A history somewhat similar to the above, is re- glove, for it was white once, some withered flowlated of a young Creole, residing many years ago in ers, a MS. poem! Yes, he was a poet—that a select establishment for young ladies, in the neigh- proud and aged man, or would have been, had not borhood of London. Ayesha was what is called a the fountain of song been too soon turned into bitparlor-boarder; and being considerably older than terness and scorn. Next came a tress of hairmost of the girls, and proud and reserved in her the same bright hair whose silken folds he had so manners, could not boast of a single friend or confi- often twined around his fingers in happier daysdant in the whole school, nor did this seem to and now, unbidden, and like “ sea-birds,” as dear afford her the slightest uneasiness. She was evi- Christopher North calls them, “ that come unexdently happiest when alone; and none loved or pectedly floating up from some inland vale," a tide cared for her sufficiently to seek, or interrupt her of past recollections swept across the old man's in her solitary meditations. Ayesha was as heart, until he bowed down his stern head, and thoughtless and extravagant as she was rich; and wept like a child. A blessing upon those white #o generous, that if one of her school-fellows only sea-birds of memory! touching the floodgates of happened to admire any trinket, however valuable, bygone thoughts and feelings with their gentle she would take it off directly, and insist upon her wings, and nestling and brooding over the worldkeeping it. But still, for all her riches and her wearied soul, until it grows calm and peaceful bewarm, generous heart, she was not beloved ; some- neath their soothing influence. thing more than this is needful for affection.

A young girl siis alone, with a pale cheek and Returning home from church one dark, winter flashing eyes, holding in her trembling hands a night, Ayesha lost a small gold bracelet, which she tress of black, shining hair-her own! but which always wore. The most diligent inquiries were she never thought to have received again thus. made after it without success, while the girl, who What a tale of heart-withering misery does such a cared so little in general for these things, became scene present! and we fear it is far from being an strangely restless and unhappy, offering a reward uncommon one. How well does she recollect when which must have been double the value of the he half begged, half stole it from her, with many a lost jewel, to whoever could find and restore it to fond caressing word and earnest vow! And how her.

she would have staked her very life at that moment After the lapse of a few days it was brought back upon his fidelity, as she had already done her hapby a poor old woman, upon whom Ayesha not only piness! They had just heard of the estrangement cheerfully bestowed the promised reward, but gave of some mutual friends, and wondered together. It her a thousand thanks and blessings beside. And seemed impossible for those who loved one another when the woman was gone, she sat down and burst ever to quarrel. Alas! for the hour when we first into a flood of passionate weepingo; while the girls wake up from this sweet dream, and see the dark gathered round her in silent wonder and commisera- summer-cloud gathering over the sunshine of an tion. It seemed so strange for her to weep whom affection that had withstood so many trials, and we they had thought so cold and proud. Ai length fondly thought would never fail us. Well, if that one of the teachers remarked, that the bracelet did cloud pass away in showers of weeping only; but not appear to be so very valuable after all.

far oftener it deepens into a tempest of fierce wrath, "To me,” said Ayesha," it is above all price!" whose angry waters make shipwreck of our peace And turning it half round, her companions saw that for evermore! A word, perhaps, might have althere was hair in it; and some among them ceased layed its fury One drop of the oil of human kindto wonder.

ness flung upon the raging billows of passion-but A few days afterwards Ayesha's parents came to we are too proud to utter it—and repenting only fetch her home, and her school-fellows noticed to when it is too late, sit down amid the ruins and one another that the hair could not have been pray to die! theirs, which was black instead of light. Whose No one who saw that young girl a few years afit was, and why so cherished by that silent and terwards would ever have imagined the tress of lonely girl above all her other treasures, is a mys- raven hair to be hers, which had turned since then tory which has never been solved to this day. Hu- into a silvery grey; or, but for the pale cheek and man life is full of such romances; and stranger, far withered form, suspected the dreary weight of woe stranger oftentimes than fiction.

so long and smilingly endured, for she was too Hair-love is equally for the rich and the poor. proud to complain. They pitied her when her The relic may be gorgeously set, but in that case it heart broke at length; they should rather have rehallows the gold, and not the gold it; and is not a joiced !, whit more precious in the jewelled casket, than The absent daughter, married and far away, simply tied with a faded end of riband. A love sends home a tiny curl in a letter—it is that of her token which all may exchange Flowers wither; first-born! 6. The softest, silkiest, brightest hair, miniatures, however like, are but a resemblance. she verily believes, in all the world! And its dear But this is a part, as it were, of the beloved one! little head is quite covered with it, like so many An actual and living relic, speaking to the heart rings of gold. Ah, if they could but see it! with a strange power; and recalling many a sweet Why, it seems but yesterday she was a child herbygone hour of a happiness which we felt even self, the merriest of the household band—the most then must be too great to last.

mischief-loving, provoking, and yet fascinating The old man turns over the hoards of his youth. being one can well imagine. Threats and reproof There is a cold, mocking smile on his thin, com- were alike thrown away upon her; but a fond word pressed lip. His brow is wrinkled and contracted, would bring her to her mother's side in a moment, his eyes stern and deep-sunken ; and, worse than all penitence and humility, although, ten to one, the all, his heart has become seared and hardened. next she was as wild as ever. But she became Merrily leap up the devouring flames on that com- grave all of a sudden, married, and took to housefortless and lonely hearth, as he flings into them, keeping by instinct as it were, for she could have one by one, the records of past days. A pocket- had but little previous experience in these matters ; wuok, a purse, delicately embroidered, a white kid I but love makes us apt scholars, and became a very

a

pattern wife and mother. We need not say how | long again in her agitation as there was any need that tiny curl will be kept and prized by the happy to wind it up, while her partner's whispered grandmother, who wept for joy as she remembered praises only served to increase her embarrassment. all this. Mindful, at the same time, with the sad Helen knew that she had beautiful hair ; she had experience which is the heritage of old age, of been told of it a thousand times; but it was somethe precariousness of all human felicity, and how thing, quite strange to hear that she herself was many as bright a bud of fair promise as that also beautiful—at least in his eyes, who poured golden-haired child were now among the angels of forth all this sweet flattery, and if so, she cared for no heaven!

other admiration in all the world. But she would The young soldier, perishing on the field of glo- not tell him this ; but only laughed and shook her ry, prays with his dying breath that a lock of his head, declaring that she did not believe one word hair may be cut off and sent in remembrance of him of all those pretty speeches—but her blushes beto his mother and his poor Mary. And when it trayed her. reaches them, having travelled perhaps hundreds The following morning the young Count de of miles, how sacred and holy is such a relic! We V- called to ask her of her mother for his can fancy the aged mother's tears and kisses, and bride; and the news soon spread over the country “his Mary” laying it on her heart, and never be that the gentle Helen W- was engaged to be ing known to smile again on earth, although she married to him in the spring, after which event continues meek and patient to the last. The death they were still to reside, for the present at least, of a beloved object seldom fails to sanctify and at the old hall; which was good tidings for the make us better—to wean us gently from earth to poor, who loved her dearly, and would have been heaven; such, at least, is the intention of all our sorry indeed to have lost their kind benefactress. afflictions, if we could but think so; while change Helen never danced so much after this, but and estrangement harden and petrify the affections loved better to sit apart, but not alone, in the deep until they seem turned to stone! " It is a perilous recess of the old-fashioned window. Some of her thing,” says Frederika Bremer, " when the be- young companions used to wonder among themloved image in the heart of inan is destroyed, since selves what they could find to talk about night after with it the best of his life is annihilated."

night, but grew wiser perhaps before long. Not The lover sends a lock of hair to his mistress, only the count, who might be supposed to be somefriend to friend, parent to child, child to parent. what prejudiced by his affection, or the fond and We verily believe the same hair-love to be univer- happy mother, but even the very domestics, noticed sal, and pregnant with a thousand romantic and the striking improvement in Helen's personal aptouching episodes.

pearance-she really was growing beautiful! An old lady, dwelling in the wildest and most There was a bright color upon her fair cheek, a beautiful part of Derbyshire, and whose house had light on her tranquil brow and in those meek, lovthe reputation of being haunted, why we know not, ing eyes, inexpressibly touching. unless that it was the very place of all others a A few weeks before the wedding was appointed spirit might have been supposed to fancy for its to take place, the Count de V—had occasion to wanderings, once kept a quantity of pale brown, go up to London on business of importance, which silken hair in a drawer-thick clustering tresses, was not, however, expected to detain him above a half as big as a person's hand, and long in propor- day or two; but lovers' partings are always solemn tion. They had belonged to her only child, and things. For the first time, the timid Helen not the poor mother found a sad consolation in stealing only suffered but returned his embrace, clinging to away to look at, and kiss, and weep over them by him with a sad, foreboding tenderness. And when the hour together.

he would have quitted her at length, she called Helen W - was far from beautiful, but her him back once more to her side, as if she could not eyes were bright and gentle, and her hair the admi- bear the thought of their separation, even for so ration of all beholders. It swept the ground when short a time. she stood upright—but then, to be sure, she was “Why, I scarcely know what to make of you, not very tall ; and when braided and twisted around my little Helen!” said her lover. " Your cheeks that small classic-looking head, after a peculiar are burning, and yet your hands feel as cold as fashion of her own, formed a rich and yet simple ice!” coronet that a queen might have envied. Some “ Yes, I am silly to agitate myself in this manpeople said that it was a sign of weakness and ill- ner when you will be back again so soon. There, health ; but such was not the case with Helen. go now, and God bless you!"

There were never thought to be any spirits then That night the girl was in a high fever, caught, haunting those ancient halls ; perhaps the girl's it seems, at a neighboring cottage, where she had sweet voice, which might be heard singing up and been to visit a poor sick child. down the gloomy corridors from morning till night, Mother," said she, in the intervals of her deserved to exorcise them, or the living sunshine of lirium, “I am glad that Henri is not here; he her presence banished every darker superstition. would have been so grieved at my illness, and I Nor were they so lonely then, for the youthful and shall be well again by the time he comes back.” the noble came to stay there for weeks together; at “ I hope so, dearest !” And Mrs. W- like which times they danced every night in the old ban- wise thought that it was best that he should be ab*queting-hall until the faded banners seemed to sent, since his presence could not do any good. catch the contagion of their wild mirth, and swayed Like Helen, she had no fear. But meanwhile, the to and fro with a quick, restless motion. It was fever increased in violence, and the physician himon one of these occasions that Helen's long hair, self evidently grew anxious as to its results. escaping from its fastenings, swept the marble floor “Mother," said the invalid again, as she heard as she whirled round and round in the gay waltz, them talking together around her bed,

66 whatever and then, stopping all of a sudden and coloring to happens, do not let them cut off my hair ? He would the very tips of her little slender fingers, took as be so sorry!”

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66

“But still more so to lose you, my precious are wrought in a few passing years! How do we child !"

grow cold, indifferent, and incredulous—we who “ Ah! has it come to that? Take it, then, and are so affectionate, so eager, so confiding! We God's will be done!"

set out in life with believing too much, and end in Mrs. W- cut off all Helen's beautiful tresses believing 100 little.” with her own hands, for she knew her life was at Leigh Hunt mentions some one who, as he stake ; and now that the invalid felt it also, she writes, “in pure classic taste and graceful tendernever moaned or shrank back, for life was verý ness, kept the hair of deceased friend in two dear to her. And then, gathering it together, the marble vases. But to us there seems something fond mother put it carefully aside, with many cold and overdrawn in this exquisite refinement of tears. Helen could not weep; her eyes were dry sensibility, and we infinitely prefer the poor old and buruing, her temples throbbed strangely. A country-woman's glass bottle ! few hours afterwards she beckoned to her mother, We were told the other day of a little schooland asked her to send for Henri, which was im- child who cried bitterly upon being shown the hair mediately done ; but it was all over when he came of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette, queen of back, and he had only to follow his young betrothed France, which is said to have turned as white as to her early grave.

snow in one single night of terror. She had heard Soon after this the Count de V— went abroad, and read of this many and many a time without and the poor bercaved mother was left alone, with thinking much about it, but that was very different nothing but that sweet hair-love to console her. to the real sight of that silvery tress, “ bleached by

We can remember a girl at school who kept the sorrow. hair of all her young companions and friends, braid- “ Which would you rather have?" asked her ed in neat little braids, with the initials of the origi- mother—" the hair, or the ring ?" The latter was nal possessors attached to each, and had already of massive gold, and sparkling with gems; but the accumulated quite a store of these treasures, to veneration in that child's heart was brighter still. which she was continually adding; for Catherine “ The hair, to be sure,

mamma!” was possessed of one of those happy and affection- Oh, yes, hair is more precious than jewels a ate dispositions that seem to love everything and thousand times, especially when it is that of the everybody that comes in its way. She was, perhaps, loved or dead! We smile to receive the one ; the somewhat too visionary and romantic for this cold other makes us weep and tremble in the midst of and every-day world; but that was far from being a our deep happiness. The former is displayed with fault in our eyes then-or now, for the matter of pride ; the latter hidden in tenderness.' Hair-love that ; only that we pity where we used to sym- is the secret dream of a fond heart; at once a pathize. " Alas for those of the passionate feeling poetry and a reality! A luxury to the happy-a and the dreaming hope!” Meeting her some time consolation to the afflicted—a blessing to the beafterwards in society, we inquired concerning these reaved! A lock of hair, as it has been powerfully school-day treasures. Catherine laughed.

expressed, " is an actual relic of the dead; as much “Ah!" said she, “ I have burnt them all long so in its proportion as ashes, and more lively and ago. “What was the use of keeping such silly recalling." Now, half caressingly, it twines its things?”

long silken folds round our fingers with a living “ So it is," as poor L. E. L. says—and no fondness—or we fancy it ; while our breath stirs its writer was ever better skilled in the hidden reveal thin threads until it moves and speaks with the ings of the human heart, except that they bore, in sweet, still voice of an undying memory! Verily, general, too much the sombre hue of her own sad we have a gentle faith in hair-love! and prophetic spirit—"So it is. What changes

From Fraser's Magazine.

A TALE OF REAL LIFE.

“ The early buds are swelling,

The time will soon be come-
The blessed time, he promised

I should see him here at home.
He said, 'I will be with thee

Ere the leaves are on the bough ;'
And the time will soon be coming,

For the buds are swelling now!
“The light leaves are unfolding

On plant, and bush, and tree,
And the spring-tide siin of promise

Shines ont o’er land and sea.
Ere the larch before my window

Hath donned its summer veil,
O'er the purple waters sweeping,

I shall see his welcome sail !"

Thus watched she till the larch-boughs

Had donned their veil of green,
And hidden from her window

The waters' sunny sheen.
Then stole she forth at morning,

Then stole she forth at eve,
(For she knew his heart too truly

To dream he could deceive ;)
With weary eyes still watching,

Yet she hoped with steadfast heart ;
“ When he cometh home,” she whispered,

“He will never more depart!”
Though she saw the scattered daisies

Unfolding one by one,
Till many a starry blossom

Lay laughing to the sun ;
Though the larch's feathery shadow

Fell dark upon the slope,
Yet she watched with quiet patience,

And hoped with constant hope.
She wandered by the waters

Where he first had told his love,
With the summer sea for witness,

And the placid stars above;

Thus she murmured in her gladness

To her loving heart alone,
Thus she hoped and thus she trusted

Till the spring was nearly gone;

From the American Review.

lution, still part of the law of the United States, DANIEL WEBSTER.

the effect of which was to require the revenue to

be received only in the legal currency of the There is no possession which a free people should United States, or in bills equal to that currency in guard with greater vigilance than the reputation of value. such a statesman as Mr. Webster. At a time when Mr. Webster at this time retired from Congress, party and personal malice has assailed him with and went to Boston to reside, to practise his profeseven unwonted virulence, (but happily meeting a sion. For six or eight years he devoted himself exmost signal defeat,) we shall discharge only a plain clusively to the law; and the Massachusetts Reports, public duty by a brief sketch, to remind the country and the Reports in the Circuit and Supreme Courts of of what indeed it knows, but cannot too often pon- the United States, show the great professional income der and celebrate.

which must then have begun to flow in upon him,

and what opportunities for the acquisition of fortune Mr. Webster was born in Salisbury, a small he soon sacrificed at the call of public duty. The farming town in New Hampshire, in 1782. His people of Boston demanded, however, that such father, who was a farmer, had served both in the talents and acquirements should again be in the serold French war and in the war of the Revolution. vice of the country. He had already declined an No other advantages of education were within the offer of a seat in the Senate, but, in 1822, he acceptroach of the son than the common schools, for ed a seat as their representative in Congress. But which New England has long been famous; and at before he came again into the national councils, his one of these primitive institutions, and at Exeter mind had received that peculiar bias, if we may so Academy, Mr. Webster was fitted for Dartmouth call it, to constitutional law, which has made him College, where he was entered at the age of fifteen, the great constitutional statesman of the country. and where he was graduated in 1801. The circum- He had, in the interim, taken his place at the bar stances of his family compelled him to exert him of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the self for his own support, and in these exertions his discussion of those great questions of public and professional studies were often interrupted. Some constitutional law, to which such a system of govof the labors and personal sacrifices to which he ernment as ours gives rise ; and henceforth he was then voluntarily submitted, for the sake of his own destined to be the champion of that public liberty and a brother's education, are among the most remark- which has its seat and citadel in the constitution of able achievements of even his most remarkable life. a free country. While engaged in these arduous efforts, and at what We must wholly pass over his labors in the years may be called a tender age, he went to reside in 1823–4, and his great work of digesting and causBoston, and entered the office of the late Gov. ing to be adopted the Crimes Act in 1825. In 1826, Gore, a lawyer of great eminence, a statesman and a vacancy in the Senate having occurred, he was a gentleman of the loftiest elevation, dignity and chosen to fill it by a very large majority of both purity of character. When Mr. Gore presented houses in the Legislature of Massachusetts. his young pupil for admission to the bar, in 1805, Few intelligent persons in this country are so he predicted his future eminence in a few words young or so ill-informed, as not to know the events addressed to the court, which have since been more of his career from this period down to the time than fulfilled. Mr. Webster began the practice of when he was appointed 'Secretary of State, and his profession in Boscawen, in his native State, thence to the present hour. To give in detail the near the residence of his father, then living—but, public services of such a life as Mr. Webster has in 1807, after the death of his father, he removed devoted to the services of his country, in the pages to Portsmouth. There his mind received its re- of a magazine, would be impossible. We must demarkable direction and attained its characteristic vote our brief space to two great transactions, in strength, in the legal training into which he was at which he is to be regarded as a public benefactor once brought, by immediate and daily conflict with for what he has prevented as well as for what he one of the greatest lawyers this country has pro- has accomplished. duced, the Hon. Jeremiah Mason. In 1812, when Of course, every reader will recur at once to the scarcely thirty, and soon after the declaration of overthrow of the doctrines of Nullification, and 10 war, he was elected a representative in Congress the treaty of Washington. With respect to these from the State of New Hampshire. The first im- transactions, we affirm no less a proposition than portant measure in which he took a prominent part this—that Mr. Webster is at this moment a living was the bill for " encouraging volunteers.” Al- statesman, who has saved his country from a civil though he represented a people strongly opposed to war, at one period of his life, and from a war with the war, he felt it to be his duty to promote meas- England, with honor, at another period. Separate ures essential to the dignity, honor and safety of Mr. Webster from all other doings, erase the recthe country; and, in his speech on this occasion, he ord of all his other public acts, overlook all his hiscalled upon the government to build and equip a tory in its many bearings upon the peace and navy, as the first and highest of duties. "In prosperity of his country, and seek acquaintance time,” said he, “ you may be enabled to redress with no facts in the formation of his character and injuries in the place where they may be offered ; opinions, except such as are necessary to understand and, if need be, to accompany your oun flag through his adaptation for these great tasks; and contemout the world with the protection of your own can- plate him solely as the statesman successfully con

cerned in these two acts, and we know not where Later, in the same Congress, he contended strenu- 10 look for a greater debt of gratitude due from the ously and successfully against the establishment people of the United States to any living individual, ot a mere paper currency; and it is to his exertions ihan is due to him. and his early views, maintained with singular zeal It happened, by a singular good fortune, that, and foresight, that we owe the establishment of a when the doctrines of nullification were first holdly sound currency and the overthrow of the paper-bank and confidently asserted in the Senate of the system. In 1816, he introduced and carried a reso- ) United States, by a person of great respectability,