r
exhausted herself by trying to drink the ocean dry.

Laura, after the "midsummer night's dream" that often comes to girls
of seventeen, woke up to find that youth and love were no match for
age and common sense. Philip had been flying about the world like a
thistle-down for five-and-twenty years, generous-hearted, frank, and
kind, but with never an idea of the serious side of life in his
handsome head. Great, therefore, were the wrath and dismay of the
enamored thistle-down, when the father of his love mildly objected to
seeing her begin the world in a balloon with a very tender but very
inexperienced aeronaut for a guide.

"Laura is too young to 'play house' yet, and you are too unstable to
assume the part of lord and master, Philip. Go and prove that you have
prudence, patience, energy, and enterprise, and I will give you my
girl,--but not before. I must seem cruel, that I may be truly kind;
believe this, and let a little pain lead you to great happiness, or
show you where you would have made a bitter blunder."

The lovers listened, owned the truth of the old man's words, bewailed
their fate, and--yielded,--Laura for love of her father, Philip for
love of her. He went away to build a firm foundation for his castle in
the air, and Laura retired into an invisible convent, where she cast
off the world, and regarded her sympathizing sisters through a grate
of superior knowledge and unsharable grief. Like a devout nun, she
worshipped "St. Philip," and firmly believed in his miraculous powers.
She fancied that her woes set her apart from common cares, and slowly
fell into a dreamy state, professing no interest in any mundane
matter, but the art that first attracted Philip. Crayons,
bread-crusts, and gray paper became glorified in Laura's eyes; and her
one pleasure was to sit pale and still before her easel, day after
day, filling her portfolios with the faces he had once admired. Her
sisters observed that every Bacchus, Piping Faun, or Dying Gladiator
bore some likeness to a comely countenance that heathen god or hero
never owned; and seeing this, they privately rejoiced that she had
found such solace for her grief.

Mrs. Lord's keen eye had read a certain newly written page in her
son's heart,--his first chapter of that romance, begun in Paradise,
whose interest never flags, whose beauty never fades, whose end can
never come till Love lies dead. With womanly skill she divined the
secret, with motherly discretion she