advantage of education from her grandfather, who had been a Bishop of the Church of England, but she early developed great inductive powers of mind, and was consequently too thoughtful to prove a general favorite among the young madcap fellows of this party, who were the direct descendants of the chivalrous, gay cavaliers of Charles the Second's reign. -- Miss Bloomfield's strikingly-intellectual, large black eye, inclosed in a proportionally-ample socket (which is a rare perfection) — her pale, but at times speaking complexion her chiselled features-her retiring, benevolent countenance, and yet occasional flashes of genuine humor-would have quivered an arrow of the deepest sensibility into the heart of a man of genius; but to others who could not, or would not, take the trouble to know her inner graces of adhesive affection, conscientiousness, and ambition to excel in all that was useful and morally elevating, she seemed stereotyped, if not repulsive; for she was born just about the time that the "Declaration of Independence" was declared against our mother country (England) by her American Colonies, and, no doubt, brought up in the school of such heroism* and self-denial as the patriotic women "The historian, Ramsay," says Mrs. Ellet, "bears heartwarm testimony to the patriotism of the South Carolina women who gloried in being called rebels,' and did their utmost to support the fortitude of their relatives in the Revolutionary War. "The wife of Isaac Holmes, one of the patriots sent into exile at St. Augustine, sustained his firmness by her own resolution, to the moment when the guard separated him from his family, bidding him have no fears for those he left behind. Her of the Revolution daily practised; her mind had been strengthened by the discipline of sorrow, and faith in that overruling Providence that carried us safely and triumphantly through that miraculous struggle, by furnishing us a Washington to lead our half-fed, halfclad,* undisciplined volunteers to battle and to victory, after a seven years' war. parting injunction was, 'Waver not in your principles, but be true to your country.' "When the sons of Rebecca Edwards were arrested as objects of retaliation, she encouraged them to persevere in devotion to the cause they had espoused; should they fall a sacrifice, a mother's blessing, and the approbation of their countrymen, would go with them to the last; but if fear of death ever prevailed on them to purchase safety by submission, they must forget she was their parent, for it would be her misery to look on them again." * "During the Revolutionary War, General Andrew Pickens had a faithful African named Dick, who followed him throughout the war, and often fought by his side. This servant swam the Broad river twice, on a cold winter's night, to get to the camp of his master-mistaking the enemy's camp once. At the Cowpens, a wounded British officer, lying against a tree, asked Dick to bring him a little water. He brought it in his hat, and then immediately put out his knee, and asked to draw his boots. The officer said: 'Surely, boy, you will not take them before I die.' Dick replied: 'Him mighty fine, and massa need him mighty bad.' "Garden relates a pleasant anecdote of the wit of Mrs. Elliott, of South Carolina, during the war. A British officer having ordered the plundering of her poultry-houses, she afterwards observed, straying about the premises, an old muscovy drake which had escaped the general search. She had him caught, and mounting a servant on horseback, ordered him to follow, and deliver the bird to the officer, with her compliments, as she concluded that in the hurry of departure it had been left altogether by accident."—Mrs. Ellet's "Women of the Revolution.” This mirthful party of beaux and belles continued their genial tramp from plantation to plantation, chatting volubly their numerous plans for a grand Christmas merry-making at Mr. Wyndham's affluent mansion, where the negroes Sambo, Robert, and Jack, who were enthusiastic and talented performers on the fiddle, should come in, with their violin, and tamborine, and banjo, and strike up electrifying music for their young master's guests to indulge in terpsichorean exercises during the whole jubilant season between the 25th of December and the first day of the new year. Suddenly Miss Bloomfield's high-mettled charger took fright at the loud report of a gun, and rushed off at the top of his speed; and becoming more and more alarmed from the desperate pursuit of the frantic Jehues. of the party, dashed into a cross-road after running a mile, and then into the woods; where, rushing against the veteran pine-trees, she would inevitably have been killed (for her terror had deprived her of all power over the reins), had not young Wyndham, distancing all others, caught her in his arms as she was reeling, in a fainting fit, out of the saddle. Afflictions, however, seldom come single-handed; for no sooner had he run with his lovely burden to a neighboring spring, for a reviving draught, than that intolerably ubiquitous, meddlesome, mischief-making little wretch, nicknamed Cupid, who was accidentally on purpose romping in the woods in search of an adventure, quickly spied the romantic youth, stealing a kiss before the other gallants could arrive at the spot. * POETICAL IDEA.-A beautiful superstition prevails among the Seneca tribe of Indians. When an Indian maiden dies, So, in revenge for this imprudent selfishness (as conventional sense might have assured him that such a smothering application could never restore a young lady from a fainting fit), Cupid hid himself in an ambush, and then taking deliberate aim, quivered his arrow so deeply in young Wyndham's heart, that none of the greatest, most scientific Esculapians, could, with all their surgical skill, extract it for seventeen years.* they imprison a young bird until it first begins to try its power of song, and then, loading it with kisses and caresses, they loose its bonds over the grave, in the belief that it will not fold its wings nor close its eyes until it has flown to the spirit-land and delivered its precious burden of affection to the loved and lost. It is not unfrequent to see twenty or thirty birds let loose over one grave. 66 "When all things have their trial, you shall find Nothing is constant but a virtuous mind." That is not the most perfect beauty which in public would attract the greatest observation; nor even that which the statuary would admit to be a faultless piece of clay, kneaded up with blood. But that is true beauty, which has not only substance, but a spirit-a beauty that we must intimately know, justly to appreciate a beauty lighted up in conversation, where the mind shines, as it were, through its casket, where, in the language of the poet, The eloquent blood spoke in her cheeks; and so distinctly wrought, that we might almost say her body thought.' An order and a mode of beauty which, the more we know, the more we accuse ourselves of not having discovered those thousand graces which bespeak that their owner had a soul. This is that beauty that never cloys, possessing charms as resistless as those of the fascinating Egyptian, for which Antony wisely paid the bauble of a world-a beauty, like the rising of his own Italian suns, always enchanting, never the same."--COLTON. "Oh, who that has ever had rapture complete, Would ask how we feel it, or why it is sweet; How rays are confused, or how particles fly, Through the medium refined of a glance or a sigh! Is there one, who but once would not rather have known it, Than written, with Harvey, whole volumes upon it?" This now thoroughly sobered party of young people, waiting until Miss Bloomfield was entirely restored to her usual self-possession, assisted her to remount her capricious steed, and then wended their way homeward in a respectably modified canter. ("All talkers delight in getting hold of anything akin to a love story; not merely from a fondness for scandal, but because the most powerful and pleasurable of human feelings is in some measure awakened and excited thereby.") No sooner, therefore, did they all dismount, than the girls, who had guessed the whole consequential effect of Miss B.'s gratitude to her preserver, and his much deeper excitement, from the stimulant of a stolen kiss,* rushed in, out of breath, to let old Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham know that their only, idolized son, was irretrievably committed to perpetrate a matrimonial specu lation. Oh kiss! which dost those ruddy gems impart, A kiss! which souls, e'en souls, together ties By links of love, and only nature's art: |