The "large black eyes that flash on yon a volley
"Of rays that say a thousand things at once."

Musket eyes that flash a volley, not of bullets, but of rays, (forming, doubtless, that species of luminous bodies called shooting stars,) and rays too that have the faculty of speech, is most delicious nonsense; but nonsense is very often more expressive than any shape of its opposite.—And now that I am on the^ubject I may as well finish the quotation, and describe the sum of her perfections at once,—it will be a saving of time, though at the expense of a breach in the paragraph :—

"Heart on her lips, and soul within her eyes,
"Soft as her clime, and sunny as her skies."

Such was the Creole,—a beauty scarcely seventeen— glowing, burning, in feature and complexion, the very child of passion.

The act I have mentioned was one that Agata, indeed, would not have thought of; but yet it was an act of innocent coquetry, such as is committed every day by ladies that move in the world, (not of romance,) without detracting from the modesty of their characters. It had the full effect designed, completely substantiating the Cumanian's claims to the loveliness wherewith my imagination had already made her invested.

I followed the young beauty to the door of the church, and had the satisfaction of seeing her escorted homeward by an ugly, gloomy-visaged Spaniard, that looked a devil under a friar's cowl. Could there have been any thing that would add to my admiration of the lady, it was the circumstance of her being thus attended; for there was none of that easy, affectionate indifference in the man's deportment, that might mark him to be her father or her brother, but he seemed to watch her motions with the Vol. II. 21

jealousy of a lover, hurrying her through the crowd as though he hated that any other arm than his own should even brush against her garments. She was attended. besides, by two female slaves,—an affectation of state very usual in the Spanish colonies.

Keeping the blacks between me and their mistress, I marched very deliberately, though not very coolly, in the train of the latter, determined to discover who she was, if possible, or at least in what quarter of the city she resided. And where then was the sorrow for Agata,

which had worn me almost to a shadow? Grief kills in poetry; but, in real life, it is seldom more than a temporary sickness.*

I succeeded in following my fair Creole to the very door of her dwelling without exciting the suspicions of the Spaniard. She entered the house—but took no further notice of me, and the man entered likewise.—I continue^ my walk for a proper distance, then crossing the street, turned directly back upon my steps; and, as I passed the house again, casting a side glance at the windows, I flattered myself that I saw the lady secretly watching from behind the silken curtains.

Thus far, I was stimulated by a mere feeling of admiration; but I carried home this little seed of passion, to plant it in the rich soil of my bosom, and nourish its growth with the springs of imagination. Dear sainted Agata! I had said, some seven months before, Would thai I migh. offer up my life -a sacrifice upon thy grave !—But, it it better as it is—better that I should linger, solitary, through long years of penitence, lengthened out by the tormeals of conscience f too small atonement for my foul offence! How Polish seem the thoughts which enthusiasm sends alt burning from the brain, when we find so short a time converts them into senseless words, a mere heap of cold «tead ashes!

CHAPTER IV.

Hey-day! who have we here? This is no Father Dominick, no huge oveirim abby-lnbber ; Hub is but a diminutive sucking fryar.

SjomwA Fryar.

I Need not detail the many little circumstances that tended to raise my admiration of the beautiful Creole into actual love, nor the many little contrivances that I resorted to in order to make known my passion, nor the success which these endeavours had in inspiring her with something like a reciprocal affection, without a single interview having ever taken place between us; for the reader can well imagine it all for himself, knowing, as he must do, that there needs no other interpreters in affairs of the heart than the eyes,—nay, that the interdiction of speech is often beneficial to the cause, not merely because the first word spoken by the beloved object might dissolve the charm by showing us that we were worshipping mere vanity—a head without brains, but because it gives a briskness to the passion, on the same principle that a stone thrown into a garden brook converts the peaceful stream into a sparkling, noisy little torrent. I will merely say, that learning on inquiry that Beatriz, (my new idol,) was actually engaged to the Spaniard I had seen escorting her, I gave up all idea of seeking an introduchon to the family—knowing that nothing under Heaven could prevail with her father, Creole as he was, to alter 'he connexion he had formed for his daughter,—and im. mediately set my brain to work to devise some plan for obtaining a private interview with the girl herself, when I was resolved I would marry her, in defiance of both father and lover, and at all peril of the consequences.

While my head was yet teeming with this rash, and perhaps ridiculous, scheme, I chanced one afternoon to be passing near the home of Beatriz, (an exercise I frequently took, notwithstanding the danger, which, considering the persons I might have to deal with, most certainly attended it,) when I observed a very diminutive, vulgar-looking man, in the dress of a secular priest, leave the house, and move towards me with a step affectedly solemn. It instantly struck me that I had seen the figure somewhere before, though not very recently. I therefore quickened my pace to meet him. Judge my astonishment, when I recognized the features of an individual whom I and every body else had long supposed to be sleeping quietly somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean! How he had managed to rise from the bottom of the sea, or the bottomless pit, renew his existence, and appear now, in South America, a Catholic priest, were all circumstances very puzzling to account for: but I could not be deceived — there never was another thing like him born of woman.

As the little gentleman had his eyes fixed upon the air, trying perhaps to discover the presence of animalculffi, he did not notice me who was walking on the earth, and.I took advantage of his aerial contemplation to pass him, turn directly back, and, approaching close behind him on tiptoe, bring my mouth to a level with his ear.

"Brother sinner," I whispered, in English, and in his own well-remembered bagpipe drone.

The priest recoiled with most unclerical agility, exclaiming, in the vernacular of my native isle, "The Lord deliver us!" It was sufficient. I beheld neither an apparition, nor the devil, but the devil's particular friendBrother Malachi Snubbs, formerly casual preacher of the word at the Bull tavern, county of Middlesex, England.

"Why—Mr.—Snubba!" I cried, seizing his hand, which I retained in spite of his struggles to extricate it,— "Surely, this is a day of marrow and fat things to us both; yea, it is even as one were born again, to meet with old friends thus in a foreign land."

Malachi frowned, and spluttering a barbarous mixture of bad Castilian and odd scraps of Latin from the massbook, tried to summon to his brow all the terrours of sacerdotal ire; but, alas poor man! his head, as the reader knows, was but a cocoanut, and cocoanuts are of a milky nature. It would not do.

"Come, come, Mr. Snubbs!" I continued, but in a lower voice—for several citizens had displayed, in passing us, symptoms of angry surprise at my forcible detention of a minister of their sacred faith, and, to say the least against him, Malachi was not worth quarrelling about — "this mummery wont pass with me. You forget, sir, who was with you at the Bull tavern.—Your reputation lies at my mercy; be quiet, and it is safe." Snubbs's impudence forsook him: he stood perfectly still. "Now, sir. be pleased to accompany me home—I have something to

say to you. Hush! don't begin to play the fool again.

Must I remind you of Miss Paynthurnley? and her jewels? and the missionary fund? Your liberty, your life perhaps, is in my hands; see that I don't strangle it!'' The holy man muttered something, and motioned with Iiis hand for me to lead the way. —O, ho !— thought I. — my bird would yet escape! I must clip his wings.—" No. no, father,—it ill beseems a heretic like me to go before your reverence; we will walk together." The priest submitted; though, had not the suddenness of our rencounter dashed every coal of spirit, or rather impudence, from the brazen chafingdish of his bosom, he must have reflected that he might brave me with impunity,—since it.