o have been surprised, for she was always kind,) I looked up, and I
know that gratitude and sensibility passed from my heart to my eyes.

"I must claim the privilege of an adopted brother," said he, extending
his hand, and I thought he smiled. Perhaps I was mistaken. His
countenance had a way of suddenly lighting up, which I learned to
compare to sunshine breaking through clouds. The hand in which he took
mine was so white, so delicately moulded, it looked as if it might have
belonged to a woman,--but he was a student, the heir of wealth, not the
son of labor, the inheritor of the primeval curse. It is a trifle to
mention,--the hand of an intellectual man,--but I had been so accustomed
to the large, muscular fingers of Mr. Regulus, which seemed formed to
wield the weapon of authority, that I could not but notice the contrast.

How pleasantly, how delightfully the evening passed away! I sat in my
favorite recess, half shaded by the light drapery of the window; while
Ernest took a seat at his mother's side, and Edith occupied a low
ottoman at his feet. One arm was thrown across his lap, and her eyes
were lifted to his face with an expression of the most idolizing
affection. And all the while he was talking, his hand passed caressingly
over her fair flaxen hair, or lingered amidst its glistering ringlets.
It was a beautiful picture of sisterly and fraternal love,--the fairest
I had ever seen. The fairest! it was the first, the only one. I had
never realized before the exceeding beauty and holiness of this tender
tie. As I looked upon Edith in her graceful, endearing attitude, so
expressive of dependence and love, many a sentence descriptive of a
brother's tenderness floated up to the surface of memory. I remembered
part of a beautiful hymn,--

"Fair mansions in my Father's house
For all his children wait;
And I, your elder _brother_ go,
To open wide the gate."

The Saviour of mankind called himself our brother,--stamping with the
seal of divinity the dear relationship.

I had imagined I felt for Richard Clyde a sister's regard. No, no! Cold
were my sentiments to those that beamed in Edith's upturned eyes.

Ernest described his travels, his life abroad, and dwelt on the
peculiarities of German character, its high, imaginative traits, its
mysticism and superstition, till his tongue warmed into enthusiasm,--and
_one_ of his hearers at least felt the inspiration of his eloquence. His
mother had said