ation as no
words can describe. The gentle look, the graceful gestures, the silvery
voices, all the play and action of natures so infinitely more refined
than any he has ever witnessed, are inexpressibly captivating. It is not
alone the occupations of their hours, light, graceful, and picturesque
as they are, but all their topics, their thoughts, seem to soar out
of the commonplace world he has lived in, and rise to ideal realms of
poetry and beauty. I say it advisedly: I do not know of anything so
truly Elysian in life as our first--our very first--experiences of this
kind.

Werther's passion for Charlotte received a powerful impulse from
watching her as she cut bread-and-butter for the children. There are
vulgar natures who will smile at this; who cannot enter into the intense
far-sightedness of that poetic conception; that could in one trait
of simplicity embody a whole lifetime with its ennobling duties, its
cheerful sacrifices, its gracefully borne cares. Let him, therefore, who
could sneer at Werther, scoff at Potts, as he owns that he never felt
his heart so powerfully drawn to Kate Herbert as when he watched her
making tea for breakfast. Dressed in a muslin that represented mourning,
her rich hair plainly enclosed in a net, with a noiseless motion, she
glided about, an ideal of gentle sadness, more fascinating than I can
tell. If she bore any unpleasant memory of our little difference, she
did not show it; her manner was calm and even kind. She felt, perhaps,
that some compensation was due to me for the rudeness of that old woman,
and was not unwilling to make it.

"You know we are to rest here to-day?" said she, as she busied herself
at the table.

"I heard it by a mere chance, and from the courier," said I, peevishly.
"I am not quite certain in what capacity Mrs. Keats condescends to
regard me, that I am treated with such scant courtesy. Probably you
would be kind enough to ascertain this point for me?"

"I shall assuredly not ask," said she, with a smile.

"I certainly promised her brother--I could not do less for a colleague,
not to say something more--that I 'd see this old lady safe over the
Alps. They are looking out for me anxiously enough at Constantinople
all this while; in fact, I suspect there will be a nice confusion there
through my delay, and I 'd not be a bit surprised if they begin to
believe that stupid story in the 'Nord.' I suppose you saw it?"

"No. What is it about?"

"It is about