aven as a place with
foundations of jasper, sapphires and emeralds, gates of pearl, and
streets of burnished gold that shone like glass? Never.

That showed them to be practical men, of a Semitic cast of mind, who
addressed hearers that agreed with them in regarding gold and precious
stones as the finest things of which the heart could dream.

Had they been such lovers of God's handiwork in Nature as the Greek
religious teachers--who were also poets--they would have painted us a
Heaven vaulted by the breath of opening flowers, and made musical by the
sweet songs of birds in the first rapture of finding their young mates.

In other words they would have given us a picture of earth on a perfect
June day.

On the afternoon of such a day as this Rachel Bond sat beneath an
apple-tree at the crest of a moderate hill, and looked dreamily away to
where, beyond the village of Sardis at the foot of the hill, the Miami
River marked the beautiful valley like a silver ribbon carelessly flung
upon a web of green velvet. Rather she seemed to be looking there, for
the light that usually shown outward in those luminous eyes was turned
inward. The little volume of poems had dropped unheeded from the white
hand. It had done its office: the passion of its lines had keyed her
thoughts to a harmony that suffused her whole being, until all seemed
as naturally a part of the glorious day as the fleecy clouds in the
sapphire sky, the cheerful hum of the bees, and the apple-blossoms'
luxurious scent.

Her love--and, quite as much, her girlish ambition--had been crowned
with violets and bays some weeks before, when the fever-heat of
patriotism seemed to bring another passion in Harry Glen's bosom to the
eruptive point, and there came the long-waited-for avowal of his love,
which was made on the evening before his company departed to respond to
the call for troops which followed the fall of Fort Sumter.

Does it seem harsh to say that she had sought to bring about this
DENOUEMENT? Rather, it seems that her efforts were commendable. She was
a young woman of marriageable age. She believed her her mission in life
was marriage to some man who would make her a good husband, and whom she
would in turn love, honor, and strive to make happy. Harry Glen's family
was the equal of her's in social station, and a little above it in
wealth to this he added educational and personal advantages that made
him the most desirable match in Sardis. Starting with t