ike Mr. Schwartz, and how could she be his
companion? Something of these new experiences in Meeta was divined by
Mrs. Schwartz, and with a true womanly tact she became her teacher
without wounding her self-love. The road to knowledge once opened to
Meeta, her advance on it was rapid. How could it be otherwise, when
every step was bringing her nearer to Earnest! The elevation and
refinement of mind which Meeta thus acquired impressed themselves on her
agreeable features. Her dark eyes became bright with the soul's light,
and her whole aspect so attractive, that her old friends exclaimed, as
they looked upon her, "How handsome Meeta Werner grows, she who used to
be so plain!"

After a time these superficial observers thought they had found the
cause of this change in Meeta's change of costume, for a new sense of
beauty had been awakened in her, under whose guidance her dark hair was
brought in soft silken braids upon her cheeks, wound gracefully around
her well-shaped head, and sometimes ornamented with a ribbon or a
cluster of wild flowers: while her dresses where remodelled so as to
resemble less the fashion which her mother and her sister emigrants had
imported thirteen years before from Germany, and to give a more natural
air to her really fine figure.

"How wonderfully Meeta has improved," said Mr. Schwartz, one evening to
his wife, as he looked after the retreating form of her friend.

"Yes, and I am truly rejoiced that she has so improved before her lover
returns to claim her."

"I wish he could have taken away with him such an impression as our
handsome and intelligent Meeta would now make. He would have been much
more likely to remain constant to her. There must be a painful contrast
between the cultivated and graceful women he has known in Germany, and
his memory of his early love."

"Love is a great embellisher," said Mrs. Schwartz, with a gay smile, and
the conversation passed to more general topics.

The fifth year of Ernest's absence was gone, and still he came not; but
he was coming soon, at least so his father said, though he did not show
Meeta the letters on which he founded his assertion. It was the first
time he had withheld them; a circumstance the more remarkable, because
of late he seemed to regard Meeta with greater affection and confidence
than he had ever done before. He now sought her society, and seemed
pleased and even proud of the connection to which he had at first
consented with some