Unruffled and serene,
Though floods of grief beneath it roll,
I learn, when calm and pure,
I see the floating water-lily,
Gleam amid shadows dark and chilly."

CAROLINE MAY.

The Sea-flower arrived at her new home in safety,--the home of our
western friends, the Santons. The continued ill-health of Mrs. Santon
had been the chief cause of the return of the family to the east. By a
favorable turn of fortune, Mr. Santon had come into possession of nearly
double the amount of his former wealth, and he was now looked upon as
one of Boston's most prominent citizens. The selling of western lands,
which he had obtained for a mere trifle, had been the chief source of
revenue in building up his fortune. The little Winifred, whom we left
making merry over the Erin simplicity of Biddy and Patrick, had grown to
be a young miss of seventeen. Those black eyes of hers, which had
attracted the gaze of the tall western youths for the last time, had in
no way lost their brilliancy. Mischief still sat triumphant therein, and
not a day passed but some poor uninitiated was brought to test the
merits of that gift. Miss Winnie looked upon this removal to more
enlightened regions, as a change altogether for the best; for how could
such as she, at that age which never comes but once in a lifetime, be
content to feed on air, _a la prairie_. She had tired of looking at the
same half-dozen raw-boned gallants, and had come to the grand final
decision, that her charms should not be wasted thus; and now that she
was surrounded by those urbane solicitors, which do mingle with those of
more enlargement of brain in fashionable life, they, in turn, began to
fear lest those charms might not prove for such as them.

"Mother," asked Winnie, a few days before the arrival of the
Sea-flower, "who is this friend whom you have invited to visit us?--that
is, I mean to ask, what is she like? I have often heard you speak of
your early friend, Mrs. Grosvenor, but you have never seen her daughter,
and who knows but she may be,--well, I wont say; but you know Nantucket
is but an isolated, out-of-the-way place, where fishermen live, and the
society in which she has moved, will probably unfit her for enjoying
ours. But she will be with us in a day or two, so we shall have to make
the best of it."

"It is many years since I have seen Mrs. Grosvenor; we met when we were
both young married ladies, at the house of a friend of mine, in New
York,