to me in affection. See, darling,
see--even as we are speaking--George and your brother have walked away
together. Oh, can it be--can it be? Yes, dearest," cried she, throwing
her arms around her; "your brother is holding him by the hand, and the
tears are falling along George's cheek; his happiness is assured, and
you are his own."

Nelly's chest heaved violently, and two low deep sobs burst from her,
but her face was buried in Julia's bosom, and she never uttered a word.
And thus Julia led her gently away down one of the lonely alleys of the
garden, till they were lost to sight.

Lovers are proverbially the very worst of company for the outer world,
nor is it easy to say which is more intolerable--their rapture or their
reserve. The overweening selfishness of the tender passion conciliates
no sympathy; very fortunately, it is quite indifferent to it. If it were
not all-sufficing, it would not be that glorious delirium that believes
the present to be eternal, and sees a world peopled only by two.

What should we gain, therefore, if we loitered in such company? They
would not tell us _their_ secrets--they would not care to hear ours.
Let it be enough to say that, after some dark and anxious days in life,
fortune once more shone out on those whom we saw so prosperous when
first we met them. If they were not very brilliant nor very good,
they were probably--with defects of temper and shortcomings in high
resolve--pretty much like the best of those we know in life. Augustus,
with a certain small vanity that tormented him into thinking that he
had a lesson to read to the world, and that he was a much finer
creature than he seemed or looked, was really a generously minded and
warm-hearted fellow, who loved his neighbor--meaning his brother or his
sister--a great deal better than himself.

Nelly was about as good as--I don't think better than--nineteen out of
every twenty honestly brought-up girls, who, not seduced by the luxuries
of a very prosperous condition, come early to feel and to know what
money can and what it cannot do.

Jack had many defects of hot temper and hastiness, but on the whole was
a fine, sailor-like fellow, carrying with him through life the dashing
hardihood that he would have displayed in a breach or on a boarding, and
thus occasionally exuberant, where smaller and weaker traits would
have sufficed. Such men, from time to time, make troublesome first
lieutenants, but women do not dislike them, an