Mabel, Vol. II (of 3)

he knew no

ily path; and dutie

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part of the evening tête-à-tête, might have shown a less prejudiced judge, that he was too accustomed to beauty, grace, and a

all its thousand associations of comfort and tranquillity were not indifferent to him, and he was not sorry to find a gayer welcome than the lonely halls of his own beautiful Aston might have offered him. His sleeping apartment had been arranged with a care that made it seem luxurious after the cabin fare to which he had lately been accustomed, and he paid more attention to the trifles which surrounded him than he had ever before done, for of such trifles he, for the first time, perceived the importance, since all combined gave a feeling of homely comfort which he felt he had scarcely missed till now, when once more in the enjoyment of it. Opening

s upon its flickering and varying light, but as he did so, his countenance soon lost the air of courteous pl

tion of Clair, were both true; and yet a few words more of

eign travel is calculated to give. In this he was fully successful. A short residence in the gayest city in Europe, so called forth young Hargrave's natural refinement of taste, that few could find fault with the manners of the finished gentleman whom Paris sent back from its school. But in Paris he had been thrown with those of professed Infidel principles-and amongst them he found men of superior talent and great intellect, who, while they extorted his own secret admiration, rendered him a homage to his youthful talent of the most flattering kind. By them

after period of their life, had to mourn such infidelity, though, for a time only; and had Hargrave resorted to the simple means used by his old tenant, whom his thoughtless words had led astray, he, like old Giles, might have been restored to comfort-but he only rushed deeper and deeper into argument, and the more confirmed in error-he, at

the years of infancy and youth? Despair not, fond mothers-"cast thy bread upon the wat

"should be able to affirm that he had abandoned his religion because too weak to obey its laws." His friends, therefore, left off their jests and boasted that no professor of revealed religion could be a better moralist, or a more virtuous man. But such virtue must ever be but an unst

ay, events induced him to leave his native country, and entering the Indian army, he sought employment for his restless energies on the b

had been to build the fabric even of human and short lived earthly happiness, on so weak and failing a foundation as his own unassisted virtue. For, to his heart, common joys had been tainted. The sabbath chaunt had brought no melody to his ear, reminding him of the rest which its Maker had hallowed. "The gentle flowers that stooping o'