ed listener to a
dialogue, in which the intellectual charm was strong enough, except at
very occasional periods, to prevent him from contributing much. The old
lady sat silently by. She was a trembling, timid body, thin, pale, and
emaciated, who appeared to have suffered much, and certainly stood in as
much awe of the man whose name she bore as it was well fitting in such a
relationship to permit. She said as little as Forrester, but seemed
equally well pleased with the attentions and the conversation of the
youth.

"Find you not this place lonesome, Miss Munro? You have been used, or I
mistake much, to a more cheering, a more civilized region."

"I have, sir; and sometimes I repine--not so much at the world I live
in, as for the world I have lost. Had I those about me with whom my
earlier years were passed, the lonely situation would trouble me
slightly."

She uttered these words with a sorrowful voice, and the moisture
gathering in her eyes, gave them additional brightness. The youth, after
some commonplace remark upon the vast difference between moral and
physical privations, went on--

"Perhaps, Miss Munro, with a true knowledge of all the conditions of
life, there may be thought little philosophy in the tears we shed at
such privations. The fortune that is unavoidable, however, I have always
found the more deplorable for that very reason. I shall have to watch
well, that I too be not surprised with regrets of a like nature with
your own, since I find myself constantly recurring, in thought, to a
world which perhaps I shall have little more to do with."

Rising from her seat, and leaving the room as she spoke, with a smile of
studied gayety upon her countenance, full also of earnestness and a
significance of manner that awakened surprise in the person addressed,
the maiden replied--

"Let me suggest, sir, that you observe well the world you are in; and do
not forget, in recurring to that which you leave, that, while deploring
the loss of friends in the one, you may be unconscious of the enemies
which surround you in the other. Perhaps, sir, you will find my
philosophy in this particular the most useful, if not the most
agreeable."

Wondering at her language, which, though of general remark, and fairly
deducible from the conversation, he could not avoid referring to some
peculiar origin, the youth rose, and bowed with respectful courtesy as
she retired. His eye followed her form for an instant, while his
me