im more than half way.

"I did not know that I had left my head, as well as my heart behind,"
said he, with a sickly effort to be facetious; "thank you, God bless you
once again."

With another iron pressure of my aching hand, he dashed his hat on his
lion-like head and left me.

I walked home as one in a dream, wondering if this interview were real
or ideal; wondering if the juice of the milk-white flower, "made purple
by love's wand," had been squeezed by fairy fingers into the eyes of my
preceptor, in his slumbering hours, to cause this strange passion;
wondering why the spirit of love, like the summer wind, stealing softly
through the whispering boughs, breathes where it listeth, and we cannot
tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; and wondering most of all
if--but I cannot describe the thoughts that drifted through my mind,
vague and changing as the clouds that went hurrying after each other
over the deep blue ether.

CHAPTER XX.

Commencement day!--a day of feverish anxiety and excitement to the young
student, who is to step forth before the public eye, a candidate for the
laurels of fame;--a day of weariness and stiffness to the dignified
professors, obliged to sit hour after hour, listening to the florid
eloquence whose luxuriance they have in vain attempted to prune, or
trying to listen while the spirit yawns and stretches itself to its
drowsy length;--a day of intense interest to the young maiden, who sees
among the youthful band of aspirants one who is the "bright particular
star" round which her pure and trembling hopes revolve.

It was a day of excitement to me, for every thing was novel, and
therefore interesting. It was the first time I had ever been in a dense
crowd, and I felt the electric fluid, always collected where the great
heart of humanity is throbbing, thrilling in my veins, and ready to
flash at the master-stroke of eloquence. I was dazzled by the brilliant
display of beauty and fashion that lighted up the classic walls as with
living sunbeams. Such clusters of mimic blossoms and flowing ringlets
wreathed together round fair, blooming faces; such a cloud of soft, airy
drapery floating over lithe figures, swaying forward like light boughs
agitated by the wind; such a fluttering of snowy fans, making the cool,
pleasant sound of rain drops pattering among April leaves; such bright
eager eyes, turned at every sounding step towards the open door,--I had
never looked upon the like