all his life without knowing it, Simon had been making love for years, with the desperate determination of just going to begin. When people wondered why the frank-hearted Kitty did not accept his hand, they could not guess that it had never been offered. When they admired his devotion, and told her how very, very fond he was of her, she could only turn away with a little laugh, which was far more sad than merry, whispering to herself, "I wish to Heaven he would say so -that he had said so years ago."

Was this a case for hope? There seemed none. Simon, it was clear, would go to his grave all wrinkles, ere his lips would voluntarily unseal; and poor Kitty Auburn's locks would be snow-white, and her sunny cheerful youth be all overclouded and withered into wintriness, long before the passion of her pure heart, so warmly and truly answered, had a chance of being more nearly neighboured or more dearly rewarded.

There was no hope:-none, until the Society for the Encouragement of Hearts opened its doors the other day to the Hon. Simon Wrinkle. A gentleman so much in need of its beneficent influences, was, of course, instantaneously admitted to the full enjoyment of all the privileges of a fellow; with what effect upon his temperament was soon seen in the new light wherein his character appeared. He, timid and procrastinating! a trifler with another's happiness and his own, for want of a little selfconfidence and decision! The last man in the society for that, was Simon the bold; for he had only been installed a fellow about eightand-forty hours, when off he started in the direction of a snug little suburban retreat, and in hot pursuit of its drooping, half-despairing

mistress.

There, cured as by a magic charm of his distrust, reserve, and bashful irresolution, he raised the startled but still expectant Kitty out of that wasting sickness of suspense to which she was sensibly falling a prey, and with incomparable tenderness breathed all the impassioned eloquence of his love in six of the most prosaic little words in the language. To which Kitty could only reply-waiving the poetry of gleaming eyes, and cheeks rich with roses, brighter than the sunset-in words just as honest and prosaic; that, of course, she did, and, of course, she would— but why had he not asked her before?

Well, there was no more delay; for Kitty was the wife of Simon Wrinkle before he had completed one month of his fellowship in the successful Society for the Encouragement of Hearts.

To write the history of an institution so philanthropic is but to relate miracles over and over again, and multiply examples like that of Diggins, the man of all work, everybody's agent, and nobody's friend. Let us add his true testimony to the rest.

Diggins had grown old in the service of the worst part of the world, without ever seeming to know whether it was bad or good. He was, in some degree, like those glass-faced clocks with invisible works-people long supposed that Diggins had no feelings; that he went without works. It was not that he was believed to carry some spongy substance in his breast, in place of that naturally throbbing and beating machine which nature appointed for the convenience-and, though the stony rogues are not aware of it, for the comfort of her children; no, the popular conviction was, that his bosom was a vacancy, an original hollow-that na

ture in this special instance did not " abhor a vacuum;" but that the rather Irish idea of Pope,

The craving void left aching in the breast,

was realised beneath the waistcoat of Diggins. Nobody attributed bad feelings to him: they only denied that he ever had any. Nobody called him hard-hearted; they merely made oath that he never had a heart at all. Diggins might as well have been turned inside out; he was an empty vessel of mortality; an unfurnished tenement of clay. He was known as the man who had "nothing in him."

This at least is sure he had no parent living, and child he never had, son or daughter. He had no wife, no sister. Diggins had no brother. He had neither uncle nor cousin. He had no relation of either sex, or of any kind or degree. Diggins never had a friend in the world, and, of course, was without a friend now. He had no crony who had once been his schoolfellow; no crabbed partner in business; no idle cup-companion. Diggins had not a single acquaintance-he had no neighbour. He had employers-and he had dupes, no doubt,-but the second perhaps were merged in the first. He had fellow-countrymen, it is truebut it is hardly true that Diggins had fellow-creatures.

Diggins as he was, we mean! It is at all events certain, that if he really possessed in former times any thing in the nature of a heart, he had never by any chance treated it to a kind action. He had never permitted a little fresh blood to flow through it; but kept it stopped up, stifled and choked; never suffering it to knock at his ribs, or jump up into his mouth, or take any invigorating exercise whatever. permitted it any such liberty, and it must have dried up to a chip, and perished of starvation and imprisonment, if, indeed, it ever had an existence, save in wild imagination.

He never

Only note the difference. When Diggins, the man who had nothing in him, was elected into the Society for the Encouragement of Hearts;though some inquired what business he had there, who could only, when he returned thanks for his admission, place his hand upon his stomach, and declare that it was too full for utterance-others might very speedily perceive in him the certain action of a principle, an instinct developed and put in motion by the vivifying atmosphere of the association.

The childless Diggins, relationless, friendless, -a stranger in the vast swarming world, seemed in a little time to belong to the social scene, to be a natural atom of it, and to know other atoms when he met them. This made him look more like them-and much less like himself, for his step was brisker, his brow smoother, his eye less dim, his very hair less gray. Then came a flutter and a leap within, which actually made him feel like them. In a few hours he conceived an intense desire to do a good thing-somewhere, for any body-all at once, that very minute. His soul would be shut up no longer, but got out for a holiday, and drew him dancing after it; and Diggins, to whom good and bad had been perfectly indifferent, save in their effects upon his own interests and objects, could in an instant judge between them, never to confound them again. But what most astonished him, and it was indeed wonderfully curious, was, that he who had no kith or kin on the grassy side of the churchyard, should now find in every part of the town such long streets full of his Sept.-VOL. LXXII. NO. CCLXXXV.

I

relations! "I must fish out an explanation of this phenomenon," said he, rather bewildered, "in the Society for the Encouragement of

Hearts!"

Jaundice, who was for years so jealous of his lively and innocent wife, that it was at last thought by many that his melancholy was as green as it was yellow, was a long time before he could be persuaded to join the society. He, a slave to the most wretched suspicion, was, in fact, afraid to stir out of doors or out of view of his lady's window, which he watched from the attic at the corner of the street-to see if Mrs. Jaundice's great grandfather had the profligacy to call and see her, while her own Jaundice was from home. Pillows, poison, and poinards, were alike unavailing, in such a complaint as this afflicted and frantic husband's; but one of these futile remedies, and possibly all three, he would infallibly have tried, either upon himself or his wife-but for the subtle and merciful influences of the Society of Hearts.

Entering that association, and being declared a fellow, his visage, as it revealed itself to its owner by a reflection in the large glass opposite, seemed surprisingly less yellow than usual. He certainly then turned pale, which further lessened the ordinary hue; but in a few minutes another change came, and he was crimson from brow to beard. His inward nature, he knew not how, altered as remarkably; his sensations and sentiments were no longer the same, but like those he felt and cherished on the day he married Constance.

Constance, in short, became again an angel in his eyes, not more lovely than incorruptible. Ages of absence and temptation would fail to dim her lustre or weaken her affection; and when he hurried home, an hour before dinner, and found her fervent in argument with his friend, the young barrister, insisting prettily that he should stay and dine, and go with them to the opera-for Jaundice would admire and like it of all things: -Jaundice, as soon as he recovered his breath, vowed that he should, of all imaginable things but one!-which was nothing less than the gay, open, daring kiss, which, without one moment's warning, and to the utter amazement of the legal witness thereto, he forthwith imprinted on the lips of his charming wife, before she could get her little shriek out!

"I have just come," exclaimed Jaundice, with an affectedly off-hand air, giving the rosy Constance time to recover herself, "just come from the Society for the Encouragement of Hearts. Excellent institution that! But by Jove we'll go to the opera. Constance, you must wear -wear-but you're a divinity in any thing!"

When two friends quarrelled-(the reader knows their names, or can readily supply them from his own list)-how little was requisite to re-unite what never should have been separated; yet through what gloomy days and months did that estrangement endure! A word of recall would suffice, but how was it to be spoken-and how was its sufficiency to be mutually understood! Each felt the pain, and the desire to end it,-for the other's sake more than his own; but neither was in a situation to break ground, or make the first effort to draw near

To meet again like parted streams,
And mingle as of old.

But when, after all this anguish, misapprehension, and rending asun

der, they met one summer morning by chance-it was on the steps of the Society for the Encouragement of Hearts-one was going in, the other coming out-no pause or punctilio, rather say no explanation, was at all necessary. Hands outstretched were locked together, so were arms on the instant, and the friends never took different roads afterwards.

And what a beautiful instance of the efficacy of this society in dignifying and emboldening the heart, was supplied in the example of Jack Spanker. Poor little Jack was once quite bowed to the dust, because his friends wouldn't come down with it. What hurt him most was a tender and honourable sense of the fifty pounds he had borrowed and could not pay back, as he had promised. It was a farce, a mere feather -yet was it a world's weight on the sensitive feelings of poor Jack Spanker. No item in his list of debts-which was not particularly short tortured him with such recollections. Persons, mixing in the merry world, laughed mightily if he but hinted at this the sharpest point of his griefs; but it pricked him to the soul nevertheless, and his eyes dropped melting pearls into his else vacant purse. He would have gladly owed more, much more, in another quarter; but not to pay this debt added venom to the bite of poverty.

Weary of the whole world, and most sick of himself, Jack had just embraced despair as his last companion in this life, when he saw himself put up as a candidate for admission into the society, and verily became a fellow of the association for the Encouragement of Hearts. Presto Jack! A remedy was within reach on the instant. He flung despair to the winds, crying aloud with the pathetic desperation of the poet,

And if the winds reject you, try the waves!

He resolved to relieve himself from his most painful obligation, that very hour. He was dashing Jack Spanker again. So, ordering a cab to the door of the Society for the Encouragement of Hearts, he drove off to his creditor, who had never once applied for the money, and boldly asked for the loan of a hundred pounds, as he could never enjoy peace of mind until he had paid the fifty!

Dexterously indeed does this society apply the spur of hope to prostrate despondency! There is in faith no limits to the encouragement which the sinking, jaded, self-mistrusting heart receives through the medium of this ingenious association. It is calculated, as we have partly shown, to do more service to the cause of morality than any incorporated society has hitherto rendered to other national objects whether to learning, science, or the arts. To become an F.S.H.-a Fellow of the Society of Hearts-will, at a rapidly approaching period, be deemed an object of high distinction-contrasted as it will be with some other attainments of fellowship, now in request, by the eminent usefulness of the honour.

CONFESSIONS OF AN ITALIAN INNKEEPER.

[The following is a narrative of facts. The chief incidents it relates will be recognised at once by the chief actors in them, whose names are only slightly altered. It is hardly necessary to offer any explanation of our motives for publishing this paper, at a season of the year when such vast numbers of our countrymen are going abroad, and when hotel-keepers and couriers in all directions are preparing to make their annual harvest of English credulity and English gold.]

I was born at Chiavenna, in the Valtelline. It is the custom in that neighbourhood to preserve the wine of the country in natural cellars in the rocks, or excavations made especially for the purpose, and closed up by large doors. These cellars are usually under the charge of peasants whose huts are to be seen scattered on the precipitous face of the mountain, in places inaccessible except to the accustomed feet of the inhabitants. My father, Pietro Vardarelli, was one of these care-takers; and it was amongst the wine caverns overlooking the promenade at Chiavenna I first saw the light.

The wine of the Valtelline is very delicate; it will not bear transport to distant places; and must be consumed almost within the districts where it is grown. The consequence of this is a supply so abundant, especially in fine seasons, that the poorest classes amongst the peasantry are generally enabled to accumulate little stores of wine, even when they cannot obtain the commonest necessaries of life. My father's situation afforded him peculiar advantages. His stewardship of several vaults, filled with wines belonging to rich proprietors, gave him such control over an extensive stock, that he had no difficulty in amassing, from time to time, a large quantity for his private benefit. There were so many ways of accounting for deficiencies, that his honesty in these matters was never suspected; and it is only just to him to add, that if there were few men in the Valtelline, perhaps in the whole Grisons, who possessed so elastic a conscience, there certainly was not one who could have carried off such trifling depredations with so consummate an air of business.

It is not for me to pronounce any eulogium upon the personal merits of my father. But they must have been considerable; for they raised him in a few years from a state of absolute penury to a position of such comfort and importance as to render him the envy of the whole town of Chiavenna. When he had quietly secured a sufficient stock for his contemplated purpose, he set up a wine-house in the rocks, in a spot singularly favoured by nature for the purposes of revelry. The place was, in fact, made to his hand in a rift of the mountain, where you were shut in on all sides from observation, and where, during the hottest day in the year, you were as cool as if you were under a block of ice in the upper ridges of the Alps. This curious retreat is close upon the town. You ascend to it by a winding path through orchards and gardens on the side of the hill; and great is your astonishment when you come suddenly upon it to find yourself in a ravine of naked stone, at the extremity of which you discover groups of people carousing in the open air, under the windows of a cabaret, apparently excavated in the mountain. Travellers who chance to remain a day or two at Chiavenna, en route for Italy,