enthusiast; quiet and self-possessed her home
training had made her, and a stranger would have wondered at the tide
of deep feeling that ebbed and flowed within the breast of that
gentle, placid girl. She shrunk from the rude _badinage_ of her
boisterous brothers, and finding that little was required of her in
the _heart-way_ from her matter-of-fact mother and good-natured, easy
father, she lavished the wealth of her love upon an ideal. A woman
soon finds, or fancies she finds, the realization of her ideal. Chance
threw in Agnes' path one who was superior enough in mind and person to
realize any image of a romantic girl's fancy.

I remember well the time Agnes first met Mr. Preston. We were on a
visit one summer to some friends together, and while there we met with
this accomplished gentleman. How delighted were we both with him, and
how enthusiastically did we chant to each other his praises, when in
our own room we assisted each other in undressing for the night, or
decking ourselves for the gay dinner or evening party. We met with
many other gentlemen, and agreeable ones too, on this eventful visit,
but Mr. Preston was a star of the first magnitude. I was a few years
Agnes' junior, and well satisfied with the attentions I received from
the other gentlemen, who deigned to notice so tiny a body as I was;
but Mr. Preston soon singled out Agnes. He walked, rode and drove with
her: hung over her enraptured when she sung, and listened with
earnestness to every word that fell from her lips. She was "many
fathom deep in love" ere she knew it--poor girl--and how exquisitely
beautiful did this soul's dawning cause her lovely face to appear. The
wind surely was not answerable for those burning cheeks and bright,
dancing eyes, which she bore after returning from long rides, during
which Mr. Preston was her constant companion--and the treasured sprigs
of jessamine and verveine which she stored away in the leaves of her
journal, after a moonlight ramble in the conservatory, with the same
fascinating attendant--did not love cause all this? Naughty love, can
the moments of rapture, exquisite though they be, which thou givest,
atone for the months and years of deep heart-rending wretchedness
which so often ensues?

During the six weeks of that happy visit, Agnes Howell lived out the
whole of her heart's existence. Blissful and rapturous were the
moments, sleeping or waking, for Hope and Love danced merrily before
her. But, alas! w