Helen turned to him with a smile that was radiant, beaming through her tears. It seemed to her, at that moment, that all her vague terrors, all her misgivings for the future, her self-distrust and her disquietude melted away and vanished into air.

Miss Thusa, pleased with the comment of the young doctor, was trying to keep down a rising swell of pride, and look easy and unconcerned, when Louis, taking a newspaper from his pocket, began to unfold it.

"Here is a paper, Miss Thusa," said he, handing it to her as he spoke, "which I put aside on purpose for you. It contains an account of a celebrated murder, which occupies several columns. It is enough to make one's hair stand on end, 'like quills upon the fretted porcupine.' I am sure it will lift the paper crown from your head."

Miss Thusa took the paper graciously, though she called him a "saucy boy," and adjusting her spectacles on the lofty bridge of her nose, she held the paper at an immense distance, and began to read.

At first, they amused themselves observing the excited glance of Miss Thusa, moving rapidly from left to right, her head following it with a quick, jerking motion; but as the article was long, they lost sight of her, in the interest of conversation. All at once, she started up with a sudden exclamation, that galvanized Helen, and brought Louis to his feet.

"What does this mean?" she cried, pointing with her finger to a paragraph in the paper, written in conspicuous characters. "Read it, for I do believe that my glasses are deceiving me."

Louis read aloud, in a clear, emphatic voice, the following advertisement:

"If Lemuel Murrey, or his sister Arathusa, are still living, if he, or in case of his death, she will come immediately to the town of ——, and call at office No. 24, information will be given of great interest and importance. Country editors will please insert this paragraph, several times, and send us their account."

"Why, Miss Thusa," cried Louis, flourishing the paper over his head, "somebody must have left you a fortune. Only hear—of great importance! Let me be the first to congratulate you," bowing almost to her feet.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Miss Thusa, "I have not a relation, that I know of, this side of the Atlantic, and if I had, they would not be worth a cent in the world. It must be an imposition," and she looked sharply at Louis through her lowered glasses.

"Upon my honor, Miss Thusa, I know nothing about it," asserted Louis. "I never saw it till you pointed it out to me. Whatever it means, it must be genuine. Do you not think so, father?"

"I see no room to imagine any thing like deception here," said Mr. Gleason, after examining the paper. "I think you must obey the summons, Miss Thusa, and ascertain what blessings Providence may have in store for you."

"Well," said Miss Thusa, with decision, "I will go to-morrow. What time does the stage start?"

"Soon after sunrise," replied Mr. Gleason. "But you cannot undertake such a long journey alone. You have no experience in traveling in cars and steamboats, and, at your age, you will find it very fatiguing. We can accompany you as far as New York, but there we must part, for I am compelled to return without any delay. Louis, too, is obliged to resume his college studies. The young doctor cannot leave his patients. Suppose you invest some one with legal authority, Miss Thusa, to investigate the matter?"

"I shall go myself," was the unhesitating answer. "As for going alone, I would not thank the King of England, if there was one, for his company—though I am obliged to you for thinking of my comfort. I know I'm getting old, but I should like to see the man, woman or child in this town, or any other, that can bear more than I can. I always was independent, thank the Lord. After living without the help of man this long, I hope I can get along without it at the eleventh hour. As to its being a money concern, I don't believe a word of it, and I wouldn't walk across the room, if it just concerned myself alone; but when I see the name of my poor, dead brother, I feel a command on me, just as if I saw it printed on tablets of stone, by the finger of the Lord Himself."

The next morning the travelers were to commence their journey, with the unexpected addition of Miss Thusa's company part of the way. When her baggage was brought down, to the consternation of all she had her wheel, arrayed in a traveling costume of green baize, mounted on the top of her trunk, and no reasoning or persuasion could induce her to leave it behind.

"I'm not going to let the Goths and Vandals get possession of it," she said, "when I'm gone. I've locked it up every night since the ruin of my thread, and—"

"You can have it locked up while you are absent," interrupted Mrs. Gleason. "I will promise you that no injury shall happen to it."

"Thank you," said Miss Thusa, nodding her head; "but where I go my wheel must go, too. What in the world shall I do, when I stop at night, without it? and in that idle place, the steamboat, I can spin a powerful quantity while the rest are doing nothing. It is neither big nor heavy, and it can go on the top of the stage very well, and be in nobody's way."

"You can sit there, Miss Thusa, and spin, while you are riding," cried Louis, laughing; "that will have a powerful effect."

Helen and Alice felt very sad in parting from the friend and brother so much beloved, but they could not help smiling at Louis's suggestion. The young doctor, glad of an incident which cast a gleam of merriment on their tears, added another, which obviated every difficulty:

"Only imagine it a new fashioned harp or musical instrument, in its green cover, and it will give eclat to the whole party. I am sure it is a harp of industry, on which Miss Thusa has played many a pleasant tune."

The wheel certainly had a very distinguished appearance on the top of the stage, exciting universal curiosity and admiration. Children rushed to the door to look at it, as the wheels went flashing and rolling by, while older heads were seen gazing from the windows, till the verdant wonder disappeared from their view.



CHAPTER VII.

"What a fair lady!—and beside her What a handsome, graceful, noble rider."—Longfellow.

"Love was to her impassioned soul Not as with others a mere part Of its existence—but the whole, The very life-breath of his heart."—Moore.

We would like to follow Miss Thusa and her wheel, and relate the manner in which she defended it from many a rude and insolent attack. The Israelites never guarded the Ark of the Covenant with more jealous care and undaunted courage.

But as we have commenced the history of our younger favorites in early childhood, and are following them up the steep of life, we find they have a long journey before them, and we are obliged here and there to make a long step, a bold leap, or the pilgrimage would be too long and weary.

We acknowledge a preference for Miss Thusa. She is a strong, original character, and the sunlight of imagination loves to rest upon its salient angles and projecting lines. When we commenced her sketch, our sole design was to describe her influence on the minds of others, and to make her a warning beacon to the mariners of life, that they might avoid the shoals on which the peace of so many morbidly sensitive minds have been wrecked. But we found a fascination in the subject which we could not resist. A heart naturally warm, defrauded of all natural objects on which to expend its living fervor, a mind naturally strong confined within close and narrow limits, an energy concentrated and unwasting, capable of carrying its possessor through every emergency and every trial—these characteristics of a lonely woman, however poor and unconnected she might be, have sometimes drawn us away from attractive themes.

We do not know that Mittie can be called attractive, but she is young, handsome and intellectual, and there is a charm in youth, beauty and intellect that too often disarms the judgment, and renders it blind to moral defects.

When Mittie returned from school, crowned with the laurels of the institution in which she had graduated, wearing the stature, and exhibiting the manners of a woman, though still in years a child, she appeared to her young companions surrounded with a prestige, in whose dazzling rays her childish faults were forgotten.

Mrs. Gleason, who had been looking forward with dread to the hour of her step-daughter's return, met her with every demonstration of affectionate regard. She had never seen Mittie, and as her father always spoke of her as "the child," palliating her errors on the plea of her motherless childhood, she was not prepared for the splendidly developed, womanly girl, who received her kind advances with a haughty and repelling coldness, which brought an angry flush to the father's brow.

"Mittie," said he, emphatically, "this is your mother. Remember that she is to receive from all my children the respect and affection to which she is eminently entitled."

"I know she is your wife, sir, and that her name is Mrs. Gleason, but that does not make her a mother of mine," replied the young girl, with surprising coolness.

"Mittie," exclaimed the father—what he would have said was averted by a hand laid gently on his arm, and a beseeching look from the eyes of the amiable step-mother.

"Do not constrain her to call me mother," she said. "I do not despair of gaining her affections in time. I care not for the mere name, unaccompanied by the feelings which make it so dear and holy."

One would have supposed that a remark like this, uttered in a calm, mild tone, a tone of mingled dignity and affability, would have touched a heart of only fifteen summer's growth, but Mittie knew not yet that she had a heart. She had never yet really loved a human being. Insensible to the sweet tendernesses of nature, it was reserved for the lightning bolt of passion to shiver the hard, bark-like covering, and penetrate to the living core.

She triumphed in the thought that in the struggle for power between her step-mother and herself she had gained the ascendency, that she had never yielded one iota of her will, never called her mother, or acknowledged her legitimate and sacred claims. She began to despise the woman, who was weak enough, as she believed, to be overruled by a young girl like herself. But she did not know Mrs. Gleason—as a scene which occurred just one year after her return will show.

Mittie was seated in her own room, where she always remained, save when company called expressly to see her. She never assisted her mother either in discharging the duties of hospitality or in performing those little household offices which fall so gracefully on the young. Engrossed with her books and studies, pursuits noble and ennobling in themselves, but degraded from their high and holy purpose when cultivated to the exclusion of the lovely, feminine virtues, Mittie was almost a stranger beneath her father's roof.

The chamber in which she was seated bore elegant testimony to the kindness and liberality of her step-mother—who, before Mittie's return from school, had prepared and furnished this apartment expressly for her two young daughters. As Mittie was the eldest, and to be the first occupant, her supposed tastes were consulted, and her imagined wants all anticipated. Mrs. Gleason had a small fortune of her own, so that she was not obliged to draw upon her husband's purse when she wished to be generous. She had therefore spared no expense in making this room a little sanctum-sanctorum, where youth would delight to dwell.

"Mittie loves books," she said, and she selected some choice and elegant works to fill the shelves of a swinging library—of course she must be fond of paintings, and the walls were adorned with pictures whose gilded frames relieved their soft, neutral tint.

"Young girls love white. It is the appropriate livery of innocence."

Therefore bed-curtains, window-curtains, and counterpane were of the dazzling whiteness of snow. Even the table and washstand were white, ornamented with gilded wreaths.

"Mittie was fond of writing—all school girls are," therefore an elegant writing desk must be ready for her use—and though her love of sewing was more doubtful, a beautiful workbox was ready for her accommodation. She well knew the character of Mittie, and her personal opposition to herself, but she was determined to overcome her prejudices, and bind her to her by every endearing obligation.

"His children must love me," she said, "and all that woman can and ought to do shall be done by me before I relinquish my labors of love."

Mittie enjoyed the gift without being grateful to the giver; she basked in the sunshine of comfort, without acknowledging the source from which it emanated. For one year she had been treated with unvarying tenderness, consideration, and regard, in spite of coldness, haughtiness, and occasional insolence, till she began to despise one who could lavish so much on a thankless, unreturning receiver.

She was surprised when her step-mother entered her room at the unusual hour of bed time—and looking up from the book she was reading, her countenance expressed impatience and curiosity. She did not rise or offer her a chair, but after one rude, fixed stare, resumed her reading. Mrs. Gleason seated herself with perfect composure, and taking up a book herself, seemed to be absorbed in its contents. There was something so unusual in her manner that Mittie, in spite of her determination to appear imperturbable and careless, could not help gazing upon her with increasing astonishment. She was dressed in a loose night wrapper, her hair was unbraided, and hanging loose over her shoulders, and there was an air of ease and freedom diffused over her person, that added much to its attractions. Mittie had always thought her stiff and formal—now there was a graceful abandonment about her, as if she had thrown off chains which had galled her, or a burden which oppressed.

"To what am I indebted for the honor of this visit, madam?" asked Mittie, throwing her book on the table with unlady-like force.

"To a desire for a little private conversation," replied Mrs. Gleason, looking steadfastly in Mittie's face.

"I am going to bed," said she, with an unsuppressed yawn, "you had better take a more fitting hour."

"I shall not detain you long," replied her step-mother, "a few words can comprehend all I have to utter. This night is the anniversary of the one which brought us under the same roof. I then made a vow to myself that for one year I would labor with a bigot's zeal and a martyr's enthusiasm, to earn the love and entitle myself to the good opinion of my husband's daughter. I made a vow of self-abnegation, which no Hindoo devotee ever more religiously kept. I had been told that you were cold hearted and selfish; but I said love is invincible and must prevail; youth is susceptible and cannot resist the impressions of gratitude. I said this, Mittie, one year ago, in faith and hope and self-reliance. I have now come to tell you that my vow is fulfilled. I have done all that is due to you, nay, more, far more. It remains for me to fulfill my duties to myself. If I cannot make you love me, I will not allow you to despise me."

The bold, bright eye of Mittie actually sunk before the calm, rebuking glance, which gave emphasis to every cool, deliberate word. Here was the woman she had dared to treat with disdain, as undeserving her respect, as the usurper of a place to which she had no right, whom she had predetermined to hate because she was her step-mother, and whom she continued to dislike because she had predetermined to do so, all at once assuming an attitude of commanding self-respect, and asserting her own claims with irresistible dignity and truth. Taken completely by surprise, her usual fluency of language forsook her, and she sat one moment confounded and abashed. Her claims? it was the first time the idea of her step-mother having any legitimate claims on her, had assumed the appearance of reality. Something glanced into her mind, foreshadowing the truth that after all she was more dependent on her father's wife, than her father's wife on her. It was like the flashing of lamplight on the picture-frames and golden flower leaves on the table, at which they both were seated.

"I have been alone the whole evening," continued Mrs. Gleason, in a still calmer, more decided tone, "preparing myself for this interview; for the time for a full understanding is come. All the sacrifices I have made during the past year were for your father's peace and your own good. To him I have never complained, nor ever shall I; but I should esteem myself unworthy to be his wife, if I willingly submitted longer to the yoke of humiliation. I tell thee truly, Mittie, when I say, I care not for your love, for which I have so long striven in vain. You do not love your own family, and why should I expect to inspire what they, father, brother and sister have never kindled in your breast? I care not for your love, but I will have your respect. I defy you from this moment ever to treat me with insolence. I defy you henceforth, ever by word, look or thought, to associate me with the idea of contempt."

Her eye flashed with long suppressed indignation, and her face reddened with the liberated stream of her emotions. Rising, and gathering up her hair, which was sweeping back from her forehead, she took her lamp and turned to depart. Just as she reached the door she turned back and added, in a softer tone,

"Though you will never more see me in the aspect of a seeker after courtesy and good will, I shall never reject any overtures for reconciliation. If the time should ever come, when you feel the need of counsel and sympathy, the necessity of a friend; if your heart ever awakens, Mittie, and utters the new-born cry of helplessness and pain, you will find me ready to listen and relieve. Good night."

She passed from her presence, and Mittie felt as if she had been in a dream, so strange and unnatural was the impression left upon her mind. She was at first perfectly stunned with amazement, then consciousness, accompanied with some very disagreeable stinging sensations, returned. When a very calm, self-possessed person allows feeling or passion to gain the ascendency over them, they are invested for the moment with overmastering power.

"I have never done justice to her intellect," thought she, recalling the words of her step-mother, with an involuntary feeling of admiration; "but I want not her love. When it is necessary to my happiness I will seek it. Love! she never cared any thing about me; she does not pretend that she did. She tried to win my good will from policy, not sensibility; and this is the origin of all the comforts and luxuries with which she has surrounded me. Why should I be grateful then? Thank Heaven! I am no hypocrite; I never dissembled, never professed what I do not feel. If every one were as honest and independent as I am, there would be very little of this vapid sentimentality, this love-breath, which comes and goes like a night mist, and leaves nothing behind it."

The next morning Mittie could not help feeling some embarrassment when she met her step-mother at the breakfast-table, but the lady herself was not in the least disconcerted; she was polite and courteous, but calm and cold. There was a barrier around her which Mittie felt that she could not pass, and she was uncomfortable in the position in which she had placed herself.

And thus time went on—thus the golden opportunities of youth fled. Helen was still at school; Louis at college. But when Louis graduated, he came home, accompanied by a classmate whose name was Bryant Clinton—and his coming was an event in that quiet neighborhood. When Louis announced to his father that he was going to bring with him a young friend and fellow collegian, Mr. Gleason was unprepared for the reception of the dashing and high bred young gentleman who appeared as his guest.

Mittie happened to be standing on the rustic bridge, near the celebrated bleaching ground of Miss Thusa, when her brother and his friend arrived. She was no lover of nature, and there was nothing in the bland, dewy stillness of declining day to woo her abroad amid the glories of a summer's sunset. But from that springing arch, she could look up the high road and see the dust glimmering like particles of gold, telling that life had been busy there—and sometimes, as at the present moment, when something unusually magnificent presented itself to the eye, she surrendered herself to the pleasure of admiration. There had been heavy, dun, rolling clouds all the latter part of the day, and when the sun burst forth behind them, he came with the touch of Midas, instantaneously transmuting every thing into gold. The trunks of the trees were changed to the golden pillars of an antique temple, the foliage was all powdered with gold, here and there deepening into a bronze, and sweeping round those pillars in folds of gorgeous tapestry. The windows of the distant houses were all gleaming like molten gold; and every blade of grass was tipped with the same glittering fluid. Mittie had never beheld any thing so gloriously beautiful. She stood leaning against the light railing, unconscious that she herself was bathed in the same golden light—that it quivered in the dark waves of her hair, and gilt the roses of her glowing cheek. She did not know how bright and resplendent she looked, when two horsemen appeared in the high road, gathering around them in quivers the glittering arrows darting from the sky. As they rapidly approached, she recognized her brother, and knew that the young gentleman who accompanied him must be his friend, Bryant Clinton. The steed on which he was mounted was black as a raven, and the hair of the young man was long, black, and flowing as his horse's sable mane. As he came near, reining in the high mettled animal, while his locks blew back in the breeze, enriched with the same golden lustre with which every thing was shining, Mittie suddenly remembered Miss Thusa's legend of the black horseman, with the jetty hair entwined in the maiden's bleeding heart. Strange, that it should come back to her so vividly and painfully.

Louis recognized his sister, standing on the airy arch of the bridge, and rode directly to the garden gate. Clinton did the same, but instead of darting through the gate, as Louis did, he only dismounted, lifted his hat gracefully from his head, and bowed with lowly deference—then throwing his arm over the saddle bow, he waited till the greeting was over. Mittie was not the favorite sister of Louis, for she had repelled him as she had all others by her cold and haughty self-concentration—but though he did not love her as he did Helen, she was his sister, she appeared to him the personification of home, of womanhood, and his pride was gratified by the full blown flower and splendor of her beauty. She had gained much in height since he had last seen her; her hair, which was then left waving in the wild freedom of childhood, was now gathered into bands, and twisted behind, showing the classic contour of her head and neck. Louis had never thought before whether Mittie was handsome or not. She had not seemed so to him. He had never spoken of her as such to his friend. Helen, sweet Helen, was the burden of his speech, the one lovely sister of his heart. The idea of being proud of Mittie never occurred to him, but now she flashed upon him like a new revelation, in the glow and freshness and power of her just developed womanly charms. He was glad he had found her in that picturesque spot, graceful attitude, and partaking largely and richly of the glorification of nature. He was glad that Bryant Clinton, the greatest connoisseur in female beauty he had ever seen, should meet her for the first time under circumstances of peculiar personal advantage. He thought, too, there was more than her wonted cordiality in her greeting, and that her cheek grew warm under his hearty, brotherly kiss.

"Why, Mittie," cried he, "I hardly knew you, you have grown so handsome and stately. I never saw any one so altered in my life—a perfect Juno. I want to introduce my friend to you—a noble hearted, generous, princely spirited fellow. A true Virginian, rather reckless with regard to expenditure, perhaps, but extravagance is a kingly fault—I like it. He is a passionate admirer of beauty, too, Mittie, and his manners are perfectly irresistible. I shall be proud if he admires you, for I assure you his admiration is a compliment of which any maiden may be proud."

While he was speaking, Clinton followed the beckoning motion of his hand, and approached the bridge. It is impossible to describe the ease and grace of his motions, or the wild charm imparted to his countenance by the long, dark, shining, back-flowing locks, that softened their haughty outline. His hair, eye-lashes and eye-brows were of deep, raven black, but his eyes were a dark blue, a union singularly striking, and productive of wonderful expression. As he came nearer and nearer, and Mittie felt those dark blue, black shaded eyes riveted on her face, with a look of unmistakable admiration, she remembered the words of her brother, and the consciousness of beauty, for the first time, gave her a sensation of pride and pleasure. She was too proud to be vain—and what cared she for gifts, destined, like pearls, to be cast before an unvaluing herd? The young doctor was the only young man whose admiration she had ever thought worthy to secure, and having met from him only cold politeness, she had lately felt for him only bitterness and dislike. Living as she had done in a kind of cold abstraction, enjoying only the pleasures of intellect, in all the sufficiency of self, it was a matter of indifference to her what people thought of her. She felt so infinitely above them, looking down like the aeronaut, from a colder, more rarefied atmosphere, upon objects lessened to meanness by her own elevation.

She could never look down on such a being as Bryant Clinton. Her first thought was—"Will he dare to look down on me?" There was so much pride, tempered by courtesy, such an air of lofty breeding, softened by grace, so much intellectual power and sleeping passion in his face, that she felt the contact of a strong, controlling spirit, a will to which her own might be constrained to bow.

They walked to the house together, while Louis gave directions about the horses, and he entered into conversation at once so easily and gracefully, that Mittie threw off the slight embarrassment that oppressed her, and answered him in the same light spirited tone. She was astonished at herself, for she was usually reserved with strangers, and her thoughts seldom effervesced in brilliant sallies or sparkling repartees. But Clinton carried about with him the wand of an enchanter, and every thing he touched, sparkled and shone with newly awakened or reflected brightness. Every one has felt the influence of that indescribable fascination of manner which some individuals possess, and which has the effect of electricity or magnetism. Something that captivates, even against the will, and keeps one enthralled, in spite of the struggling of pride, and the shame attendant on submission. One of these fascinating, electric, magnetic beings was Clinton. Louis had long been one of his captives, but he was such a gay, frank, confiding, porous hearted being, it was not strange, but that he should break through the triple bars of coldness, haughtiness and reserve, which Mittie had built around her, so high no mortal had scaled them—this was more than strange—it was miraculous.

When Mittie retired that night, instead of preparing for sleep, she sat down in the window, and tried to analyze the charm which drew her towards this stranger, without any volition of her own. She could not do it—it was intangible, evasive and subtle. The effect of his presence was like the sun-burst on the landscape, the moment of his arrival. The dark places of her soul seemed suddenly illumined; the massy columns of her intellect turned like the tree trunks, into pillars of gold and light; gilded foliage, in new born leaflets, played about the branches. She looked up into the heavens, and thought they had never bent in such grandeur and splendor over her, nor the solemn poetry of night ever addressed her in such deep, earnest language. All her senses appeared to have acquired an acuteness, an exquisiteness that made them susceptible almost to pain. The stars dazzled her like sunbeams, and those low, murmuring, monotonous sounds, the muffled beatings of the heart of night, rung loudly and distinctly on her ear. Alarmed at the strange excitement of her nerves, she rose and looked round the apartment which her step-mother's hand had adorned, and ingratitude seemed written in large, dark characters on the soft, grayish colored walls. Why had she never seen this writing before? Why had the debt she owed this long suffering and now alienated benefactress, never before been acknowledged before the tribunal of conscience? Because her heart was awakening out of a life-long sleep, and the light of a new creation was beaming around her.

She took the lamp, and placing it in front of the mirror, gazed deliberately on her person.

"Am I handsome?" she mentally asked, taking out her comb, whose pressure seemed intolerable, and suffering the dark redundance of her hair to flow, unrestrained, around her. "Louis says that I am, and methinks this mirror reflects a glorious image. Surely I am changed, or I have never really looked on myself before."

Yes! she was changed. The light within the cold, alabaster vase was kindled, giving a life and a glow to what was before merely symmetrical and classic. There was a color coming and going in her cheek, a warm lustre coming and going in her eye, and she could not tell whence it came, nor whither it went.

From this evening a new era in her life commenced.

Days and weeks glided by, and Clinton still remained the guest of Louis. He sometimes spoke of going home, but Louis said—"not yet"—and the sudden paleness of Mittie's cheek spoke volumes. During all this time, they had walked, and rode, and talked together, and the enchantment had become stronger and more pervading Mr. Gleason sometimes thought he ought not to allow so close an intimacy between his daughter and a young man of whose private character he knew so little, but when he reflected how soon he was to depart to his distant home, probably never to return, there seemed little danger to be apprehended from his short sojourn with them. Then Mittie, though she might be susceptible of admiration for his splendid qualities, and though her vanity might be gratified by his apparent devotion—Mittie had no heart. If it were Helen, it would be a very different thing, but Mittie was incapable of love, uninflammable as asbestos, and cold as marble.

Mrs. Gleason, with the quicker perception of woman, penetrated deeper than her husband, and saw that passions were aroused in that hitherto insensible heart which, if opposed, might be terrible in their power. Since her conversation with Mittie, where she yielded up all attempt at maternal influence, and like "Ephraim joined to idols, let her alone," she had never uttered a word of counsel or rebuke. She had been coldly, distantly courteous, and as she had prophesied, met with at least the semblance of respect. It was more than the semblance, it was the reality. Mittie disdained dissimulation, and from the moment her step-mother asserted her own dignity, she felt it. Mrs Gleason would have lifted up her warning voice, but she knew it would be disregarded, and moreover, she had pledged herself to neutrality, unless admonition or counsel were asked.

"Let us go in and see Miss Thusa," said Louis, as they were returning one evening from a long walk in the woods. "I must show Clinton all the lions in the neighborhood, and Miss Thusa is the queen of the menagerie."

"It is too late, brother," cried Mittie, well knowing that she was no favorite of Miss Thusa, who might recall some of the incidents of her childhood, which she now wished buried in oblivion.

"Just the hour to make a fashionable call," said Clinton. "I should like to see this belle of the wild woods."

"Oh! she is very old and very ugly," exclaimed Mittie, "and I assure you, will give you a very uncourteous reception."

"Youth and beauty and courtesy will only appear more lovely by force of contrast," said Clinton, offering her his hand to assist her over the stile, with a glance of irresistible persuasion.

Mittie was constrained to yield, but an anxious flush rose to her cheek for the result of this dreaded interview. She had not visited Miss Thusa since her return from school, for she had no pleasing associations connected with her to draw her to her presence. Since her memorable journey with her wheel, Miss Thusa had taken possession of her former abode, and no entreaties could induce her to resume her wandering life. She never revealed the mystery of the advertisement, or the result of her journey, but a female Ixion, bound to the wheel, spun away her solitary hours, and nursed her own peculiar, solemn traits of character.

The house looked very much like a hermitage, with its low, slanting, wigwam roof, and dark stone walls, planted in the midst of underbrush, through which no visible path was seen. There was no gate, but a stile, made of massy logs, piled in the form of steps, which were beautifully carpeted with moss. A well, whose long sweep was also wreathed with moss, was just visible above the long, rank grass, with its old oaken bucket swinging in the air.

"What a superb old hermitage!" exclaimed Clinton, as they approached the door. "I feel perfectly sublime already. If the lion queen is worthy of her lair, I would make a pilgrimage to visit her."

"Now, pray, brother," said Mittie, determined to make as short a stay as possible, "don't ask her to tell any of her horrible stories. I am sure," she added, turning to Clinton, "you would find them exceedingly wearisome."

"They are the most interesting things in the world," said Louis, with provoking enthusiasm, as opening the door, he bowed his sister in—then taking Clinton's arm, ushered him into the presence of the stately spinster.

Miss Thusa did not rise, but suffering her foot to pause on the treadle, she pushed her spectacles to the top of her head, and looked round upon her unexpected visitors. Mittie, who felt that the dark shaded eye of Clinton was upon her, accosted her with unwonted politeness, but it was evident the stern hostess returned her greeting with coldness and repulsion. Her features relaxed, when Louis, cordially grasping her hand, expressed his delight at seeing her looking so like the Miss Thusa of his early boyhood. Perceiving the aristocratic stranger, she acknowledged his graceful, respectful bow, by rising, and her tall figure towered like a column of gray marble in the centre of the low apartment.

"And who is Mr. Bryant Clinton?" said she, scanning him with her eye of prophecy, "that he should visit the cabin of a poor, old, lonely woman like me? I didn't expect such an honor. But I suppose he came for the sake of the company he brought—not what he could find here."

"We brought him, Miss Thusa," said Louis; "we want him to become acquainted with all our friends, and you know we would not forget you."

"We!" repeated Miss Thusa, looking sternly at Mittie, "don't say we. It is the first time Mittie ever set foot in my poor cabin, and I know she didn't come now of her own good will. But never mind—sit down," added she, drawing forward a wooden settee, equivalent to three or four chairs, and giving it a sweep with her handkerchief. "It is not often I have such fine company as this to accommodate."

"Or you would have a velvet sofa for us to sit down upon," cried Louis, laughing, while he occupied with the others the wooden seat; "but I like this better, with its lofty back and broad, substantial frame. Every thing around you is in keeping, Miss Thusa, and looks antique and majestic; the walls of gray stone, the old, moss-covered well-sweep, the dear old wheel, your gray colored dress, always the same, yet always looking nice and new. I declare, Miss Thusa, I am tempted to turn hermit myself, and come and live with you, if you would let me. I am beginning to be tired of the world."

He laughed gayly, but a shade passed over his countenance, darkening its sunshine.

"And I am just beginning to be awake to its charms," said Clinton, "just beginning to live. I would not now forsake the world; but if disappointment and sorrow be my lot, I must plead with Miss Thusa to receive me into her hermitage, and teach me her admirable philosophy."

Though he addressed Miss Thusa, his glances played lambently on Mittie's face, and told her the meaning of his words.

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Miss Thusa, "don't try to make a fool of me, young gentleman. Louis, Master Louis, Mr. Gleason—what shall I call you now, since you're grown so tall, and seem so much farther off than you used to be."

"Call me Louis—nothing but Louis. I cannot bear the thought of being Mistered, and put off at a distance. Oh, there is nothing so sweet as the name a mother's angel lips first breathed into our ears."

"I'm glad you have not forgotten your mother, Louis," said Miss Thusa, her countenance softening into an expression of profound sensibility; "she was a woman to be remembered for a life-time; though weak in body, she was a powerful woman for all that. When she died, I lost the best friend I ever had in the world, and I shall love you and Helen as long as I live, for her sake, as well as your own. I won't be unjust to anybody. You've always been a good, respectful boy; and as for Helen, Heaven bless the child! she wasn't made for this world nor anybody in it. I never see a young flower, or a tender green leaf, but I think of her, and when they fade away, or are bitten and shrivelled by the frost, I think of her, too, and it makes me melancholy. When is the dear child coming home?"

Before the conclusion of this speech, Mittie had risen and turned her burning cheek towards the window. She felt as if a curse were resting upon her, to be thus excluded from all participation in Miss Thusa's blessing, in the presence of Bryant Clinton. Yes, at that moment she felt the value of Miss Thusa's good opinion—the despised and contemned Miss Thusa. The praises of Helen sounded as so many horrible discords in her ears, and when she heard Louis reply that "Helen would return soon, very soon, with that divine little blind Alice," she wished that years on years might intervene before that period arrived, for might she not supplant her in the heart of Clinton, as she had in every other?

While she thus stood, playing with a hop-vine that climbed a tall pole by the window, and shaded it with its healthy, luxuriant leaves, Clinton manifested the greatest interest in Miss Thusa's wheel, and the manufacture of her thread. He praised the beauty of its texture, the fineness and evenness of its fibres.

"I admire this wheel," said he, "it has such a venerable, antique appearance. Its massy frame and brazen hoops, its grooves and swelling lines are a real study for the architect."

"Why, I never saw those brazen rings before," exclaimed Louis, starting up and joining Clinton, in his study of the instrument. "When did you have them put on, Miss Thusa, and what is their use?"

"I had them made when I took that long journey," replied Miss Thusa, pushing back the wheel with an air of vexation. "It got battered and bruised, and needed something to strengthen it. Those saucy stage drivers made nothing of tossing it from the top of the stage right on the pavement, but the same man never dared to do it but once."

"This must be made of lignum-vitae," said Clinton, "it is so very heavy. Such must have been the instrument that Hercules used, when he bowed his giant strength to the distaff, to gratify a beautiful woman's whim."

"Well, I can't see what there is in an old wheel to attract a young gentleman like you, so!" exclaimed Miss Thusa, interposing her tall figure between it and the collegian. "I don't want Hercules, or any sort of man, to spin at my distaff, I can tell you. It's woman's work, and it's a shame for a man to interfere with it. No, no! it is better for you to ride about the country with your black horse and gold-colored fringes, turning the heads of silly girls and gaping children, than to meddle with an old woman and her wheel."

"Why, Miss Thusa, what makes you so angry?" cried Louis, astonished at the excitement of her manner. "I never knew you impolite before."

"I apologise for my own rudeness," said Clinton, with inexpressible grace and ease. "I was really interested in the subject, and forgot that I might be intrusive. I respect every lady's rights too much to infringe upon them."

"I don't mean to be rude," replied Miss Thusa, giving her glasses a downward jerk, "but I've lived so much by myself, that I don't know any thing about the soft, palavering ways of the world. I say again, I don't want to be rude, and I'm not ashamed to ask pardon if I am so; but I know this fine young gentleman cares no more for me, nor my wheel, than the man in the moon, and I don't like to have any one try to pass off the show for the reality."

She fixed her large, gray eye so steadfastly on Clinton, that his cheek flushed with the hue of resentful sensibility, and Louis thinking Miss Thusa in a singularly repulsive mood, thought it better to depart.

"If it were not so late," said he, approaching the door, "I would ask you for one of your interesting legends, Miss Thusa, but by the long shadow of the well-sweep on the grass, the sun must be almost down. Why do you never come to see us now? My mother would give you a cordial welcome."

"That's right. I love to hear you call her mother, Louis. She is worthy of the name. She is a lady, a noble hearted lady, that honored the family by coming into it; and they who wouldn't own her, disgrace themselves, not her. Go among the poor, if you want to know her worth. Hear them talk—but as for my stories, I never can tell them, if there is a scoffing tongue, and an unbelieving ear close by. I cannot feel my gift. I cannot glorify the Lord who gave it. When Helen comes, bring her to me, for I've something to tell her that I mustn't carry to my grave. The blind child, too, I should like to see her again. I would give one of my eyes now, to put sight into hers—both of them, I might say, for I shan't use them much longer."

"Why, Miss Thusa, you are a powerful woman yet," said Louis, measuring her erect and commanding figure, with an upward glance. "I shouldn't wonder if you lived to preside at all our funerals. I don't think you ever can grow weak and infirm."

Miss Thusa shook her head, and slipped up the sleeve of her left arm, showing the shrunken flesh and shrivelled skin.

"There's weakness and infirmity coming on," said she, "but I don't mind it. This world isn't such a paradise, at the best, that one would want to stay in it forever. And there's one comfort, I shall leave nobody behind to bewail me when I'm gone."

"Ah! Miss Thusa, how unjust you are. I shall bewail you; and, as for Helen, I do believe the sweet, tender-hearted soul would cry her eyes out. Even the lovely, blind Alice would weep for your loss. And Mittie—but it seems to me you are not quite kind to Mittie. I should think you had too much magnanimity to remember the idle pranks of childhood against any one. Why, see what a handsome, glorious looking girl she is now."

Mittie turned haughtily away, and stepped out on the mossy door-stone. All her early scorn and hatred of Miss Thusa revived with even added force. Clinton followed her, but lingered on the threshold for Louis, whose hand the ancient sibyl grasped with a cordial farewell pressure.

"Mittie and I never were friends, and never can be," said she, "but I wish her no harm. I wish her better luck than I think is in her path now. As for yourself, if you should get into trouble, and not want to vex those that are kin, you can come to me, and if you don't despise my counsel and assistance, perhaps it may do you good. I have a legend that I've been storing up for your ears, too, and one of these days I should like to tell it to you. But," lowering her voice to a whisper, "leave that long-haired, smooth-tongued gentleman behind."

"Was I not right," said Mittie, when they had passed the stile, and could no longer discern the ancestral figure of Miss Thusa in the door of her lonely dwelling, "in saying that she is a very rude, disagreeable person? She is so vindictive, too. She never could forgive me, because when a little child I cared not to listen to her terrible tales of ghosts and monsters. Helen believed every word she uttered, till she became the most superstitious, fearful creature in the world."

"You should add, the sweetest, dearest, best," interrupted Louis, "unless we except the angelic blind maiden."

"I should think if you had any affection for me, Louis," said Mittie, turning pale, as his praises of Helen fell on Clinton's ear, "you would resent the rudeness and impertinence to which you have just exposed me. What must your friend think of me? Was it to lower me in his opinion that you carried him to her hovel, and drew forth her spiteful and bitter remarks?"

"Do you think it possible that she could alter my opinion of you?" said Clinton, in a low, earnest tone. "If any thing could have exalted it, it would be the dignity and forbearance with which you bore her insinuations, and defeated her malice."

"I am sorry, Mittie," cried Louis, touched by her paleness and emotion, and attributing it entirely to wounded feeling, "I am very sorry that I have been the indirect cause of giving you pain. It was certainly unintentional. Miss Thusa was in rather a savage mood this evening, I must acknowledge; but she is not malicious, Clinton. With all her eccentricities, she has some sterling virtues. If you could only see her inspired, and hear one of her powerful tales!"

"If you ever induce him to go there a second time!" exclaimed Mittie, withdrawing herself from the arm with which he had encircled her waist, and giving him a glance from her dark, bright eyes, that might have scorched him, it was so intensely, dazzlingly angry.

"Believe me," said Clinton, "no inducement could tempt me again to a place associated with painful remembrances in your mind."

He had not seen the glance, for he was walking on the other side, and when she turned towards him, in answer to his soothing remark, the starry moon of night is not more darkly beautiful or resplendent than her face.

So he told her when Louis left them at the gate leading to their dwelling, and so he told her again when they were walking alone together in the star-bright night.

"Why do they talk to me of Helen?" said he, and his voice stole through the stilly air as gently as the falling dew. "What can she be, in comparison with you? Little did I think Louis had another sister so transcendent, when I saw you standing on the rustic bridge, the most radiant vision that ever beamed on the eye of mortal. You remember that evening. All the sunbeams of Heaven gathered around you, the focus of the golden firmament."

"Louis loves me not as he does Helen," replied Mittie, her heart bounding with rapture at his glowing praises, "no one does. Even you, who now profess to love me beyond all created beings, if Helen came, might be lured by her attractions to forget all you have been breathing into my ears."

"I confess I should like to see one whose attractions you can fear. She must be superlatively lovely."

"She is not beautiful nor lovely, Clinton. No one ever called her so. Fear! I never knew the sensation of fear. It is not fear that she could inspire, but a stronger, deeper passion."

He felt the arm tremble that was closely locked in his, and he could see her lip curl like a rose-leaf fluttering in the breeze.

"Speak, Mittie, and tell me what you mean. I can think of but one passion now, and that the strongest and deepest that ever ruled the heart of man."

"I cannot describe my meaning," replied Mittie, pausing under a tree that shaded their path, and leaning against its trunk; "but I can feel it. Till you came, I knew not what feeling was; I read of it in books. It was the theme of many a fluent tongue, but all was cold and passive here," said she, pressing her hand on the throbbing heart that now ached with the intensity of its emotion. "Everybody said I had no heart, and I believed them. You first taught me that there was a vital spark burning within it, and blew upon it with a breath of flame. I tell you, Clinton, you had better tamper with the lightning's chain than the passions of this suddenly awakened heart. I tell you I am a dangerous being. There is a power within me that makes me tremble with its consciousness. I am a young girl, with no experience. I know nothing of the blandishments of art, and if I did I would scorn to exercise them. You have told me a thousand times that you loved me and I have believed you. I would willingly die a thousand times for the rapture of hearing it once; but if I thought the being lived who could supplant me—if I thought you could ever prove false to me—"

Her eye flashed and her cheek glowed in the night-beams that, as Clinton said, made her their focus, so brightly were they reflected from her face. What Clinton said, it is unnecessary to repeat, for the language of passion is commonplace, unless it flows from lips as fresh and unworldly and impulsive as Mittie's.

"Let me put a mark on this tree," she said, stooping down and picking up a sharp fragment of rock at its base. "If you ever forget what you have said to me this night, I will lead you to this spot, and show you the wounded bark—"

She began to carve her own initials, but he insisted upon substituting his penknife and assisting her in the task, to which she consented. As they stood side by side, he guiding her hand, and his long, soft locks playing against her cheek, or mingling with her own, she surrendered herself to a feeling of unalloyed happiness, when all at once Miss Thusa's legend of the Black Knight, with the dark, far-flowing hair, and the maiden with the bleeding heart, came to her remembrance, and she involuntarily shuddered.

"Why am I ever recalling that wild legend?" thought she. "I am getting to be as weak and superstitious as Helen. Why, when it seems to me that the wing of an angel is fluttering against my cheek, should I remember that demon-sprite?"

Underneath her initials he carved his own, in larger, bolder characters.

"Would you believe it," said she, in a light mocking tone, "that I felt every stroke of your knife on that bark? Oh, you do not know how deep you cut! It seems that my life is infused into that tree, and that it is henceforth a part of myself."

"Strange, romantic girl that you are! Supposing the lightning should strike it, think you that you would feel the shaft?"

"Yes, if it shattered the tablet that bears those united names. But the lightning does not often make a channel in the surface of the silver barked beech. There are loftier trees around. The stately oak and branching elm will be more likely to win the fiery crown of electricity than this."

Mittie clasped her arms around the tree, and laid her cheek against the ciphers. The next moment she flitted away, ashamed of her enthusiasm, to hide her blushes and agitation in the solitude of her own chamber.

The next morning she found a wreath of roses round the tablet, and the next, and the next. So day after day the passion of her heart was fed by love-gifts offered at that shrine, where, by the silver starlight, they had met, and ONE at least had worshiped.



PART THIRD.

CHAPTER VIII.

——A countenance in which did meet Sweet records,—promises as sweet— A creature not too bright or good For human nature's daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.

Wordsworth.

And now we have arrived at the era, to which we have looked forward with eager anticipation, the return of Helen and Alice, the period when the severed links of the household chain were again united, when the folded bud of childhood began to unclose its spotless leaves, and expand in the solar rays of love and passion.

We have said but little lately of the young doctor, not that we have forgotten him, but he had so little fellowship with the characters of our last chapter, that we forbore to introduce him in the same group. He did feel a strong interest in Louis, but the young collegian was so fascinated by his new friend, that he unconsciously slighted him whom he had once looked upon as a mentor and an elder brother. Mittie, the handsome, brilliant, haughty, but now impassioned girl, was as little to his taste as Mittie, the cold, selfish and repulsive child. Clinton, the accomplished courtier, the dashing equestrian, the graceful spendthrift—the apparently resistless Clinton had no attraction for him. He sometimes wondered if his little, simple-hearted pupil Helen would be carried away by the same magnetic influence, and longed to see her character exposed to a test so powerful and dangerous.

Mr. Gleason went for the children, as he continued to call them, and when the time for his arrival drew near, there was more than the usual excitement on such occasions. Mittie could never think of her sister's coming without a fluctuating cheek and a throbbing heart. Mrs. Gleason wondered at this sensibility, unknowing its latent source, and rejoiced that all her affections seemed blooming in the fervid atmosphere that now surrounded her. Perhaps even she might yet be loved. But it was to Helen the heart of the step-mother went forth, whom she remembered as so gentle, so timid, so grateful and endearing. Would she return the same sweet child of nature, unspoiled by contact with other grosser elements?

Clinton felt an eager curiosity to see the sister of Mittie, for whom she cherished such precocious jealousy, yet who, according to her own description, was neither beautiful nor lovely. Louis was all impatience, not only to see his favorite Helen, but the lovely blind girl, who had made such an impression on his young imagination. It is true her image had faded in the sultry, worldly atmosphere to which he had been exposed; but as he thought of the blue, sightless orbs, so beautiful yet soulless, the desire to loosen the fillet of darkness which the hand of God had bound around her brow, and to pour upon her awakening vision the noontide glories of creation, rekindled in his bosom.

For many days Mrs. Gleason had filled the vases with fresh flowers, for she remembered how Helen delighted in their beauty, and Alice in their fragrance. There was a room prepared for Helen and Alice, while the latter remained her guest, and Mittie resolved that if possible, she would exclude her permanently from the chamber which Mrs. Gleason had so carefully furnished for both. She could not bear the idea of such close companionship with any one. She wanted to indulge in solitude her wild, passionate dreams, her secret, deep, incommunicable thoughts.

At length the travelers arrived; weary, dusty and exhausted from sleepless nights, and hurried, rapid days. No magnificent sun-burst glorified their coming. It was a dull, grayish, dingy day, such as often comes, the herald of approaching autumn. Mittie could not help rejoicing, for she knew the power of first impressions. She knew it by the raptures which Clinton always expressed when he alluded to her first appearance on the rustic bridge, as the youthful goddess of the blooming season. She knew it by her own experience, when she first beheld Clinton in all the witchery of his noble horsemanship.

Helen was unfortunately made very sick by traveling, sea-sick, and when she reached home she was exactly in that state of passive endurance which would have caused her to lie under the carriage wheels unresistingly had she been placed perchance in that position. The weather was close and sultry, and the dust gathered on the folds of her riding-dross added to the warmth and discomfort of her appearance. Her father carried her in his arms into the house, her head reclining languidly on his shoulder, her cheeks white as her muslin collar. Mittie caught a glimpse of Clinton's countenance as he stood in the back-ground, and read with exultation an expression of blank disappointment. After gazing fixedly at Helen, he turned towards Mittie, and his glance said as plainly as words could speak—

"You beautiful and radiant creature, can you fear the influence of such a little, spiritless, sickly dowdy as this?"

Relieved of the most intolerable apprehensions, her greeting of Helen was affectionate beyond the most sanguine hopes of the latter. She took off her bonnet with assiduous kindness, (though Helen would have preferred wearing it to her room, to displaying her disordered hair and dusty raiment,) leaving to Mrs. Gleason the task of ministering to the lovely blind girl.

"Where's brother? I do not hear his step," said Alice, looking round as earnestly as if she expected to see his advancing figure.

"He has just been called away," said Louis, "or he would be here to greet you. My poor little Helen, you do indeed look dreadfully used up. You were never made for a traveler. Why Alice's roses are scarcely wilted."

"Nothing but fatigue and a little sea-sickness," cried her father, "a good night's sleep is all she needs. You will see a very different looking girl to-morrow, I assure you."

"Better, far better as she is," thought Mittie, as she assisted the young travelers up stairs.

Ill and weary as she was, Helen could not help noticing the astonishing improvement in Mittie's appearance, the life, the glow, the sunlight of her countenance. She gazed upon her with admiration and delight.

"How handsome you have grown, Mittie," said she, "and I doubt not as good as you are handsome. And you look so much happier than you used to do. Oh! I do hope we shall love each other as sisters ought to do. It is so sweet to have a sister to love."

The exchange of her warm, traveling dress for a loose, light undress, gave inexpressible relief to Helen, who, reclining on her own delightful bed, began to feel a soft, living glow stealing over the pallor of her cheek.

"Shall I comb and brush your hair for you?" asked Mittie, sitting down by the side of the bed, and gathering together the tangled tresses of hazel brown, that looked dim in contrast with her own shining raven hair.

"Thank you," said Helen, pressing her hand gratefully in both hers. "You are so kind. Only smooth Alice's first. If her brother comes, she will want to see him immediately—and you don't know what a pleasure it is to arrange her golden ringlets."

"Don't you want to see the young doctor, too, Helen?"

"To be sure I do," replied Helen, with a brightening color, "more than any one else in the world, I believe. But do they call him the young doctor, yet?"

"Yes—and will till he is as old as Methuselah, I expect," replied Mittie, laughing.

"Brother is not more than five or six and twenty, now," cried Alice, with emphasis.

"Or seven," added Mittie. "Oh! he is sufficiently youthful, I dare say, but it is amusing to see how that name is fastened upon him. It is seldom we hear Doctor Hazleton mentioned. He does not look a day older than when he prescribed for you, Helen, in your yellow flannel night-gown. He had a look of precocious wisdom then, which becomes him better now."

Mittie began to think Helen very stupid, to say nothing of the dazzling Clinton, to whom she had taken particular pains to introduce her, when she suddenly asked her, "How long that very handsome young gentleman was going to remain?"

"You think him handsome, then," cried Mittie, making a veil of the flaxen ringlets of Alice, so that Helen could not see the high color that suffused her face.

"I think he is the handsomest person I ever saw," replied Helen, just as if she were speaking of a beautiful picture or statue; "and yet there is something, I cannot tell what, that I do not exactly like about him."

"You are fastidious," said Mittie, coldly, and the sudden gleam of her eye reminding her of the Mittie of other days, Helen closed her weary lips.

Tho next morning, she sprang from her bed light and early as the sky-lark. All traces of languor, indisposition and fatigue had vanished in the deep, tranquil, refreshing slumbers of the night. She awoke with the joyous consciousness of being at home beneath her father's roof. She was not a boarder, subject to a thousand restraints, necessary but irksome. She was not compelled any more to fashion her movements to the ringing of a bell, nor walk according to the square and compass. She was free. She could wander in the garden without asking permission. She could run too, without incurring the imputation of rudeness and impropriety. The gyves and manacles of authority had fallen from her bounding limbs, and the joyous and emancipated school-girl sang in the gladness and glee of her heart.

Alice still slept—the door of Mittie's chamber was closed, and every thing was silent in the household, when she flew down stairs, rather than walked, and went forth into the dewy morn. The sun was not yet risen, but there was a deepening splendor of saffron and crimson above the horizon, fit tapestry for the pavilion of a God. The air was so fresh and balmy, it felt so young and inspiring, Helen could hardly imagine herself more than five years old. Every thing carried her back to the earliest recollections of childhood. There were the swallows flying in and out of their little gothic windows under the beetling barn-eaves; and there were the martins, morning gossips from time immemorial, chattering at the doors of their white pagodas, with their bright red roofs and black thresholds. The old England robin, with its plumage of gorgeous scarlet, dashed with jet, swung in its airy nest, suspended from the topmost boughs of the tall elms, and the blue and yellow birds fluttered with warbling throats among the lilac's now flowerless but verdant boughs. Helen hardly knew which way to turn, she was so full of ecstacy. One moment she wished she had the wings of the bird, the next, the petals of the flower, and then again she felt that the soul within her, capable of loving and admiring all these, was worth a thousand times more. The letters carved on the silver bark of the beech arrested her steps. They were new. She had never seen them before, and when she saw the blended ciphers, a perception of the truth dawned upon her understanding. Perhaps there never was a young maiden of sixteen years, who had more singleness and simplicity of heart than Helen. From her shy and timid habits, she had never formed those close intimacies that so often bind accidentally together the artless and the artful. She was aware of the existence of love, but knew nothing of its varying phases. Its language had never been breathed into her ear, and she never dreamed of inspiring it. Could it be that it was love, which had given such a glow and lustre to Mittie's face, which had softened the harshness of her manners, and made her apparently accessible to sisterly tenderness?

While she stood, contemplating the wedded initials, in a reverie so deep as to forget where she was, she felt something fall gently on her head, and a shower of fragrance bathed her senses. Turning suddenly round, the first rays of the rising sun glittered on her face, and gilt the flower-crown that rested on her brow. Clinton stood directly behind her, and his countenance wore a very different expression from what it did the preceding evening. And certainly it was difficult to recognize the pale, drooping, spiritless traveler of the previous night, in the bright, beaming, blushing, shy, wildly-sweet looking fairy of the morning hour.

Helen was not angry, but she was unaffectedly frightened at finding herself in such close proximity with this very oppressively handsome young man; and without pausing to reflect on the silliness and childishness of the act, she flew away as rapidly as a startled bird. It seemed as if all the reminiscences of her childhood pressed home upon her in the space of a few moments. Just as she had been arrested years before, when fleeing from the snake that invaded her strawberry-bed, so she found herself impeded by a restraining arm; and looking up she beheld her friend, the young doctor, his face radiant with a thousand glad welcomes.

"Oh! I am so glad to see you once again," exclaimed Helen, yielding involuntarily to the embrace, which being one moment withheld, only made her heart throb with double joy.

"My sister, my Helen, my own dear pupil," said Arthur Hazleton, and the rich glow of the morning was not deeper nor brighter than the color that mantled his cheek. "How well and blooming you look! They told me you were ill and could not be disturbed last night. I did not hope to see you so brilliant in health and spirits. And who crowned you so gayly, the fair queen of the morning?"

"I don't know," she cried, taking the chaplet from her head and shaking the dew-drops from its leaves, "and yet I suspect it was Mr. Clinton, who came behind me while I was standing by yonder beech tree."

Arthur's serious, dark eye rested on the young girl with a searching, anxious expression, as Clinton approached and paid the compliments of the morning with more than his wonted gracefulness of manner. He apologized for the freedom he had taken so sportively and naturally, that Helen felt it would be ridiculous in her to assume a resentment she did not feel, and yielding to her passionate admiration for flowers, she wreathed them again round her sun-bright locks.

It was thus the trio approached the house. Mittie saw them from the window, and the keenest pang she had ever known penetrated her heart. She saw the beech tree shorn of its morning garland, that garland which was blooming triumphantly on her sister's brow. She saw Clinton walking by her side, calling up her smiles and blushes according to his own magnetic will.

She accused Helen of deceit and guile. Her languor and illness the preceding evening was all assumed to heighten the blooming contrast of the present moment. Her morning ramble and meeting with Clinton were all premeditated, her seeming artlessness the darkest and deepest hypocrisy.

For a few weeks Mittie had revelled in the joy of an awakened nature. She had reigned alone, with no counter influence to thwart the sudden and luxuriant growth of passion. She, alone, young, beautiful and attractive, had been the magnet to youth, beauty and attraction. She had been the centre of an island world of her own, which she had tried to keep as inaccessible to others as the granite coast in the Arabian Nights.

Poor Mittie! The flower of passion has ever a dark spot on its petals, a dark, purple spot, not always perceptible in the first unfolding and glory of its bloom; but sooner or later it spreads and scorches, and shrivels up the heart of the blossom.

She tried to control her excited feelings. She was proud, and had a conviction that she would degrade herself by the exhibition of jealousy and envy. She tried to call up a bloom to her pale cheek, and a smile to her quivering lip, but she was no adept in the art of dissimulation, and when she entered the sitting room, Helen was the first to notice her altered countenance. It was fortunate for all present that Alice had seated herself at the piano, at the solicitation of Louis, and commenced a brilliant overture.

Alice had always loved music, but now that she had learned it as an art, in all its perfectness, it had become the one passion of her life. She lived in the world of sound, and forgot the midnight that surrounded her. It was impossible to look upon her without feeling the truth, that if God closes with Bastile bars one avenue of the senses, He opens another with widening gates "on golden hinges moving." Alice trembled with ecstacy at her own exquisite melody, like the nightingale whose soft plumage quivers on its breast as it sings. She would raise her sightless eyes to Heaven, following the upward strain with feelings of the most intense devotion. She called music the wind of the soul, the breath of God—and said if it had a color it must be azure.

One by one they all gathered round the blind songstress. Arthur stood behind her, and Helen saw tears glistening in his eyes. She did not wonder at his emotion, for accustomed as she was to hear her, she never could hear Alice sing without feeling a desire to weep.

"I feel so many wants," she said, "that I never had before."

While Alice was singing, Helen stole softly behind Mittie, and gently put the flowers on her hair.

"I have stolen your roses," she whispered, "but I do not mean to keep them."

Mittie's first impulse was to toss them upon the floor, but something in the eye of Clinton arrested her. She dared not do it. And looking steadfastly downward, outblushed the roses on her brow.

The cloud appeared to have passed away, and the family party that surrounded the breakfast table was a gay and happy one.

"I told you," said Mr. Gleason, placing Helen beside him, and smiling affectionately on her gladsome countenance, "that we should have a very different looking girl this morning from our poor, little sick traveler. All Helen wants is the air of home to revive her. Who would want to see a more rustic looking lassie than she is now?"

"I should like to see how Helen would look now in a yellow flannel robe," said Louis, mischievously, "and whether she will make as great a sensation on her entrance into society as she did when she burst into this room in such an impromptu manner?"

The remembrance of the yellow flannel robe, and the eventful evening to which Louis alluded, was associated with the mother whom she had never ceased to mourn, and Helen bent her head to hide the tears which gathered into her eyes.

"You are not angry, gentle sister?" said Louis, seeking her downcast face.

"Helen was never angry in her life," cried her father, "it is her only fault that she has not anger enough in her nature for self-preservation."

"Is that true, Helen?" asked the young doctor. "Has your father read your nature aright?"

"No," answered Helen, looking up with an ingenuous smile. "I have felt very angry with you, and judged you very harshly several times. Yet I was most angry with myself for doing what you wished in spite of my vexation and rebellion."

"Yet you believed me right all the time?"

"I believe so. At least you always said so."

Helen conversed with Arthur Hazleton with the same freedom and childishness as when an inmate of his mother's family. She was so completely a child, she could not think of herself as an object of importance in the social circle. She was inexpressibly grateful for kindness, and Arthur Hazleton's kindness had been so constant and so deep, she felt as if her gratitude should be commensurate with the gifts received. It was the moral interest he had manifested in her—the influence he exercised over her mind and heart which she most prized. He was a kind of second conscience to her, and it did not seem possible for her to do any thing which he openly disapproved.

What Mittie could not understand was the playful, unembarrassed manner with which she met the graceful attentions of Clinton, after his fascinations had dispersed her natural shyness and reserve. She neither sought nor avoided him, flattered nor slighted him. She appeared neither dazzled nor charmed. Mittie thought this must be the most consummate art, when it was only the perfection of nature. Because the glass was so clear, so translucent, she imagined she was the victim of an optical illusion.

There was another thing in Helen, which Mittie believed the most studied policy, and that was the affection and respect she manifested for her step-mother. Nothing could be sweeter or more endearing than the "mother!" which fell from her lips, whenever she addressed her—that name which, had never yet passed her own. Mittie had never sought the love of her step-mother. She had rejected it with scorn, and yet she envied Helen the caressing warmth and maternal tenderness which was the natural reward of her own loving nature.

"Poor Miss Thusa!" exclaimed Helen, near the close of the day, "I must go and see her before the sun sets; I know, I am sure she will be glad to see me."

"Supposing we go in a party," said Clinton. "I should like to pay my respects to the original old lady again."

"I should think the rough reception she gave you, would preclude the desire for a second visit," said Mittie.

"Oh! I like to conquer difficulties," he exclaimed. "The greater the obstacles, the greater the triumph."

Perhaps he meant nothing more than met the ear, but Mittie's omnipotent self-love felt wounded. She had been too easy a conquest, whose value was already beginning to lessen.

"Miss Thusa and Helen are such especial friends," she added, without seeming to have heard his remark, "that I should think their first meeting had better be private. I suspect Miss Thusa has manufactured a new set of ghost stories for Helen's peculiar benefit."

"Are you a believer in ghosts?" asked Clinton of Helen. "If so, I envy you."

"Envy me!"

"Yes! There is such a pleasure in credulity. I sigh now over the vanished illusions of my boyhood."

"I once believed in ghosts," replied Helen, "and even now, in solitude and darkness, the memories of childhood come back to me so powerfully, they are appalling. Miss Thusa might tell me a thousand stories now, without inspiring belief, while those told me in childhood can never be forgotten, or their impressions effaced."

"Yet you like Miss Thusa, and seem to remember her with affection."

"She was so kind to me that I could not help loving her—and she seemed so lonely, with so few to love her, it seemed cruel to shut up the heart against her."

"One may be incredulous without being cruel, I should think," said Mittie, with asperity. She felt the reproach, and could not believe it accidental. Poor Mittie! how much she suffered.

Helen, who was really desirous of seeing Miss Thusa, and did not wish for the companionship of Clinton, stole away from the rest and took the path she well remembered, through the woods. The excessive hilarity of the morning had faded from her spirits. There was something indescribable about Mittie that annoyed and pained her. The gleam of kindness with which she had greeted her had all gone out, and left dullness and darkness in its stead. She could not get near her heart. At every avenue it seemed closed against her, and resisted the golden key of affection as effectually as the wrench of violence.

"She must love me," thought Helen, pursuing her way towards Miss Thusa's, and picking up here and there a yellow leaf that came fluttering down at her feet. "I cannot live in coldness and estrangement with one I ought to love so dearly. It must be some fault of mine; I must discover what it is, and if it he my right eye, I would willingly pluck it out to secure her affection. Alice is going home, and how worse than lonely will I be!"

Helen caught a glimpse of the stream where, when a child, she used to wade in the wimpling waters, and gather the diamond mica that sparkled on the sand. She thought of the time when the young doctor had washed the strawberry stains from her face, and wiped it with his nice linen handkerchief, and her heart glowed at the remembrance of his kindness. Mingled with this glow there was the flush of shame, for she could not help starting at every sudden rustling sound, thinking the coiling snake was lurking in ambush.

There was an air of desolation about Miss Thusa's cabin, which she had never noticed before. The stepping-stones of the door looked so much like grave-stones, so damp and mossy, it seemed sacrilege to tread upon them. Helen hardly did touch them, she skipped so lightly over the threshold, and stood before Miss Thusa smiling and out of breath.

There she sat at her wheel, solemn and ancestral, and gray as ever, her foot upon the treadle, her hand upon the distaff, looking so much like a fixture of the place, it seemed strange not to see the moss growing green and damp on her stone-colored garments.

"Miss Thusa!" exclaimed Helen, and the aged spinster started at the sound of that sweet, childish voice. Helen's arms were around her neck in a moment, and without knowing why, she burst into an unexpected fit of weeping.

"I am so foolish," said Helen, after she had dashed away her tears, and squeezed herself into a little seat between Miss Thusa and her wheel, "but I am so glad to get home, so glad to see you all once more."

Miss Thusa's iron nerves seemed quite unstrung by the unexpected delight of greeting her favorite child. She had not heard of her return, and could scarcely realize her presence. She kept wiping her glasses, without seeming conscious that the moisture was in her own eyes, gazed on Helen's upturned face with indescribable tenderness, smoothed back her golden brown hair, and then stooping down, kissed, with an air of benediction, her fair young brow.

"You have not forgotten me, then! You are still nothing but a child, nothing but little Helen. And yet you are grown—and you look healthier and rounder, and a shade more womanly. You are not as handsome as Mittie, and yet where one stops to look at her, ten will turn to gaze on you."

"Oh, no! Mittie is grown so beautiful no one could think of any one else when she is near."

"The young man with the long black hair thinks her beautiful? Does he not?"

"I believe so. Who could help it?"

"Does she love you better than she used to?" asked Miss Thusa.

"I will try to deserve her love," replied Helen, evasively; "but, Miss Thusa, I am coming every day to take spinning lessons of you. I really want to learn to spin. Perhaps father may fail one of these days, and I be thrown on my own resources, and then I could earn my living as you do now. Will you bequeath me your wheel, Miss Thusa?"

The bright smile with which she looked up to Miss Thusa, died away in a kind of awe, as she met the solemn earnestness of her glance.

"Yes, yes, child, I have long intended it as a legacy of love to you. There is a history hanging to it, which I will tell you by and by. For more than forty years that wheel and I have been companions and friends, and it is so much a part of myself, that if any one should cut into the old carved wood, I verily believe the blood-drops would drip from my heart. Things will grow together, powerfully, Helen, after a long, long time. And so you want to learn to spin, child. Well! suppose you sit down and try. These little white fingers will soon be cut by the flax, though, I can tell you."

"May I, Miss Thusa, may I?" cried Helen, seating herself with childish delight at the venerable instrument, and giving it a whirl that might have made the flax smoke. Miss Thusa looked on with a benevolent and patronizing air, while Helen pressed her foot upon the treadle, wondering why it would jerk so, when it went round with Miss Thusa so smoothly, and pulled out the flax at arm's length, wondering why it would run into knots and bunches, when it glided so smooth and even through Miss Thusa's practiced fingers. Helen was so busy, and so excited by the new employment, she did not perceive a shadow cross the window, nor was she aware of the approach of any one, till an unusually gay laugh made her turn her head.

"I thought Miss Thusa looked wonderfully rejuvenated," said Arthur Hazleton, leaning against the window-frame on the outside of the building, "but methinks she is the more graceful spinner, after all."

"This is only my first lesson," cried Helen, jumping up, for the band had slipped from the groove, and hung in a hopeless tangle—"and I fear Miss Thusa will never be willing to give me another."

"Ten thousand, child, if you will take them," cried Miss Thusa, good-naturedly, repairing the mischief her pupil had done.

"Do you know the sun is down?" asked Arthur, "and that your path lies through the woods?"

Helen started, and for the first time became aware that the shadows of twilight were deepening on the landscape. She did not think Arthur Hazleton would accompany her home. He would test her courage as he had done before, and taking a hurried leave of Miss Thusa, promising to stay and hear many a legend next time, she jumped over the stile before Arthur could overtake her and assist her steps.

"Would you prefer walking alone?" said Arthur, "or will you accept of my escort?"

"I did not think you intended coming with me," said Helen, "or I would have waited."

"You thought me as rude and barbarous as ever."

"Perhaps you think me as foolish and timid as ever."

"You have become courageous and fearless then—I congratulate you—I told you that you would one day be a heroine."

"That day will never come," said Helen, blushing. "My fears are hydras—as fast as one is destroyed another is born. Shadows will always be peopled with phantoms, and darkness is to me the shadow of the grave."

"I am sorry to hear you say so, Helen," said the young doctor, taking her hand, and leading her along the shadowy path, "and yet you feel safe with me. You fear not when I am with you."

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Helen, involuntarily drawing nearer to him—"I never fear in your presence. Midnight would seem noonday, and all phantoms flee away."

"And yet, Helen," he cried, "you have a friend always near, stronger to protect than legions of angels can be. Do you realize this truth?"

"I trust, I believe I do," answered Helen, looking upward into the dome of darkening blue that seemed resting upon the tall, dark pillars of the woods. "I sometimes think if I were really exposed to a great danger, I could brave it without shrinking—or if danger impended over one I loved, I should forget all selfish apprehensions. Try not to judge me too severely—and I will do my best to correct the faults of my childhood."

They walked on in silence a few moments, for there was something hushing in the soft murmurs of the branches, something like the distant roaring of the ocean surge.

"I must take Alice home to-morrow," said he, at length; "her mother longs to behold her. I wish you were going with her. I fear you will not be happy here."

"I cannot leave my father," said Helen, sadly, "and if I can only keep out of the way of other people's happiness, I will try to be content."

"May I speak to you freely, Helen, as I did several years ago? May I counsel you as a friend—guide you as a brother still?"

"It is all that I wished—more than I dared to ask. I only fear that I shall give you too much trouble."

There was a gray, old rock by the way-side, that looked exactly as if it belonged to Miss Thusa's establishment. Arthur Hazleton seated Helen there, and threw himself on the moss at her feet.

"I am going away to-morrow," said he, "and I feel as if I had much to say. I leave you exposed to temptation; and to put you on your guard, I must say perhaps what you will think unauthorized. You know so little of the world—are so guileless and unsuspecting—I cannot bear to alarm your simplicity; and yet, Helen, you cannot always remain a child."

"Oh, I wish I could," she exclaimed; "I cannot bear the thought of being otherwise. As long as I am a child, I shall be caressed, cherished, and forgiven for all my faults. I never shall be able to act on my own responsibility—never."

"But, Helen, you have attained the stature of womanhood. You are looked upon as a candidate for admiration—as the rival of your beautiful sister. You will be flattered and courted, not as a child, but as a woman. The young man who has become, as it were, domesticated in your family, has extraordinary personal attractions, and every member of the household appears to have yielded to his influence. Were I as sure of his moral worth as of his outward graces, I would not say what I have done. But, with one doubt on my mind, as your early friend, as the self-elected guardian of your happiness, I cannot forbear to caution, to admonish, perhaps to displease, by my too watchful, too officious friendship."

Arthur paused. His voice had become agitated and his manner excited.

"You cannot believe me capable of the meanness of envy," he added. "Were Bryant Clinton less handsome, less fascinating, his sincerity and truth might be a question of less moment."

"How could you envy any one," cried Helen, earnestly, unconscious how much her words and manner expressed. "Displeased! Oh! I thank you so much. But indeed I do not admire Mr. Bryant Clinton at all. He is entirely too handsome and dazzling. I do not like that long, curling, shining hair of his. The first time I saw him, it reminded me of the undulations of that terrible snake in the strawberry patch, and I cannot get over the association. Then he does not admire me at all, only as the sister of Mittie."

"He has paid Mittie very great and peculiar attention, and people look upon them as betrothed lovers. Were you to become an object of jealousy to her, you would be very, very unhappy. The pleasure of gratified vanity would be faint to the stings exasperated and wounded love could inflict."

"For all the universe could offer I would not be my sister's rival," cried Helen, rising impetuously, and looking round her with a wild startled expression. "I will go and tell her so at once. I will ask her to confide in me and trust me. I will go away if she wishes it. If my father is willing, I will live with Miss Thusa in the wild woods."

"Wait awhile," said Arthur, smiling at her vehemence, "wait Helen, patiently, firmly. When temptations arise, it is time to resist. I fear I have done wrong in giving premature warning, but the impulse was irresistible, in the silence of these twilight woods."

Helen looked up through the soft shadows to thank him again for his counsels, and promise that they should be the guide of her life, but the words died on her lips. There was something so darkly penetrating in the expression of his countenance, so earnest, yet troubled, so opposite to its usual serene gravity, that it infected her. Her heart beat violently, and for the first time in her life she felt embarrassed in his presence.

That night Helen pressed a wakeful pillow. She felt many years older than when she rose in the morning, for the experience of the day had been so oppressive. She could not realize that she had thought and felt and learned so much in twelve short hours.



CHAPTER IX.

"All other passions have their hour of thinking, And hear the voice of reason. This alone Breaks at the first suspicion into frenzy, And sweeps the soul in tempests."—Shakspeare.

The day that Alice left, Helen felt very sad and lonely, but she struggled with her feelings, and busied herself as much as possible with the household arrangements. Mrs. Gleason took her into the chamber which Mittie had been occupying alone, and showed her every thing that had been prepared for her accommodation as well as her sister's. Helen was unbounded in her gratitude, and thought the room a paradise, with its nice curtains, tasteful furniture and airy structure.

When night came on, Helen retired early to her chamber, leaving Mittie with Clinton. She left the light burning on the hearth, for the memory of the lonely spinster, invoking by her song the horrible being, who descended, piece-meal, down the chimney, had not died away. That was the very chamber in which Miss Thusa used to spin, and recite her dreadful tales, and Helen remembered them all. It had been papered, and painted, and renewed, but the chimney was the same, and the shadows rested there as darkly as ever.

When Mittie entered the room, Helen was already in that luxurious state between sleeping and waking, which admits of the consciousness of enjoyment, without its responsibility. She was reclining on the bed, shaded by the muslin curtains, with such an expression of innocence and peace on her countenance, it was astonishing how any one could have marred the tranquillity of her repose.

The entrance of her sister partially roused her, and the glare of the lamp upon her face completely awakened her.

"Oh! sister!" she cried, "I am so glad you have come. It is so long since we have slept together. I have been thinking how happy we can be, where so much has been done for our comfort and luxury."

"You can enjoy all the luxuries yourself," said Mittie, "and be welcome to them all. I am going to sleep in the next room, for I prefer being alone, as I have been before."

"Oh! Mittie, you are not going to leave me alone; you will not, surely, be so unkind?"

"I wonder if I were not left alone, while Alice was with you, and I wonder if I complained of unkindness!"

"But you did not care. You are not dependent on others. I am sure if you had asked me, I would have spread a pallet on the floor, rather than have left you alone."

"Helen, you are too old now to be such a baby," said Mittie, impatiently; "it is time you were cured of your foolish fears of being alone. You make yourself perfectly ridiculous by such nonsense."

She busied herself gathering her night-clothes as she spoke, and took the lamp from the table.

Helen sprang from the bed, and stood between Mittie and the door.

"No," said she, "if we must separate, I will go. You need not leave the chamber which has so long been yours. I do dread being alone, but alas! I must be lonely wherever I am, unless I have a heart to lean upon. Oh! Mittie, if you knew how I could love you, you would let me throw my arms around you, and find a pillow on your sisterly breast."

She looked pleadingly, wistfully at Mittie, while tears glittered in her soft, earnest eyes.

"Foolish, foolish child!" cried Mittie, setting down the lamp petulantly, and tossing her night-dress on the bed—"stay where you are, but do not inflict too much sentiment on me—you know I never liked it."

"No," said Helen, thoughtfully, "I might disturb you, and perhaps if I once conquer my timidity, I shall be victor for life. I should like to make the trial, and I may as well begin to-night as any time. I do not wish to be troublesome, or intrude my company on any one."

Helen's gentle spirit was roused by the arbitrary manner in which Mittie had treated her, and she found courage to act as her better judgment approved. She was sorry she had pleaded so earnestly for what she might have claimed as a right, and resolved to leave her sister to the solitude she so much coveted.

With a low, but cold "good night," she glided from the apartment, closed the door, passed through the passage, entered a lonely chamber, and kneeling down by the bedside, prayed to be delivered from the bondage of fear, and the haunting phantoms of her own imagination. When she laid her head upon the pillow, she felt strong in the resolution she had exercised, glad that she had dared to resist her own weak, irresolute heart. She drew aside the window curtains and let the stars shine down brightly on her face. How could she feel alone, with such a glorious company all round and about her? How could she fear, when so many radiant lamps were lighted to disperse the darkness? Gradually the quick beating of her heart subsided, the moistened lashes shut down over her dazzled eyes, and she slept quietly till the breaking of morn. When she awoke, and recalled the struggles she had gone through, she rejoiced at the conquest she had obtained over herself. She was sure if Arthur Hazleton knew it, he would approve of her conduct, and she was glad that she cherished no vindictive feelings towards Mittie.

"She certainly has a right to her preferences," she said; "if she likes solitude, I ought not to blame her for seeking it, and I dare say my company is dull and insipid to her. I must have seemed weak and foolish to her, she who never knew what fear or weakness is."

As she was leaving her room, with many a vivid resolution to conquer her besetting weaknesses, her step-mother entered, unconscious that the chamber had an occupant. She looked around with surprise, and Helen feared, with displeasure.

"Mittie preferred sleeping alone," she hastened to say, "and I thought she had a prior right to the other apartment."

"Selfish, selfish to the heart's core!" ejaculated Mrs. Gleason. "But, my dear child, I cannot allow you to be the victim of an arbitrary will. The more you yield, the more concessions will be required. You know not, dream not, of Mittie's imperious and exacting nature."

"I begin to believe, dear mother, that the discipline we most need, we receive. I did feel very unhappy last night, and when I entered this room, the dread of remaining all alone, in darkness and silence, almost stopped the beatings of my heart. It was the first time I ever passed a night without some companion, for every one has indulged my weakness, which they believed constitutional. But after the first few moments—a sense of God's presence and protection, of the guardianship of angels, of the nearness of Heaven, hushed all my fears, and filled me with a kind of divine tranquillity. Oh! mother, I feel so much better this morning for the trial, that I thank Mittie for having cast me, as it were, on the bosom of God."

"With such a spirit, Helen," said her step-mother, tenderly embracing her, "you will be able to meet whatever trials the discipline of your life may need. Self-reliance and God-reliance are the two great principles that must sustain us. We must do our duty, and leave the result to Providence. And, believe me, Helen, it is a species of ingratitude to suffer ourselves to be made unhappy by the faults of others, for which we are not responsible, when blessings are clustering richly round us."

Helen felt strengthened by the affectionate counsels of her step-mother, and did not allow the cloud on Mittie's brow to dim the sunshine of hers. Mindful of the warnings of the young doctor, she avoided Clinton as much as possible, whose deep blue eyes with their long sable lashes often rested on her with an expression she could not define, and which she shrunk from meeting. True to her promise she visited Miss Thusa once a day, and took her spinning lessons, till she could turn the wheel like a fairy, and manufacture thread as smooth and silky as her venerable teacher. She insisted on bleaching it also, and flew about among the long grass, with her bright watering pot, like a living flower sprung up in the wilderness.

She was returning one evening from the cabin at a rather later hour than usual, for she was becoming more and more courageous, and could walk through the woods without starting at every sound. The trees were now beginning to assume the magnificent hues of autumn, and glowed with mingled scarlet, orange, emerald, and purple. There was such a brightness, such a glory in these variegated dyes, that they took away all impression of loneliness, and the crumpling of the dry, yellow leaves in the path had a sociable, pleasant sound. She hoped Arthur Hazleton would return before this jewelry of the woods had faded away, that she might walk with him through their gorgeous foliage, and hear from his lips the deep moral of the waning season. She reached the gray rock where Arthur had seated her, and sitting down on a thick cushion of fallen leaves, she remembered every word he had said to her the evening before his departure.

"Why are you sitting so mute and lonely here, fair Helen?" said a musical voice close to her ear, and Clinton suddenly came and took a seat by her side. Helen felt embarrassed by his unexpected presence, and wished that she could free herself from it without rudeness.

"I am gazing on the beauty of the autumnal woods," she replied, her cheeks glowing like the scarlet maple leaves.

"I should think such contemplation better fitted one less young and bright and fair," said Clinton. "Miss Thusa, for instance, in her time-gray home.

"I am sure nothing can be brighter or more glorious than these colors," said Helen, making a motion to rise. It seemed to her she could see the black eyes of Mittie gleaming at her through the rustling foliage.

"Do not go yet," said Clinton. "This is such a sweet, quiet hour—and it is the first time I have seen you alone since the morning after your arrival. What have I done that you shun me as an enemy, and refuse me the slightest token of confidence and regard?"

"I am not conscious of showing such great avoidance," said Helen, more and more embarrassed. "I am so much of a stranger, and it seemed so natural that you should prefer the society of Mittie, I considered my absence a favor to both."

"Till you came," he replied, in a low, persuasive accent, "I did find a charm in her society unknown before, but now I feel every thought and feeling and hope turned into a new channel. Even before you came, I felt you were to be my destiny. Stay, Helen, you shall not leave me till I have told you what my single heart is too narrow to contain."