seeming to possess an eagle-like and hostile curvature, his compressed lip, sarcastic and cold expression-and the fine classical chin-a feature in which so many of the Saxon race fail-a haughty scorn that caused strangers usually to avoid him. Eve drew with great facility and truth, and she had an eye, as her uncle had rightly said, “ full of tints." Often and often had she sketched both of these loved faces, and never without wondering wherein that strong difference existed in nature which she had never been able to impart to her drawings. The truth is, that the subtle character of John Effingham's face would have puzzled the skill of one who had made the art his study for a life, and it utterly set the graceful but scarcely profound knowledge of the beautiful young painter at defiance. All the points of character that rendered her father so amiable and winning, and which were rather felt than perceived, in his cousin were salient and bold, and, if it may be thus expressed, had become indurated by mental suffering and disappointment.

The cousins were both rich, though in ways as opposite as their dispositions and habits of thought. Edward Effingham possessed a large hereditary property, that brought a good income, and which attached him to this world of ours by kindly feelings towards its land and waters; while John, much the wealthier of the two, having inherited a large commercial fortune, did not own ground enough to bury him. As he sometimes deridingly said, he kept his gold in corporations, that were as soulless as himself."

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Still, John Effingham was a man of cultivated mind, of extensive intercourse with the world, and of manners that varied with the occasion; or perhaps it were better to say, with his humours. In all but the latter particular the cousins were alike; Edward Effingham's deportment being as equal as his temper, though also distinguished for a knowledge of society.

These gentlemen had embarked at London, on their fiftieth birthday, in the packet of the 1st of October, bound to New York; the

lands and family residence of the proprietor lying in the state of that name, of which all of the parties were natives. It is not usual for the cabin passengers of the London packets to embark in the docks; but Mr. Effingham, as we shall call the father in general, to distinguish him from the bachelor, John,—as an old and experienced traveller, had determined to make his daughter familiar with the peculiar odours of the vessel in smooth water, as a protection against sea-sickness; a malady, however, from which she proved to be singularly exempt in the end. They had, accordingly, been on board three days, when the ship came to an anchor off Portsmouth, the point where the remainder of the passengers were to join her on that particular day when the scene of this tale commences.

At this precise moment, then, the Montauk was lying at a single anchor, not less than a league from the land, in a flat calm, with her three topsails loose, the courses in the brails, and with all those signs of preparation about her that are so bewildering to landsmen, but

which seamen comprehend as clearly as words. The captain had no other business there than to take on board the wayfarers, and to renew his supply of fresh meat and vegetables; things of so familiar import on shore as to be seldom thought of until missed, but which swell into importance during a passage of a month's duration. Eve had employed her three days of probation quite usefully, having, with the exception of the two gentlemen, the officers of the vessel, and one other person, been in quiet possession of all the ample, not to say luxurious cabins. It is true, she had a female attendant; but to her she had been accustomed from childhood, and Nanny Sidley, as her quondam nurse and actual lady's-maid was termed, appeared so much a part of herself, that, while her absence would be missed almost as greatly as that of a limb, her presence was as much a matter of course as a hand or a foot. Nor will a passing word concerning this excellent and faithful domestic be thrown away, in the brief preliminary explanations we are making.

Ann Sidley was one of those excellent creatures who, it is the custom with the European travellers to say, do not exist at all in Ame rica, and who, while they are certainly less numerous than could be wished, have no superiors in the world, in their way. She had been born a servant, lived a servant, and was quite content to die a servant,-and this, too, in one and the same family. We shall not enter into a philosophical examination of the reasons that had induced old Ann to feel certain she was in the precise situation to render her more happy than any other that to her was attainable; but feel it she did, as John Effingham used to express it, "from the crown of her head to the sole of her foot." She had passed through infancy, childhood, girlhood, up to womanhood, pari passu, with the mother of Eve, having been the daughter of a gardener, who died in the service of the family, and had heart enough to feel that the mixed relations of civilised society, when properly understood and appreciated, are more pregnant of happiness than the vulgar scramble