SKETCH FROM LIFE, A SENTIMENTAL STORY. Qui que tu sois, voici ton maitre, "THERE is no faith in woman!" I exclaimed to myself the other morning, and I repeated it thrice with increasing emphasis. "There is no faith in woman.-And what woman has taught you to think so?" said a soft voice near me. I started, for I had most unconsciously been uttering my thoughts aloud, while leaning on the back of my cousin Agatha's couch, with my eyes resting on the sheet of music paper which lay before her. I coloured as her glance met mine. "Nay-is it not true?" said I. "Nay," she repeated-" I will not be answered by a nay!-cousin Henry." 66 66 But my dear cousin-my dear Agatha"-cried I, you are a woman, and a beautiful woman-you can be no judge." "And supposing I admit it," said Agatha, smiling, "what has my beauty to do with either my womanhood, or my judgment?" "There you may answer it yourself-what woman can judge of her sex's failings !-what beautiful woman can deal fairly by a sister beauty?" "Is this all?" replied she, "Then you have learned to libel us merely from the cant of the day!" "It is the cant of ages," said I. "Surely not!-the cant of the careless and the unmeaning-but not where there is a heart and head to think, and to feel-no, my dear cousin, do not repeat it. There is both trust and truth in woman." Agatha," said I, "why have you never mar 66 ried ?" "Harry," returned she, "why have you this ill opinion of our sex ?" "Pshaw! but with your beauty, and your wit, and your fortune and consequence” 66 "Tell me why do you quarrel with us?""Harry," continued my cousin, interrupting me with more earnestness, we must not let our own individual disappointments disgust us with the world at large-search well, and we shall discover our injustice-besides, let us be content though we meet but one faithful heart amidst a crowd of treachery." "And how shall we find it? Where shall we meet with this faithful heart in woman? No, Agatha," cried I," you mistake the character of woman-you do not know her-you cannot know her-you, who must always be every way above the rest of your sex, and as different as inimitable!" She was silent, she was even grave for a moment or two, and the shade of thought in the expression of her bland and beautiful countenance seemed almost as if it grew into sadness. smile, "Cousin," said she, She looked at me with a "tell me your history? you have been unfortunate;" and she pointed with her small and snow white hand to the vacant seat beside her on the sofa. There was a gentleness, a delicacy, and a tenderness in my cousin Agatha's disposition which gave a charm to her slightest action. It was a gracefulness of character which seemed to have inspired the gracefulness of her person and her every motion, though it was a something beyond grace which made her tone of feeling, both in gaiety and sorrow, irresistible. I seated myself beside her on the sofa, and did as she had bid me. "I have been in love," said I," it is my whole history." "And what then?" she enquired, mistress unfaithful?" 66 was your "I have told you all in one word-woman and infidelity go together!" I paused for some minutes, and when I spoke again I had obtained more selfpossession. "When I first went abroad," said I, "I spent some time at Florence. The fashionable lounge was the picture-gallery, and there was I a daily visitor; but I went thither really to gratify my passion for paintings, and not to gaze, and be gazed at by the company. One morning while I was standing as usual before my favorite study, I was startled by some one tapping me lightly on the shoulder, I suddenly turned round-it was a lady, and one of the most beautiful of earth's creatures; but her look and attitude were even more striking than her countenance and figure. She was, in a manner, stealing a glance into my face, with such a curiosity, and interest, and earnestness, blended with such a fanciful coquetry and intelligence in her expression as amazed me. She enjoyed my surprise and admiration for about half a second, and then with the most natural negligence in the world, pointed gracefully with the hand which still rested on my arm, to the ground. It was her handkerchief that had fallen at my feet, and I instantly stooped, and raised it. She stretched out her hand to receive it, before I had even time to present it to her, nodded her head half with the air of a pleased child, half with the air of a woman of fashion, and then folding her arms in her drapery round her, resumed her contemplation of the painting before us, which this little accident seemed to have disturbed. I stood with my eyes fastened on her, wondering who this enthralling creature could be. She had that decided air of fashion which there is no mistaking, and a certain air much superior to it; but there was a something so whimsical in her style of dress, and in her style of appearance altogether, to make me feel uncertain what to think of her. 66 Just as I was looking round to enquire her name of some bystander, she turned and addressed me; I forget now what it was she said to me, something about my favourite painting, or my general fondness for pictures; whatever it might be, I was so much a novice in fashion as to feel uncomfortable at her speaking to me. I remember, however, that though her words were select, her manner struck me as common-place; she, moreover, seemed to me a coquette, and I immediately concluded that she must be marked by all the silliness of her class. In appearance she might have been about two or three and twenty, but I suspect she was more, perhaps from my own inexperience, for she struck me as being usée to the ways of the world. It was evident that she was aware of the admiration which she had elicited, that she had expected it, and was therefore pleased with it, and meant to excite a little more. No one but a boy, probably no one but such a boy as I, would have been seized with these reflexions at the moment that she was soliciting my attention; but very young men, and young men |