Towards midnight he called to his wife, who watched besid* him. "Are they gone, Carlota?"

"Who, Doctor?" (— the simple wench never presumed to call her husband by his name— ) "the gentlemen that?"

"Yes, the owls that were mousing here. Have they taken wing, yet?"

"Sta. Maria! I did think they had wings, they made such haste"

"Carlota." His voice was feeble, and much broken. "I have never treated you well, my good girl. You must forgive me.— And hark ye, you spawn of the devil,— if you ever meet that— Mr. Levis, you have heard me speak of,— ask him, if he remembers—how he and I—

pep—peppered old Cordery's "He essayed to laugh,

but the sound became a rattle in the throat. Death, hearing the lamp thus sputter, advanced in haste, clapped hi? extinguisher upon it, and Harry Smith was snuff.

'Fare thee well, great stomach .'' One of my earliest companions,— my second friend, my latest,— I love *o think of thee, and all thy thousand humours, ever merry, and the wrinkles of laughter bury those of age, whou Memory, true to thy beauties, stands thee before me in all the unmeasured grandeur of thy person, makes thy littk pig eyes once more twinkle, and tints with new fire the 'blushing honours' of thy nose. Even now hast thou beguiled me of more space than I intended to bestow upon the last act of thy farce of life, and the little chaffer, fed upon thy scraps, fat Harry, has grown imperceptibly, against my wishes, to the adult size of fifteen pag«'' Once more—'Fare thee well, great stomach!' and

CHAPTER XL

Ah. then and there was hurrying to and fro,
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blush.d at the praise of their own loveliness.

Childe Humid.

"Well, my dear, if I must repeat it, I do assure you, on my word of honour, the story is totally without foundation. Does not this satisfy you?"

"No, it does not, you deceitful, tantalizing, barbarous man!" (women are always vulgar, when in a passion— ) "it but confirms my suspicions."

"Why what, in the name of God, would you have me do, madam! If I laugh at your reproaches, it enrages you; if I show myself indignant, you weep; if I calmly assert my mnocence, you, without hesitation, impeach your husband's honour, and abuse him as deceitful, tantalizing, barbarous. I'll no longer be the fool of these senseless jealousies. If I cannot find, at home, the quiet happiness I look for in the society of a wife, I will seek it elsewhere." The husband took up his hat to leave the room.

The wife altered her tone directly. She threw herself back on the sofa, and spreading her hands, (they were exquisite— ad unguem,) before her face, to hide the tears which really did flow, and flow against her will, she said, "•'•"You no longer love me."

Down went the hat. "Not love you, dearest! Who 13 it, now, that is tantalizing, and barbarous!"

The lady, sobbing, threw both her arms around the neck of her husband, and the gentleman, of course, could not but suffer one of his to encircle the waist of his wife. 'How can you," said the gentleman, kissing away the tears from the very beautiful eyes of the lady,—" How can you, love, indulge in fancies that render you miserable, and distress me! Has not my conduct, ever since our marriage, evinced a fondness increasing rather than diminishing? or, have we been united so long, that I should be weary of your beauties?" (A kiss on the part of the gentleman; but no return, of any kind, from the lips of the lady.) "You are silent, dearest. Tell me now what I shall do to satisfy you: then banish for ever these suspicions, as unworthy of yourself and me."

"There is, indeed, one thing that you might"

"And that?"

"Promise —- O, promise me never again to see that hateful Sehora Sirenaf"

Up went the hat again. "Madam," said the gentleman, in a manner particularly decisive,—" this is carrying matters a little too far. I am not yet a dotard, that I should give up society, and stay within doors to nurse my wife's queasiness. Whatever concessions I may make at home, I certainly am not disposed to render myself ridiculous abroad.— When you are in the humour, madam, to put that confidence in your husband's honour, which he feels he deserves of you, I will return." The gentleman was at the door.

"Will you then leave me in anger?" The lady bad that 'excellent thing in woman,' a soft voice, in perfection; and every body knows, (that is, every body with a heart,) that sadness is a rare cutler for giving a delicate, irresistible edge to a woman's voice.

"Not if you do not wish it, dearest." And, as he spoke, the arm of the gentleman rested on the back of the sofa where the lady was seated.

"Forgive me !" then exclaimed the lady, rising in tears that were of the mule kind, (begotten by pleasure on sadness,) and casting herself upon the neck of her husband :—" f will never, never again, question your affection!" A kiss given and returned,— another,— and the parties were reconciled, to quarrel again, and again be

reconciled, before bed-time.

It was four months after marriage. The scene was at

Cumana; the dramatis persona were Jeremy Levis, and

his wife Beatriz.

Metkinks, at this, the unmarried romantic reader, of

the masculine gender, frowns in great displeasure,— the fair, unmarried romantic reader, mutters Abominable wretch!— while the married, matter-of-fact reader, of either sex, exclaims loudly against me as a perjured mason, for betraying to the uninitiated the mysteries of matrimony. I am fallen into a bowl of slops! Thus, poor fly, I struggle to the side of the vessel, and cleanse my clogged wings. My unmarried readers I answer, by reminding them that I am not writing a romance,— my married readers, by bidding them read on.

By most persons the life I lived with Beatriz will not be considered a happy one, inasmuch as it afforded nothing of that easy, undisturbed enjoyment, which is generally implied when we speak of happiness in married life. It was no twilight calm,— cloudless, sunless, soft, and sleepy; but a morning of alternate storm and sunshine,— the landscape now bright in the splendour of a perfect heaven, then black with impending thunder, or wild with the unloosed fury of the tempest.— Beatriz did indeed love her husband with an affection that knew no bounds. Its ardour was even oppressive. She could scarcely bear to have me from her sight an instant;— she would watch for me at the usual hour of my return from business, and, when she saw me coming, would run to the door to bid me welcome, and actually impede my entrance into the house by her caresses,—and if, at any time, languid or irritable from fatigue, I failed to meet her with the warmth she looked for, she would tax me with a decrease in my affection, and burst into tears, or passionate reproaches. Accustomed to see the marriage tie but little regarded by most of her acquaintances, (many of whom,_ on the male side of the contract, were living! in the primitive simplicity of the patriarchs of old,”) her jealousy, with regard to me, was ever on the watch. Merely to look upon another woman was sufficient to arouse suspicion; to smile upon her was proof positive of guilt; but to be seen chatting with her, in a corner. “solus cum sola,” was at once to assess me in heavy da. mages on an action for crim. con. Of the many objects of her jealousy, the one the most obnoxious to my wife was the lady above named-th" Señora Sirena. She was a widow, a native of Seville. young and beautiful, sang enchantingly, and bore a go" resemblance to my ill-fated Agata. Of course, under these circumstances, I could not but take particular plea. sure in her society; and, in so doing, I gave to Beatriz, who would have me hate all women but herself P* ticular umbrage. I shall never forget one instance, Ill which the violence of her feelings completely overcan: o the latter. We were with a small party at the Seño” one evening— any wife and I. Our beautiful hostess took >. her guitar, at my request. The music was melan. o choly; and the musician— she never had looked ** like poor Agata as then. Away flew my thoughts;- And, lusia— the place of the little brook— the peasant girlthe whole scene of my first passionate love was before me — and I forgot myself. That is to say, there rolled, down either cheek of the sensitive Jeremy, a sing” drop of that pellucid secretion, which canting novelis" are wont to term unmanly, (because they are ignorant ol what is unwomanly, f— and never dissected a iachryma