ild?"

"Your wisdom guided my choice, dear madam," I answered, "and I thank you
for it."

"It would seem more natural to think of Miss--of Gabriella--as a pupil,
than a teacher," observed Ernest, "if youth is the criterion by which we
judge."

"I am seventeen--in my eighteenth year," said I eagerly, urged by an
unaccountable desire that he should not think me too young.

"A very grave and reverend age!" said he sarcastically.

I thought Mrs. Linwood looked unusually serious, and fearing I had said
something wrong, I hastened to depart. Dearly as I loved my
benefactress, it was not "that perfect love which casteth out fear." As
her benevolence was warm, her justice was inflexible. Hers was the kind
hand, but the firm nerves that could sustain a friend, while the knife
of the surgeon entered the quivering flesh. She shrunk not from
inflicting pain, if it was for another's good; but if she wounded with
one hand, she strewed balm with the other. Her influence was strong,
controlling, almost irresistible. Like the sunshine that forced the
wind-blown traveller to throw aside his cloak, the warmth of her
kindness penetrated, but it also _compelled_.

I had a growing conviction that though she called me her adopted child,
she did not wish me to presume upon her kindness so far as to look upon
her son in the familiar light of a brother. There was no fear of my
transgressing her wishes in this respect. I had already lost my
dread,--my awe was melting away, but I could no more approach him with
familiarity than if fourfold bars of gold surrounded him. I had another
conviction, that she encouraged and wished me to return the attachment
of Richard Clyde. Her urgent advice had induced me to accept the
proffered correspondence with him,--a compliance which I afterwards
bitterly regretted. He professed to write only as a _friend_, according
to the bond, but amid the evergreen wreath of friendship, he concealed
the glowing flowers of love. He was to return home in a few weeks. The
commencement was approaching, which was to liberate him from scholastic
fetters and crown him with the honors of manhood.

"Why," thought I, "should Richard make me dread his return, when I would
gladly welcome him with joy? Why in wishing to be more than a friend,
does he make me desire that he should be less? And now Ernest Linwood is
come back, of whom he so strangely warned me, methinks I dread him more
than ever."

Mrs. Linwood would attend the