which ran near. In all these little rambles which the younger
portion of the family made together, frequent mention was ever being made
of a visit from a very dear cousin, and to which all looked forward with
the greatest eagerness--the elder ones of the party with a certain air of
quiet pleasure, as though they knew more than they said, and the younger
with all the childish exuberance of youthful delight. Clara Mourtray
seemed to be, from all I was hourly hearing, the very paragon and pattern
of every thing. If any one was praised for beauty, Clara was immediately
pronounced much prettier--did any one sing, Clara's voice and taste were
far superior. In our homeward walk, should the shadows of the dark hills
fall with a picturesque effect upon the blue lake, some one was sure to
say, "Oh! how Clara would like to sketch that." In short, there was no
charm nor accomplishment ever the gift of woman, that Clara did not
possess; or, what amounted pretty much to the same thing, that my
relatives did not implicitly give her credit for. The constantly
recurring praises of the same person affect us always differently as we
go on in life. In youth the prevailing sentiment is an ardent desire to
see the prodigy of whom we have heard so much--in after years, heartily
to detest what hourly hurts our self-love by comparisons. We would take
any steps to avoid meeting what we have inwardly decreed to be a "bore."
The former was my course; and though my curiosity was certainly very
great, I had made up my mind to as great a disappointment, and half
wished for the longed arrival as a means of criticising what they could
see no fault in.

The wished-for evening at length came, and we all set out upon a walk to
meet the carriage which was to bring the bien aime Clara among us. We
had not walked above a mile when the eager eye of the foremost detected a
cloud of dust upon the road at some distance; and, after a few minutes
more, four posters were seen coming along at a tremendous rate. The next
moment she was making the tour of about a dozen uncles, aunts, cousins,
and cousines, none of whom, it appeared to me, felt any peculiar desire
to surrender the hearty embrace to the next of kin in succession. At
last she came to me, when, perhaps, in the confusion of the moment, not
exactly remembering whether or not she had seen me before, she stood for
a moment silent--a deep blush mantling her lovely cheek--masses of waving
brown hair