ow about it."

"Nilsson!" said Garda, envyingly.

"You, sir, are too young, unfortunately too young, to remember the
incomparable Malibran," said Dr. Kirby. "Ah! there was a voice!" And
with recollections too rich for utterance, he shook his head several
times, and silently waved his hand.

"Oh, when shall _I_ hear something or somebody?" said Garda.

"We shall accomplish it, we shall accomplish it yet, my dear child,"
said the Doctor, coming briskly back to the present in her behalf.
"Malibran is gone. Her place can never be filled. But I hope that you
too may cross the seas some day, and find, if not the atmosphere of the
grand style, which was hers and perished with her, at least an
atmosphere more enlarging than this. And there will be other
associations open to you in those countries besides the
musical--associations in the highest degree interesting; you can pay a
visit, for instance, to the scenes described in the engaging pages of
Fanny Burney, incomparably the greatest, and I fear, from the long
dearth which has followed her, the last of female novelists. For who is
there since her day worthy to hold a descriptive pen, and what has been
written that is worth our reading? With the exception of some few things
by two or three ladies of South Carolina, which I have had the privilege
of seeing, and which exist, I regret to say, only in manuscript as yet,
I know of nothing--no one."

Winthrop glanced at Garda to see if her face would show merriment over
the proposed literary pilgrimage. But no, the young girl accepted Miss
Burney calmly; she had heard the Doctor declaim on the subject all her
life, and was accustomed to think of the lady as a celebrated historical
character, as school-boys think of Helen of Troy.

Beyond the grove, they came to the Levels. Great trees rose here,
extending their straight boughs outward as far as they could reach,
touching nothing but the golden air. For each stood alone, no neighbor
near; each was a king. Black on the ground beneath lay the round mass of
shadow they cast. Above, among the dense, dark foliage, shone out
occasional spots of a lighter green; and this was the mistletoe. Besides
these monarchs there were sinuous lines of verdure, eight and ten feet
in height, wandering with grace over the plain. Most of the space,
however, was free--wide, sunny glades open to the sky. The arrangement
of the whole, of the great single trees, the lines of lower verdure, and
the sunny