ceased, and grew suddenly as sunny as summer. She is a strange, dark,
intriguing woman, I fear, and wish we were well quit of her. I asked
mother if she had not better discharge her, and get a new person to
attend her during our absence; but she said, with a sudden expression of
alarm, 'O, no; she would not part with Hannah on any account!' So I said
no more, but fancied her preference was dictated more by fear than love.
But I spin out a long record for this last evening at home. O, budding
vines and flowers! who will train your rich luxuriance into fairy,
fantastic clusterings, or watch your opening petals in the summer which
is to come? Who listen to the babbling fountains, or roam the cedar-walks
that border the dancing river? And O, the far, far-stretching forest,
from whose mysterious depths, in a bright year passed away, I saw _him_
emerge, and hurried down the gravelled path to meet him at the
garden-gate, with happy, bounding heart! Will new scenes, however glad
and gay, e'er dim the memory of those dear times? Never!"

CHAPTER XXVII.

"It is a pleasant thing to roam abroad,
And gaze on scenes and objects strange and grand;
To sail in mighty ships o'er distant seas,
And roam the mountains of a foreign land."

In Mrs. Stanhope's pretty cottage, close by the vine-shaded window, sat
Jenny Andrews, and she said Florence Howard had started on a tour of
travel.

"Who is her companion?" asked Mrs. Stanhope.

"Why, Rufus Malcome, of course," said Miss Pinkerton, quickly.

"No," said Jenny, "her father."

"Her father!" exclaimed Miss Martha, in a tone of surprise. "How in the
world could he leave his sick wife, I should like to know?"

"Mrs. Howard is getting better, I believe," remarked Jenny.

"Well, that's strange enough," continued Miss Pinkerton; "with that
impudent Hannah Doliver for a nurse, I wonder she has not died before
now."

Hannah Doliver was Miss Martha's utter detestation, though why, we
cannot tell, as the little dark woman had never injured her, nor had
Miss Pinkerton ever exchanged above a dozen syllables with her in her
life. But it was one of those unaccountable dislikes which often arise
in people of certain temperaments, on first sight of a particular
individual.

Mrs. Stanhope said she was glad Florence had gone a journey, for the
dear girl had looked pale and sickly of late, and she thought change of
scen