er would be
worth all the gems of the East; now it was life itself.

"Are you ill, Gabriella?" whispered Mrs. Linwood, who with Edith sat
directly in front, and whose eyes had watched anxiously the motions of
Richard. "Ah! I see this heat is killing you."

"_That is she_, I do believe," hissed the serpent tongue behind me.

"Hush, she may hear you."

All was again still around me, the stillness of the multitudinous sea,
for every wave of life heaved restlessly, producing a kind of murmur,
like that of rustling leaves in an autumnal forest. Then a sound loud as
the thunders of the roaring ocean came rushing on the air. It was the
burst of acclamation which greeted Richard Clyde, first in honor though
last in time. I bent my ear to listen, but the words blent confusedly
together, forming one wave of utterance, that rolled on without leaving
one idea behind. I knew he was eloquent, from the enthusiastic applause
which occasionally interrupted him, but I had lost the power of
perception; and had Demosthenes risen from his grave, it would scarcely
have excited in me any emotion.

Was this my introduction to that world,--that great world, of which I
had heard and thought and dreamed so much? How soon had my garlands
faded,--my fine gold become dim! Could they not have spared me one day,
_me_, who had never injured them? And yet they might aim their barbed
darts at me. I would not care for that,--oh, no, it was not that. It was
the blow that attacked an angel mother's fame. O my mother! could they
not spare thee even in thy grave, where the wicked are said to cease
from troubling and the weary are at rest? Could they not let thee sleep
in peace, thou tempest-tost and weary hearted, even in the dark and
narrow house, sacred from the footstep of the living?

Another thundering burst of applause called my spirit from the
grass-grown sod, made damp and green by the willow's shade, to the
crowded church and the bustle and confusion of life. Then followed the
presentation of the parchment rolls and the ceremonies usual at the
winding up of this time-honored day. It all seemed like unmeaning
mummery to me. The majestic president, with his little flat black cap,
set like a tile on the top of his head, was a man of pasteboard and
springs, and even the beautiful figures that lighted up the walls had
lost their coloring and life. There was, indeed, a wondrous change,
independent of that within my own soul. The excessive heat had wi