memories.

It was a strange moment to Paula when she first turned to go up those
stairs, down which she had come in such grief eight months or more ago.
She found herself lingering on its well-remembered steps, and the first
sight of the rich bronze image at the top, struck her with a sense of
the old-time pleasure, that was not unlinked with the old-time dread.
But the aspect of her little room calmed her. It was just as she had
left it; not an article had been changed. "It is as if I had gone out
one door and come in another," she whispered. All the months that had
intervened seemed to float away. She felt this even more when upon again
descending, she found Bertram in the library. His frank and interesting
face had always been pleasant to her, but in the joy of her return it
shone upon her with almost the attraction of a brother's. "I am at home
again," she kept whispering to herself, "I am at home."

Miss Belinda was engrossed in conversation with Bertram, so that Paula
was left free to take her old place by Mr. Sylvester's side, where she
sat with such an aspect of contentment, that her beauty was half
forgotten in her happiness.

"You remembered me, then, sometimes in the little cottage in Grotewell?"
asked he, after a silent contemplation of her countenance. "I was not
forgotten when you left the city streets?"

She answered with a bright little shake of her head, but she was
inwardly wondering as she looked at his strong and picturesque face,
with its nobly carved features and melancholy smile, if he had been
absent from her thoughts for so much as a moment, in all these dreary
months of separation.

"I did not believe you would forget," he gently pursued, "but I scarcely
dared hope you would lighten my fireside with your face again. It is
such a dismal one, and youth is so linked to brightness."

The flush that crossed her cheek, startled him into sudden silence. She
recovered herself and slowly shook her head. "It is not a dismal one to
me. I always feel brighter and better when I sit beside it. I have
missed your counsel," she said; "brightness is nothing without depth."

His eyes which had been fixed on her face, turned slowly away. He seemed
to hold an instant's communion with himself; suddenly he said, "And
depth is worse than nothing, without it mirrors the skies. It is not
from shadowed pools, such bright young lips should drink, but from the
waves of an inexhaustible sea, smote upon by all the