d
with a voice full of emotion, but in a tone instinct with a pure and
chaste heart:

"You need not defend me, Marquis; it is useless to repel suspicion from
me. A young woman of my character and name, the daughter of the Rovero,
need not justify herself from the imputation of a crime, which she would
die rather than commit."

She could say no more, for her strength was exhausted, and the power of
her mind had consumed the artificial and nervous capacity of her body,
which was greatly overtasked. Aminta was ill. With her beautiful head
resting on her mother's shoulder, she was taken to her room. All
withdrew in silence.

On the features of some, however, especially of the young men whom
Aminta had rejected, an incredulousness of such virtue might have been
read. It was hard to conceive how she came to be at midnight in the room
of the Marquis of Maulear.

END OF BOOK III.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by Stringer
& Townsend, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United
States for the Southern District of New-York.

From Chambers' Papers for the People.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES.

We welcome the indications, now crowding upon us from every quarter,
that the people of this country are beginning to feel the importance of
taking active measures for the establishment and increase of public
libraries. Large collections of books, open for common use, are at once
the storehouses and the manufactories of learning and science; they
bring together the accumulated fruits of the experience, the research,
and the genius of other ages and distant nations, as well as of our own
time and land; and they create the taste, as well as furnish the
indispensable aids for the prosecution of literary and scientific effort
in every department. In great cities they qualify the exclusive spirit
of commercial and professional avocations, and encourage men to steal an
hour from the pursuit of gain, and devote it to the attempt to satisfy a
natural curiosity and to cultivate an elegant taste. Connected with
literary and academical institutions, they supply the means and multiply
the objects of study, and keep alive that enthusiasm in the cause of
letters without which nothing great or permanent can ever be
accomplished. Their establishment is a boon to all classes of society,
and all may find in them both recreation and employment; for as the poet
Crabbe says:--

"Here come t