a wintry
sunbeam flashing against an icicle, which may brighten it for a moment,
but cannot melt it. Neither of these was precisely the ease, though such
fickleness of disposition might also have some influence in the change.

The truth is, perhaps, the lover's pleasure, like that of the hunter, is
in the chase; and that the brightest beauty loses half its merit, as
the fairest flower its perfume, when the willing hand can reach it
too easily. There must be doubt--there must be danger--there must be
difficulty; and if, as the poet says, the course of ardent affection
never does run smooth, it is perhaps because, without some intervening
obstacle, that which is called the romantic passion of love, in its high
poetical character and colouring can hardly have an existence--any more
than there can be a current in a river without the stream being narrowed
by steep banks, or checked by opposing rocks.

Let not those, however, who enter into a union for life without those
embarrassments which delight a Darsie Latimer, or a Lydia Languish, and
which are perhaps necessary to excite an enthusiastic passion in breasts
more firm than theirs, augur worse of their future happiness because
their own alliance is formed under calmer auspices. Mutual esteem, an
intimate knowledge of each other's character, seen, as in their case,
undisguised by the mists of too partial passion--a suitable proportion
of parties in rank and fortune, in taste and pursuits--are more
frequently found in a marriage of reason, than in a union of romantic
attachment; where the imagination, which probably created the virtues
and accomplishments with which it invested the beloved object, is
frequently afterwards employed in magnifying the mortifying consequences
of its own delusion, and exasperating all the stings of disappointment.
Those who follow the banners of Reason are like the well-disciplined
battalion, which, wearing a more sober uniform and making a less
dazzling show than the light troops commanded by imagination, enjoy more
safety, and even more honour, in the conflicts of human life. All this,
however, is foreign to our present purpose.

Uncertain in what manner to address her whom he had been lately so
anxious to meet with, and embarrassed by a TETE-A-TETE to which his own
timid inexperience, gave some awkwardness, the party had proceeded more
than a hundred yards before Darsie assumed courage to accost, or even
to look at, his companion. Sensible,