s with sagacious recognition, resting calmly on the
palm of her pretty hand; then when he sprang off, little moth-like
butterflies peculiar to the margins of running waters quivered up from
the herbage, fluttering round her. And there, in front, lay the Thames,
glittering through the willows, Vance getting ready the boat, Lionel
seated by her side, a child like herself, his pride of incipient manhood
all forgotten; happy in her glee; she loving him for the joy she felt,
and blending his image evermore in her remembrance with her first summer
holiday,--with sunny beams, glistening leaves, warbling birds, fairy
wings, sparkling waves. Oh, to live so in a child's heart,--innocent,
blessed, angel-like,--better, better than the troubled reflection upon
woman's later thoughts, better than that mournful illusion, over which
tears so bitter are daily shed,--better than First Love! They entered
the boat. Sophy had never, to the best of her recollection, been in
a boat before. All was new to her: the lifelike speed of the little
vessel; that world of cool green weeds, with the fish darting to and
fro; the musical chime of oars; those distant stately swans. She was
silent now--her heart was very full.

"What are you thinking of, Sophy?" asked Lionel, resting on the oar.

"Thinking!--I was not thinking."

"What then?"

"I don't know,--feeling, I suppose."

"Feeling what?"

"As if between sleeping and waking; as the water perhaps feels, with the
sunlight on it!"

"Poetical," said Vance, who, somewhat of a poet himself, naturally
sneered at poetical tendencies in others; "but not so bad in its way.
Ah, have I hurt your vanity? there are tears in your eyes."

"No, sir," said Sophy, falteringly. "But I was thinking then."

"Ah," said the artist, "that's the worst of it; after feeling ever comes
thought; what was yours?"

"I was sorry poor Grandfather was not here, that's all."

"It was not our fault: we pressed him cordially," said Lionel.

"You did indeed, sir, thank you! And I don't know why he refused you."
The young men exchanged compassionate glances.

Lionel then sought to make her talk of her past life, tell him more of
Mrs. Crane. Who and what was she?

Sophy could not or would not tell. The remembrances were painful; she
had evidently tried to forget them. And the people with whom Waife had
placed her, and who had been kind?

The Misses Burton; and they kept a day-school, and taught Sophy to read,
write, and