gh, and who could not conceive of life without certain
luxurious accessories. A very cordial friendship sprang up between
them,--not the effusive girl-love, with its iterative kisses, tears, and
flow of loosened hair, but springing from the respect inspired by sound
and positive qualities.

The winter before, Betty had been invited to visit her friend in the
city, and had passed a very excited and delightful week in the stately
Bartram mansion. If she were at first a little fluttered by the manners
of the new world, she was intelligent enough to carry her own nature
frankly through it, instead of endeavoring to assume its character.
Thus her little awkwardnesses became originalities, and she was almost
popular in the lofty circle when she withdrew from it. It was therefore,
perhaps, slightly inconsistent in Betty, that she was not quite sure how
Miss Bartram would accept the reverse side of this social experience.
She imagined it easier to look down and make allowances, as a host, than
as a guest; she could not understand that the charm of the change might
be fully equal.

It was lovely weather, as they drove up the sweet, ever-changing
curves of the Brandywine valley. The woods fairly laughed in the clear
sunlight, and the soft, incessant, shifting breezes. Leonard, in his
best clothes, and with a smoother gloss on his brown hair, sang to
himself as he urged the strong-boned horses into a trot along the
levels; and Betty finally felt so quietly happy that she forgot to be
nervous. When they reached the station they walked up and down the
long platform together, until the train from the city thundered up,
and painfully restrained its speed. Then Betty, catching sight of a
fawn-colored travelling dress issuing from the ladies' car, caught hold
of Leonard's arm, and cried: "There she is!"

Miss Bartram heard the words, and looked down with a bright, glad
expression on her face. It was not her beauty that made Leonard's heart
suddenly stop beating; for she was not considered a beauty, in society.
It was something rarer than perfect beauty, yet even more difficult
to describe,--a serene, unconscious grace, a pure, lofty maturity of
womanhood, such as our souls bow down to in the Santa Barbara of Palma
Vecchio. Her features were not "faultlessly regular," but they were
informed with the finer harmonies of her character. She was a woman,
at whose feet a noble man might kneel, lay his forehead on her knee,
confess his sins,