Around thee the zephyr, surcharged with aroma, Inweave their lithe arms and spread arches of gloom. Fair meadows are smiling, and grain fields are waving, The soil, and rich blessings dispense as they run. Like a giant fast locked in the still arms of slumber, Its voices are dumb, for its souls without number Oh, sweet is the Sabbath! I love in its quiet NEW YORK, August, 1846. J. F. And a wall so blank my shadow I thank For sometimes falling there!" - HOOD. I HAD seated myself, after a day of unusual application, to the enjoyment of a prime old Havana, when it occurred to me that a little quiet chat with my old friend Harry Barton would serve to lighten the tedium of the hour before bed-time. The wish was no sooner formed than gratified; for at that moment, as if I had given an unconscious rub upon the enchanted lamp of the genii, the door opened, and, sans ceremonie, in walked the identical Harry, looking for all the world as if he had stumbled upon a gold-mine, or discovered the philosopher's stone. His face was radiant with happiness. "Talk of the devil, they say, and here he comes!" I exclaimed, offering him a chair and a companion to my Havana. He seated himself in the former, very deliberately placing his feet upon my writing-desk with a sigh of immense satisfaction, and lighting the other with a flourish, was soon lost in the fragrant cloud. It was evident, from the vehemence with which he ejected the clouds of smoke, and the peculiar twinkle of his eye, that he was brim-full of satisfaction, either with himself or some other equally favorite object, which I was quite clear I would in due time be made acquainted with. After the lapse of a few moments, my patience, which, by-the-way, was never extraordinary on the score of endurance, was getting rampant, when I kicked the chair, on which I had been easing my ankles, beyond my reach, and rather abruptly exclaimed-"Come, Harry, leave your abominable faces, and begin. I know you have something to tell me what is it ?" Another cloud of smoke completely obscured the upper part of his person; and I was just on the point of concluding that my friend was literally "lost in a fog," when the volume broke, wreathed and curled into a myriad of graceful and fantastic forms, and his face was revealed, gazing with a strange earnestness into mine. "Mat," he began, in what I conceived to be an ominous voice, 66 were you ever in love?" I think I started from my chair-I am quite sure I did -at the strangeness of the question from a bachelor of thirty-five, who, so far as my knowledge of him extended, had never in his life spent one hour alone in female so |