u the privilege of solitary admiration?"

"It is I who am the intruder," I answered, looking wistfully towards the
door, through which I was tempted to rush at once. "I thought you had
not risen,--I thought,--I came"--

"And why did you come at this hour, Gabriella? and what has caused such
excessive embarrassment? Will you not be ingenuous enough to tell me?"

"I will," answered I, calmed by the gentle composure of his manner, "if
you will assert that you do not know already."

"I do not _know_, but I can _imagine_. Edith has betrayed my admiration
of that picture. You came to justify my taste, and to establish beyond a
doubt the truth of the likeness."

"No, indeed! I did not; I cannot explain the impulse which led me
hither. I only wish I had resisted it as I ought."

I suppose I must have looked quite miserable, from the efforts he made
to restore my self-complacency. He took the basket from my arm and
placed it on the table, moved a chair forward for me, and another for
himself, as if preparing for a morning _tete a tete_.

"What would Mrs. Linwood say, if she saw me here at this early hour
alone with her son?" thought I, obeying his motion, and tossing my hat
on the light stairs that were winding up behind me. I did not fell the
possibility of declining the interview, for there was a power about him
which overmastered without their knowing it the will of others.

"If you knew how much more pleasing is the innocent shame and artless
sensibility you manifest, than the ease and assurance of the practised
worldling, you would not blush for the impulse which drew you hither. To
the sated taste and weary eye, simplicity and truth are refreshing as
the spring-time of nature after its dreary winter. The cheek that
blushes, the eye that moistens, and the heart that palpitates, are
sureties of indwelling purity and candor. What a pity that they are as
evanescent as the bloom of these flowers and the fragrance they exhale!
You have never been in what is called the great world?"

"Never. I passed one winter in Boston; but I was in deep mourning and
did not go into society. Besides, your mother thought me too young. It
was more than a year ago."

"You will be considered old enough this winter. Do you not look forward
with eager anticipations and bright hopes to the realization of youth's
golden dreams?"

"I as often look forward with dread as hope. I am told they who see much
of the world, lose their faith in human