THE

THREE PERILS OF WOMAN.

PERIL FIRST.

Love.

66

CIRCLE FIRST.

"I FEAR I am in love," said Gatty Bell, as she first awakened in her solitary bed in the garret room of her father's farm-house. "And what a business I am like to have of it! I have had such a night dream dreaming, and all about one person; and now I shall have such a day thinking and thinking, and all about the same person. But I will not mention his name even to myself, for it is a shame and a disgrace for one of my age to fall in love, and of her own accord too. I will set my face against it. My resolution is taken. I will not fall in love in any such way.

Galty sprung from her bed, as lightly as a kid leaping from its lair on the shelf of the rock. There was a little bright mirror, fourteen inches by ten, that hung on the wall at the side of her gable window, but Gatty made a rule of never looking into this glass on a morning till once she had said a short prayer, washed her hands and face, and put on her clothes; then she turned to her mirror to put her exuberant locks under some restraint for the day. But that morning, being newly awakened out of a love-dream, and angry with herself for having indulged in such a dream, she sprung from her couch, and without thinking what she was about, went straight up, leaned both her spread hands

on the dressing-table, and looked into the mirror. Her pretty muslin night-cap had come all round to one side, and having brought her redundancy of fair hair aside with it, her left cheek and eye were completely shaded with these; while the right cheek, which was left bare and exposed, was flushed, and nearly of the colour of the damask rose. At the same time, her eyes, or at least the one that was visible, were heavy and swollen, and but half awake. "A pretty figure to be in love, truly!" said she, and turned away from the glass with a smile so lovely, that it was like a blink of the sun through the brooding clouds of the morning.

Gatty drew on her worsted stockings, as white as the lamb from whose back they had been originally shorn, flung her snowy vail over her youthful and sylphlike form, and went away, as it were mechanically, to an old settee that stood in a corner, where she had been accustomed for a number of years to kneel every morning and say her prayers. But that morning Agatha stood still with apparent hesitation for a considerable space, and did not kneel as she was wont. "I cannot pray any to-day," said Gatty, and returned sobbing, while the tears dropped from her eyes.

She sat down on the side of her bed, and continued sobbing, very slightly, and as softly, it is true,-but still she could not refrain from it, and always now and then she thrust her hair up from her eye in beneath her oblique cap, until her head appeared quite deformed with a great protuberance on the one side. "It is not yet my accustomed time of rising," said Gatty again to herself. "I will examine myself with regard to these feelings, that are as strange as they are new to my heart."

"What then is the matter with you, naughty Agatha, that you cannot pray to your Maker this morning, as you have long been wont to do, and that with so much delight?"

"Because I am ashamed of the thoughts and feelmy heart this morning, and I never was so

ings of before."

"And because you are ashamed of your thoughts, do you therefore propose to set up a state of independence of your Creator, and to ask no more guidance or counsel of Him? If you think it sinful and shameful to be in love, cannot you pray that you may never be so ?"

"No.-Oh dear me! I cannot pray for that neither." "Then cannot you pray that you may love with all your heart, and be loved again

"Oh! no, no, no, no! I would not pray that for the whole world; it is so home a thrust, and comes so near one's heart, it must be very bad. My dear parents and my pastor have always taught me the leading duty of self-denial; to pray for such things as these would be any thing but self-denial. To love with all my heart, and be loved again! Oh! goodness, no. I cannot, cannot ask such a thing as that! I am sure, at least I fear, it is wrong, very wrong, but I would not care to try."

Gatty kneeled in her wonted place, and said her prayers with a fervency and a devotion to which she had seldom before attained; but she neither prayed that she might love or not love, but only that she might be preserved from all sin and temptation, and never left to follow the dictates of her own corrupt heart. After that she arose, strengthened and comforted, and firmly resolved never to subject her heart to the shackles of love, till she should arrive at the years of discretion and experience; till she could do so without being ashamed of it to her own heart, or of disclosing it to her parents, which was far from being the case at that present time. She trembled at the very thoughts of it; regarding it as something in itself sinful, and tending to wean her from the thoughts and services of her Maker.

With a heart lightened of its load, and naturally full of gayety and joy, she dressed herself with neatness and elegance; and as she looked in her mirror for the last time before going down stairs, she could not help remarking, that it was a pity these love thoughts were

sinful ones, for they had a wonderful efficacy in improving the looks and the compiexion. She skipped down her steep garret stair at three leaps; it had always taken her four when she and her brother Joseph were wont to do it at play. But she was resolved to have a great deal of conversation with her nurse about love that day, for she had neither sister nor friend to whom she could unbosom her thoughts, but to Mrs. Johnson she could do so with the greatest freedom.

There was no one in the parlour beside her nurse, when Gatty went in, save her brother Joe, who was sitting at a by-table, busily engaged arranging some fishing tackle. "Good morning to you, dear nurse, and to you, too, brother Josey. How is my brave, sweet, active young sportsman this morning?"

"Get you gone, sister Gatty. You teaze me past all endurance. I won't be caressed that way by a girl. It is enough to make one ashamed.”

"Nurse, did you ever hear such impertinence? Give me a kiss, and I will tell you what I think of you."

"There then,-what do you think of me?"

"That you are an insufferable puppy with these college airs of yours;-with your stays and your bracers; your quips and your quibbles; your starch and your stucco. Oh, how I do despise a dandy collegian !

"Not all the dandy collegians, Miss Gatty, or there be some that see not aright, or say not what is true." "Oh! O dear me! what does the gossip mean? 1 won't speak another word to him, nor to one who dares make an insinuation that ever looked with a favourable eye on any young gentleman, far less a puppy from the college."

"Pshaw, sister Gat! You must not think that every body is hood-winked or blind-folded, because you would have them so. Shall I tell you what I have heard, saying nothing about what i have seen?""

"I'll hear none of your college gossiping. You

sit over your dry buttermilk cheese and stale porter at eleven at night, and smirk and talk of the favours and affections of Misses of your native parishes. Do you think I would listen to such effervescences of fuming vanity?-Dear nurse, I want to speak with you in my attic chamber."

The good nurse laid aside her work. and followed her young mistress up stairs. Master Joseph looked after his sister, and broke out with a loud provoking laugh. "Go your ways," said he to himself, taking up anew his minnow tackle, hung on three neat brass swivels, and surveying it with delight continued,-"Go your ways, Miss; I shall have peace and leisure to sort my fishing apparatus. This, I think, will make them come bounding from the gullets of Garvald. And these flies of the Tarroch wing I am all impatience to prove. The large loch trouts are said to have actually a passion for them; a rage, a something far beyond a voracious appetite. It is a pity one cannot buckle two baskets on his back, with such chances before him. Sister Gat seems on her high horse to-day, but I would rather offend any body seriously than her, for I like her better than I want her to know."

When Miss Gatty and her nurse reached the little attic chamber, the former eagerly inquired what the nurse conceived to be the stripling's meaning in the insinuations he had advanced? The nurse could not tell. Brothers often heard things among their acquaintances, that were kept close from the ears of parents and nurses. He seemed to hint, as she thought, that Miss Gatty had exhibited symptoms of love for some young gentleman. She could not tell at all what was his meaning, but feared he had some foundation for what he said.

"What!" said Gatty, "do you suppose I would be so thoughtless, and so foolish, as to fall in love with any young man? Would it not be a shame and a disgrace for one of my age to fall in love?"

"Certainly it would, Miss," said the nurse. "But