ace of a child, flooded with the deep gold of sunrise, and
with cheeks still bathed in the delicate rose-bloom of slumber.

Morning and childhood go together, as all things pure, and fresh, and
tender do; and in the face of the child, sitting there in the quiet
morning, an imaginative mind might have discerned, without difficulty,
more than one point of resemblance. The dews sparkling like diamonds
on the emerald grasses, were not brighter or fresher than her
eyes;--the merry breeze might have been gayer, but had not half as
much thoughtful joy and tenderness as her gentle laugh;--the rosy
flush of morning, with all its golden splendor, as of fair Aurora
rising to her throne, was not more fair than the delicate cheek.

In a single word, Miss Redbud--about whom we always grow
extravagant--was a worthy portion of the bright, fresh morning; and
the hardest-hearted individual who ever laughed at childhood, and
innocence and joy, (and there are some, God help them,) would have
thought the place and time more cheerful and inspiring for her
presence.

Redbud had been reading from a book which lay upon the window-sill.
The idle breeze turned over the leaves carelessly as though, like a
child, it were looking for pictures; and the words, "From dear Mamma,"
were seen upon the fly-leaf--in the rough uncouth characters of
childhood.

This was Redbud's Bible--and she had been reading it; and had raised
her happy eyes from the black heavy letters, to the waving variegated
trees and the bright sunrise, overwhelming them with its flush of
gold. Redbud was clad, as usual, very simply--her hair brushed back,
and secured, after the fashion of the time, with a bow of ribbon--her
arms bare to the elbow, with heavy falling sleeves--her neck
surrounded with a simple line of lace. Around her neck she wore the
coral necklace we have seen her purchase.

The girl gazed for some moments at the crimson and yellow trees, on
which a murmurous laughter of mocking winds arose, at times, and
rustled on, and died away into the psithurisma of Theocritus; and the
songs of the oriole and mocking-bird fluttering among the ripe fruit,
or waving up into the sky, brought a pleasant smile to her lips. The
lark, too, was pouring from the clouds, where he circled and flickered
like a ball of light, the glory of his song; and from an old, dead
oak, which raised its straight trunk just without the garden, came
the quick rattle of the woodpecker's bill, or the