An eminent clergyman one evening became the subject of conversation, and a wonder was expressed that he had never married. “That wonder,” said Miss Porter, “was once expressed to the reverend gentleman himself, in my hearing, and he told a story in answer which I will tell you—and perhaps, slight as it may seem, it is the history of other hearts as sensitive and delicate as his own. Soon after his ordination, he preached once every Sabbath, for a clergyman in a village not twenty miles from London. Among his auditors, from Sunday to Sunday, he observed a young lady, who always occupied a certain seat, and whose close attention began insensibly to grow to him an object of thought and pleasure. She left the church as soon as service was over, and it so chanced that he went on for a year without knowing her name; but his sermon was never written without many a thought how she would approve it, nor preached with satisfaction unless he read approbation in her face. Gradually he came to think on her at other times than when writing sermons, and to wish to see her on other days than Sundays; but the weeks slipped on, and though he fancied she grew paler and thinner, he never brought himself to the resolution either to ask her name, or to seek to speak with her. By these silent steps, however, love had worked into his heart, and he had made up his mind to seek her acquaintance and marry her, if possible, when one day he was sent for to minister at a funeral. The face of the corpse was the same that had looked up to him Sunday after Sunday, till he had learned to make it a part of his religion and his life. He was unable to perform the service, and another clergyman present officiated; and after she was buried, her father took him aside, and begged his pardon for giving him pain—but he could not resist the impulse to tell him that his daughter had mentioned his name with her last breath, and he was afraid that a concealed affection for him had hurried her to the grave. Since that, said the clergyman in question, my heart has been dead within me, and I look forward only. I shall speak to her in heaven.”
London is wonderfully embellished within the last three years—not so much by new buildings, public or private, but by the almost insane rivalry that exists among the tradesmen to outshow each other in the expensive magnificence of their shops. When I was in England before, there were two or three of these palaces of columns and plate-glass—a couple of shawl shops, and a glass warehouse or two, but now the west end and the city have each their scores of establishments, of which you would think the plate-glass alone would ruin any body but Aladdin. After an absence of a month from town lately, I gave myself the always delightful treat of an after-dinner ramble among the illuminated palaces of Regent street and its neighborhood, and to my surprise found four new wonders of this description—a shawl house in the upper Regent’s Circus, a silk mercer’s in Oxford street, a whip maker’s in Regent street, and a fancy stationer’s in the Quadrant—either of which establishments fifty years ago would have been the talk of all Europe. The first-mentioned warehouse lines one of the quarters of the Regent Circus, and turns the corner of Oxford street with what seems but one window—a series of glass plates, only divided by brass rods, reaching from the ground to the roof—window panes twelve feet high, and four or five feet broad! The opportunity which this immense transparency of front gives for the display of goods is proportionately improved; and in the mixture of colors and fabrics to attract attention there is evidently no small degree of art—so harmonious are the colors and yet so gorgeous the show. I see that several more _renovations_ are taking place in different parts of both “city” and “town;” and London promises, somewhere in the next decimals, to complete its emergence from the chrysalis with a glory to which eastern tales will be very gingerbread matters indeed.