nd his sister so well amused,
was prolonged to the end of July, when, alarmed at the total cessation
of letters from Hannah, and at the constrained and dispirited tone which
she discovered, or fancied that she discovered in her brother's, Lucy
resolved to hasten home.

He received her with his usual gentle kindness and his sweet and
thoughtful smile; assured her that he was well; exerted himself more
than usual to talk, and waived away her anxious questions by extorting
from her an account of her journey and her residence, of all that she
had seen, and of her own feelings on returning to her country home after
so long a sojourn in the splendid and beautiful metropolis. He talked
more than was usual with him; and more gaily; but still Lucy was
dissatisfied. The hand that had pressed hers on alighting was cold as
death; the lip that had kissed her fair brow was pale and trembling; his
appetite was gone, and his frequent and apparently unconscious habit of
pushing away the clustering curls from his forehead proved, as plainly
as words could have done, that there was pain in the throbbing temples.
The pulsation was even visible; but still he denied that he was ill, and
declared that her notion of his having grown thin and pale was nothing
but a woman's fancy,--the fond whim of a fond sister.

To escape from the subject he took her into the garden,--her own pretty
flower garden, divided by a wall covered with creepers from the larger
plot of ground devoted to vegetables, and bounded on one side by
buildings connected with his trade, and parted on the other from a
well-stored timber-yard, by a beautiful rustic screen of fir and oak and
birch with the bark on, which terminating in a graceful curve at the end
next the house, and at that leading to the garden in a projecting
gothic porch,--partly covered by climbing plants, partly broken by tall
pyramidal hollyhocks, and magnificent dahlias, and backed by a clump
of tall elms, formed a most graceful veil to an unsightly object.
This screen had been erected during Lucy's absence, and without her
knowledge; and her brother smiling at the delight which she expressed,
pointed out to her the splendid beauty of her flowers and the luxuriant
profusion of their growth.

The old buildings matted with roses, honeysuckles, and jessamines,
broken only by the pretty out-door room which Lucy called her
greenhouse; the pile of variously tinted geraniums in front of that
prettiest room; the