own heart I was forced to conceal my agony, for it would have been unmaidenly to confess that I loved one who had never solicited my affections. That six months of agony I would not ask even for an enemy, if one I have ! But I outlived it. I was proud, and I would have died with my secret, if on words only had depended its revelation. But my friends saw the truth in my hollow cheek and sunken eye. Yet they said nothing. At length Mr. Gordon, whom I had once refused, sought my hand again. I had no heart to give him it is true, but I yielded to the solicitations of my friends and married him. Of that step I never repented. From the moment when I promised at the altar to be his, I felt it had become my duty to love him alone, and I resolutely discarded from my heart every feeling at variance with my vow. I looked to God, and he enabled me to go through with the work. Do not flatter yourself with the common belief that a first love is never eradicated-the assertion is true only where the object of that love remains pure in the eyes of the lover. Years have passed since I learned to look on you only as on the rest of your sex-yes more, as one whom I never could love. You had trified with, and betrayed me I could no more confide in your truth. You were not the being my young fancy had painted. And now, Henry Alford , I tell you with as much calmness as I would tell the veriest stranger, that you are nothing to me.
"I will not deny that I might have repelled you at once when you sought again my society. I am no coquette, but I felt it due to my sex to treat you according to the rule on which you have always acted toward us. It was a mere flirtation, perhaps, on your part: I was not bound to suppose you serious until you spoke your love in words. Besides it would have sounded well abroad, that the widow Gordon had refused Mr. Alford before he had proposed-people would, one and all, have sneered at her as a vain, foolish woman. But mark me, I was not blind to the fact that you loved me. You may even regret the past. But for this I care nothing. Think not either that I love another. No other motive dictates my refusal than your conduct to me eight years ago. And now go, Henry Alford, and remember, when you hear or think of me, that I feel no more emotion at your name than I would at that of a stranger." Paralyzed, and confounded, a prey to conflicting emotions of mortification and baffled love, Alford sat, during these words, unable to articulate a syllable. And when, at their conclusion, Mrs. Gordon coldly rose, to intimate that the interview was over, he rose too, and mechanically taking his hat, bowed and left the room. He felt, both from the language and manner of the widow, that expostulation was vain.
That lesson was not lost on Alford. But he never married. Why, our readers, perhaps, can tell. Mrs. Gordon a year afterward was united to a gentleman every way worthy of her, and whom she had learnt fervently to love ere she surrendered to him her hand. Such is the history of but one out of hundreds of a class. Reader ! have you never met a MALE FLIRT?
TO MY SISTER . BY S. D. ANDERSON. SISTER, I've roved in other climes, Have crossed the heaving sea, Have heard Italia's vesper chimes Float o'er the starlit lea ; Have stood upon Rome's proudest height When scarce the night-breeze stirs, And trod by evening's palest light Amid her sepulchres. Have wandered o'er the classic plains Of Greece, land of the free, Oh ! cursed with worse than despot's chains, No hope remains for thee; No hope, yes look on Marathon, Sons of the chainless brave ! Again will rise fair freedom's sun From out thy father's grave. And I have stood upon the hills Of vine-clad, sunny France, Have listened to her murmuring rills, And joined the merry dance ; Have heard her music ' neath the skies So cloudless, and so bright, And gazed upon her maiden's eyes That matched them in their light. Oft have I joined the giddy throng Within the halls of pride, And yielding to the tempter's song, Have bowed me to the tide ; Have taught my tongue the idle praise That worldings love to hear, Unmoved to meet the passing gaze, Alike the smile or tear.
But still amid each scene of mirth Thy name has been to me A bright spot on the dreary earth, A star in memory ; Something to which my thoughts could cling, A pure unwavering flame, Like rose-buds in the early spring Has been my Sister's name.
