no less so. But
when, when will this golden age of my nobler consciousness really and
truly arrive, when I shall be able to view the objects before me and
myself with complacency and satisfaction? At present it is only
resolutions and sweet hopes that bloom and beckon me on; and, alas!
shall I not flag at half way, perhaps even at the outset of my career?"

He looked tenderly at the rose in the water-glass; it seemed to return
his gaze with a blushing smile. He took it, and with a delicate touch
pressed a soft kiss on its leaves, and breathed a sigh into its cup; he
then carefully replaced it in the nourishing element. He had recently
found it again already withered in his bosom; from the hour when it
touched his face in its fall, he had become a different man, without
being willing to own the change to himself. Man is never so
superstitious, and so inclined to pay attention to omens, as when the
heart is deeply agitated, and a new life is on the point of rising out
of the tempest of the feelings. Edward himself did not observe to what
a degree the little flower made Sophia present to his mind; and as he
had lost all, and almost himself, he resolved the withered plant should
be his oracle, to see whether it would recover its strength, and
announce to him too the revival of his fortune. But when, after some
hours, it did not open itself in the water, he assisted it and its
oracular power by the common operation of lopping the stalk, then
holding it a few moments in the flame of the candle, and afterwards
setting the flower again in the cold element. It recovered its strength
almost visibly after this violent assistance, and blossomed so rapidly
and strongly, that Edward feared it would in a short time drop all its
leaves. Still after this he felt cheered, and once more trusted his
stars.

He rummaged among old papers of his father, and found numberless
reminiscences of his childhood, as well as the youth of his parent. He
had spread out before him the contents of a cabinet which contained
bills, memorandums, pleadings of a suit, and many things of the same
sort. A paper now rolled open, containing the catalogue of the late
gallery, the history of the pictures, their prices, and whatever had
struck the owner as remarkable in each piece. Edward, who on his return
from a journey had found his father on his deathbed, had after the
funeral searched in a variety of quarters for those lost pictures, and
made many unavailing