The misty garniture of twilight had subsided from heaven—the stars flashed with their own peculiar wavy brightness—and the swelling silver moon went with an imperial majesty among the constellations.

Come, Stanley—will you walk this evening?—There is a beautiful retreat on the hill there, d'ye see—green trees, and bushes—all very green, and peculiarly apropos, for a melancholy—Come, I say.

I will, George, replied Stanley, hesitatingly, 'ay, I'll go, since you desire it. I am melancholy—very—very sad, in-indeed,' said he—'Do you know why?'

'No—if I do, I'll be...hung.'

At this moment they had gained the summit of the hill, and they both stood as it were entranced, by the silent, deep magnificence of nature sleeping.

Look?' said Stanley with enthusiasm, 'away there, where the moon is filling the wilderness with bright spirits! and the lake between the hills—it is learning to be like heaven, with its still blue bo-som—its mimic moon, and stars!—and these dewdrops, clinging, trembling and shining on the bent grass, what are they? tears, tears, that fell from invisible spir-its over the funeral of the sun.'

'Hold, for mercy's sake!' said George. 'I have forgotten to bring my dictionary —and,' added he, in a melancholy tone, 'I consented to come here only to have a little conversation, and say—farewell'

'Ah! what now? anything new, George? Tell us.'

'My reasons are not entirely new; yet the confirmation I have recently receiv-ed of old suspicions, is of such a nature as compels me to withdraw my friendship and society from Mr. Stanley. I shall go to the south, in a few days.'

'What do you mean? Are you seri-ous?—Do you talk calmly of parting?– Shall we, who have been over the ocean and the great universe, knit firmly to-gether by the cords of friendship and affection, talk coolly now of separation?'

'I am not capricious, Stanley—you know I am not; nor would I lightly read the sunny bonds of friendship, leaving unlovely darkness; yet you are constant-ly destroying my happiness—perhaps un-wittingly—but it is so. Do you know Helen Gray?'

Helen Gray! Do you know her, George? Tell me!' said Stanley, seiz-ing the hand of George, and looking into his face with a terrible expression of countenance.

Ay, Stanley—I know her—I thought I knew her ten years since; but she is deceitful—I know her now! She once promised to be mine or Death's—and before we went together, she gave me a miniature of herself—did you not know it?—here it is—heaven, how beau-tiful! methinks I could love her even now, false as she is! I did not speak of my affection for her, even to my dearest friends, for it was very holy'

At this moment, young Stanley, whose life itself rested on the thought of Hel-en's love, seemed to be overcome by strangely painful emotions, and sunk in a state of insensibility upon the ground.

George, alarmed, and forgetful of his own sorrows, hastened to the assistance of his friend; and bringing some water from a spring that gurgled musically down the rocks, he sprinkled his features, and was soon cheered by returning ani-mation.

Yet all was not right within—he did not wake, as he had been wont, to the embraces of friendship, or from a dream of love—there was darkness in his bo-som—and in his brain—and the distant unfeeling moon pained his eyes, as he raised them to look on George.— At this instant, the moonbeams flashed on the crystal of a miniature which hung un cov-ered on his breast—and which he had before observed. George begged to look at it—he looked, but made no re-mark—the light was indistinct—and as Stanley was out of danger, he turned away, and hiding his face in his hands sat down upon a stone in deep reflection.

Starting at length from his reflection, he exclaimed, as if it were possible that he might be mistaken—

'Stanley—that miniature—is it of Hel-en—did she give it you? I could not see.'

'Ay, 'twas but a short time since.— And, by heaven, ''tis strange!' she can-not be so deceitful as to love you—it is mere friendship, George, not love, that she feels for you—(the wild unearthly laugh of George half interrupted him)— she told me that she had seen you, and told me so too, when my suspicions were all awake—after I had heard of your at-tachment—yet I could discover no agi-tation—nay, her sweet voice was calm and unbroken as the breathings of inno-cence: and think ye I could be deceived at such a time—and she renewed her promises of affection.—'This night,' continued he, 'I saw her in greater love-lieness than

'Ha! this night?' cried George in as-tonishment.

''This night—she was hovering like a beautiful spirit around the bed of sick-ness—ministering life in every smile— and obedient even to the unspoken wish of her beloved mother—and then me-thought there was a voiceless language by which pure spirits held unheard com-munion.'

"Was it this night? It is only two days since she wrote me from the Springs -there is some blessed mystery in this- that miniature, Stanley, let's see it, will you?"

"Here," said Stanley, taking the prec-ious image from his bosom, and reach-ing it to George with a trembling hand.

George compared it with the one in his possession, and dropping them both, exclaimed—

"Thank heaven! it is not her—where is she—your angel? does not she re-side in town?"

"Yes—what is it?—not her? I knew it could not be!

Indeed it was not her—by a singular coincidence, they had ignorantly loved girls of the same name
It also ap-peared that the girls were cousins, and Helen Grey, from whom George had a letter dated at the Springs, had but a few weeks before passed through the village, without the knowledge of Stan-ley, and had visited her cousin, and that George had been seen walking with her—which gave rise to the unlucky ru-mour.

Truth, however, as a rising sun, dis-solved the "Mist," and they separated, with greater love for each other, and for those better portions of mortality, from whom they had been so nearly broken.

Nile.