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As no bell was discernible, I rapped with my stick. against the door, which stood half open. Instantly a figure advanced to the threshold-that of a young woman about twenty-eight years of age-slender, or rather slight, and somewhat above the medium height. As she approached, with a certain modest decision of step altogether indescribable, I said to myself, "Surely here I have found the perfection of natural, in contradistinction from artificial grace." The second impression which she made on me, but by far the more vivid of the two, was that of enthusiasm. So intense an expression of romance, perhaps I should call it, or of unworldliness, as that which gleamed from her deep-set eyes, had never so sunk into my heart of hearts before. I know not how it is, but this peculiar expression of the eye, wreathing itself occasionally into the lips, is the most powerful, if not absolutely the sole spell, which rivets my interest in woman. "Romance"-provided my readers fully comprehend what I would here imply by the word "romance" and "womanliness," seem to me convertible terms: and, after all, what man truly loves in woman, is simply her womanhood.

The

eyes of Annie (I heard some one from the interior call her "Annie, darling !") were "spiritual grey;" her hair, a light chestnut: this is all I had time to observe of her.

At her most courteous of invitations, I entered-passing first into a tolerably wide vestibule. Having come mainly to observe, I took notice that to my right, as I stepped in, was a window, such as those in front of the house; to the left, a door leading into the principal room; while, opposite me, an open door enabled me to see a small apartment, just the size of the vestibule, arranged as a study, with a large bow window looking out to the north.

Passing into the parlour, I found myself with Mr. Landor-for this, I afterwards found, was his name. He was civil, even cordial in his manner; but just then I was more intent on observing the arrangements of the dwelling which had so much interested me, than the personal appearance of the tenant.

The north wing, I now saw, was a bed-chamber: its door opened into the parlour. West of this door was a single window, looking towards the brook. At the west end of the parlour were a fire-place, and a door leading into the west wing-probably a kitchen.

Nothing could be more rigorously simple than the furniture of the parlour. On the floor was an ingrain carpet, of excellent texture: a white ground, spotted with small circular green figures. At the windows were curtains of snowy white jaconet muslin; they were tolerably full, and hung decisively, perhaps rather formally, in short, parallel plaits to the floor-just to the floor. The walls were papered with a French paper of great delicacy, a silver ground, with a faint green cord running zig-zag throughout. Its expanse was relieved merely by three of Julien's exquisite lithographs à trois crayons, fastened to the wall without frames. One of these drawings was a scene of Oriental luxury, or rather voluptuousness; another was a "carnival piece," spirited beyond compare; the third was a Greek female head: a face so divinely beautiful, and yet of an expression go provokingly indeterminate, never before arrested my attention.

The more substantial furniture consisted of a round table, a few chairs (including a large rocking-chair), and a sofa, or rather "settee:" its material was plain maple, painted a creamy white, slightly interstriped with green-the seat of cane. The chairs and tables were "to match;" but the forms of all had evidently been designed by the same brain which planned "the grounds." It is impossible to conceive anything more graceful.

On the table were a few books; a large, square, crystal bottle of some novel perfume; a plain, ground-glass astral (not solar) lamp, with an Italian shade; and a large vase of resplendently-blooming flowers. Flowers, indeed, of gorgeous colours and delicate odour, formed the sole mere decoration of the apartment. The fire-place was nearly filled with a vase of brilliant geranium. On a triangular shelf in cach angle of the room stood also a similar vase,

varied only as to its lovely contents. One or two smaller bouquets adorned the mantel; and late violets clustered about the open windows.

It is not the purpose of this work to do more than give, in detail, a picture of Mr. Landor's residence-as I found it

A DREA M.

IN visions of the dark night

I have dreamed of joy departed;
But a waking dream of life and light
Hath left me broken-hearted.

Ah! what is not a dream by day
To him whose eyes are cast
On things around him with a ray
Turned back upon the past?

That holy dream-that holy dream,
While all the world were chiding,
Hath cheered me as a lovely beam
A lonely spirit guiding.

What though that light, thro' storm and night,
So trembled from afar-

What could there be more purely bright

In Truth's day-star?

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ET me call myself, for the present, William Wilson.
The fair page now lying before me need not be

sullied with my real appellation. This has been already too much an object for the scorn-for the horrorfor the detestation of my race. To the uttermost regions of the globe have not the indignant winds bruited its unparalleled infamy? Oh, outcast of all outcasts most aban

doned!-to the earth art thou not for ever dead? to its honours, to its flowers, to its golden aspirations?—and a cloud, dense, dismal, and limitless, does it not hang eternally between thy hopes and heaven?

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I would not, if I could, here or to-day, embody a record of my later years of unspeakable misery and unpardonable crime. This epoch-these later years-took unto themselves a sudden elevation in turpitude, whose origin alone it is my present purpose to assign. Men usually grow base by degrees. From me, in an instant, all virtue dropped bodily as a mantle. From comparatively trivial wickedness I passed, with the stride of a giant, into more than the enormities of an Elah-Gabalus. What chance-what one event brought this evil thing to pass, bear with me while I relate. Death approaches, and the shadow which foreruns him has thrown a softening influence over my spirit. I long, in passing through the dim valley, for the sympathyI had nearly said for the pity-of my fellow-men. I would fain have them believe that I have been, in some measure, the slave of circumstances beyond human control. I would wish them to seek out for me, in the details I am about to give, some little oasis of fatality amid a wilderness of error. I would have them allow-what they cannot refrain from allowing-that, although temptation may have erewhile existed as great, man was never thus, at least, tempted before-certainly, never thus fell. And is it therefore that he has never thus suffered? Have I not, indeed, been living in a dream? And am I not now dying a victim to the horror and the mystery of the wildest of all sublunary visions?

I am the descendant of a race whose imaginative and easily excitable temperament has at all times rendered them remarkable; and, in my earliest infancy, I gave evidence of having fully inherited the family character. As I advanced in years it was more strongly developed; becoming, for many reasons, a cause of serious disquietude to my friends, and of positive injury to myself. I grew self-willed, addicted to the wildest caprices, and a prey to the most

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