precipice, or like the Falls of the eternal Niagara, and seizes the pretty note, and flies like an eagle to his celestial cloister. Julia gently smiles, and intently gazes at us, and we at her, in the profoundest silence, when we arise, and pace across the moonlight rays that gild the rainbow carpet, in disconcerted meditation. Julia becomes alarmed, and exclaims: “Stephen, you seem agitated and bewildered, and I fear you will disclose in Bennett’s Herald what you have seen to-night.” We assured her that we would not, and then she besought us, in plaintive tones, never to divulge our painful observations to the Reverend Doctor Potts, and we assented, and soon retired, but could not repose, and arose and paced the room, and in fancy rambled through our early days, and parted the lattice, and gazed upon the autumnal firmament, and counted its brilliant constellations. We saw the meteors fall, and heard the watchman’s solemn cry, and closed the lattice and retired, (with the imprudent Parson’s daughter, like an affrighted ghost, flitting before our midnight vision,) and there was no repose for us. We tossed hither and thither, like a vessel in a storm, and heard the doleful clock measure the passing hours, and heard the shrill music of the King of hens, and gladly hailed the first pale ray of the morning twilight that lit upon our nose, and we arise, and enter the exhilerating atmosphere, and stroll with the earliest rays of Aurora, as she gilds the hills and sacred skies. We pace the streets in excited contemplation, and waggons, and rustics, and butchers, and debauchees, and homeless wanderers pass us in rapid succession, for whose hard and mysterious destiny, our poor heart beats high in tearful sympathy. We pass on, and intoxicated girls, of incomparable beauty, reeled by our side, who had just emerged from dens of infamy, where they had been decoyed, and their virginity forever blighted by incarnate demons. We rove through the commodious Park, bearing the enchanting name of Washington, and recline beneath its mellifluous foliage, and soliloquize in the mental disquietude of Aristotle, when he apostrophised on his expiring pillow, with his arms across his breast, and his deluged vision turned to Heaven: “O God! I entered the world in sin,—I have lived in anxiety, and I depart in perturbation. Cause of causes, pity me, poor Aristotle.” We ruminate with our bewildered eyes riveted on vacancy, and suddenly resolve to divulge all to the Reverend Doctor Potts, and at a bound are in his dazzling habitation, close by his side, whom thus rudely do we accost: “We are a stranger, on a mission of love and duty. What we disclose will appal, and you may lose your sacred temper, and drive us from your presence. But, as we came to save your daughter from the embraces of a villain, if you violate our person, we shall yearn for a terrible revenge, and may, in our awful wrath, slay you in your own domestic castle.” He paled and trembled,—his eyes glistened and lips quivered, and his hair actually arose. We told him to be as serene as the morning sky without, as we had come, like the Saviour, to rescue his beauteous child from ruin, and himself, and wife, and other children from eternal degradation; and that what we should disclose, must be concealed in his heart’s most secret recesses, until the curfew tolled the departure of his final sun, to which he most solemnly assented. And then we divulged all we have here narrated, when he arose, and, with his hands clasped, he cried in tones of melting tenderness: “What! my daughter! my darling child, who is the hope and solace of my being, to drop notes for Otto Dressel in Houston street! Impossible, sir—impossible—utterly impossible. Mr. Dressel is a great pianist, and came to this country with letters to me from the leading men of Germany, and I have the highest confidence in his integrity, and I permit him to visit my family, and he often passes his leisure in my house, and teaches music to my daughter, and they often sit for hours at the piano, and play duets and sing together like brother and sister; and I think they admire, but do not love each other, as she is betrothed to a southern gentleman of great affluence. Otto I love, and so does my wife, and other children, and we treat him like one of us; but my eldest daughter simply admires, but cannot love him without infidelity to her betrothed. All her purest and most sacred affections are concentrated on another. But Otto will ever be welcome to my house, for I like his delightful music and his modest demeanor, and I cannot and will not believe that he could be guilty of dishonorable stratagem, to rob me of my favorite child. It is impossible, and I will not believe it.” We arose, and smiled, and departed with the usual courtesy of departure. And soon we received the following, which we punctuate and italicise precisely as we received it:—

“To Mr. Branch: Dear Sir—It has just occurred to me, that I owe you a line, to express again my thanks for the manly straightforward way in which you brought to me the derogatory scandal you had heard. Far better such a method of dealing, than that of talking about people of whom we have heard disparaging statements—and far better than anonymous letter-writing, which shoots arrows in the dark. Although the affair you brought to my ears—plausible as seemed the statements you rec’d—had no farther foundation, than the passing of notes about indifferent matters—still I am none the less obliged to you for the manner in which you made it known to me. My promise of holding you harmless, is the only reason, why I do not call upon the parties named, and take them to task. This, however, I cannot do, without your permission—nor perhaps is it of any importance I should. I may, however, suggest to yourself a good office toward the young person, with whom this story, (which owes its plausibility to a little fact, and a good deal of suspicious fancy,) originated: namely to warn her of the danger of letting her imagination and her tongue run away with her. Respectfully yours,

George Potts.

Nov. 9, 1849.

P. S.—If it should be at all in your power, you would oblige me if you could verify the story of the dropping of notes, and who the person (if such an one there be) is.”

HERE IS OUR REPLY.

New York City, Nov. 12, 1849.

To the Rev. Dr. Potts: Dear Sir—Your approval of my course is truly grateful to my feelings. On my return to my abode on the day I saw you, my interrogations elicited the following which I forward as an answer to your request in your postscript, although I supposed I had sufficiently verified all I disclosed. Miss Mitchell says that she knows your daughter, when she sees her, and her mother and two nieces also know her by sight; that the Saturday previous (three days prior to my visit to you), she saw your daughter ascend the steps, ring the bell, request the servant (who is in collusion with Dressel and your daughter), to hand a note to Mr. Dressel, and depart as far as the corner of Sullivan and Houston streets, where she tarried until Mr. Dressel (leaving immediately on the receipt of the note in his room) overtook her, when they walked away together, arm in arm, and that similar scenes occurred while Mr. Dressel boarded with them in Bond street, last Winter, where the correspondence began, which has also been conducted through the Dispatch Post ever since, Mr. Dressel sometimes receiving as many as three letters per week; that a colored boy has sometimes brought the letters; that these letters (at least those Miss Mitchell perused, at Mr. Dressel’s request,) comprised six closely written pages, with the name of your daughter annexed, beginning with: “My dear, dear Otto:” and with “My dearest and very best friend,” &c.; that