collegiate days, and re-associating himself with his early friend, the author of the eccentric volume then in his hand, when the above monition sprung from his heart, like the crystal stream that sparkles in the air, when first it bursts through the mineral bondage of the womb of nature.

   "You are right," said my aunt. Horatio started with surprise, almost unconscious of her presence, or

   what he had said to deserve her approbation. "True happiness," she continued, "is the offspring of generosity and virtue, and never inhabits a bosom where worldly interest and selfish principles are allowed to predominate. There are many who possess all the requisites for the enjoyment of true happiness, who, from the prejudices of education, or the mistaken pride of ancestry, have never experienced the celestial rapture: they have never been amalgamated with society, are strangers to poverty themselves, and cannot comprehend its operation upon others; born and moving in a sphere where the chilling blasts of indigence never penetrate, or the clouds of adversity appal, they have no conception of the more delightful gratification which springs from the source of all earthly happiness, the pleasure and ability of administering to the wants and comforts of our fellow creatures."

   "Yours is the true philosophy of nature, aunt," said Horatio, "where principle and practice may be seen, arm in arm, like the twin sisters, Charity and Virtue,—a pair of antique curiosities much sought after, but rarely found amid the assemblage of

    virtu

   in the collections of your modern people of fashion."

   "I'll alter my will to-morrow morning," thought my aunt; "this boy deserves to be as rich in acres as he already is in benevolence: he shall have the Leicestershire estate added to what I have already bequeathed him, by way of codicil."

   "You would be delighted with my friend Bernard, aunt," said Horatio, "that is, when he is in good spirits; but you must not judge of him by the common standard of estimation: if, on the first introduction, he should happen to be in one of those lively humours when his whole countenance is lighted up with the brilliancy of genius, you would be enraptured by the sallies of his wit, and the solidity of his reasoning; but if, on the contrary, he should unfortunately

   be in one of those abstracted moods when all terrestrial objects are equally indifferent, you will, I fear, form no very 

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