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those who know the "Indian summer" of our Northern States, it is needless
to describe the influence it exerts on the senses and the soul. The
stillness of the landscape in that beautiful time is as if the planet
were sleeping, like a top, before it begins to rock with the storms of
autumn. All natures seem to find themselves more truly in its light;
love grows more tender, religion more spiritual, memory sees farther back
into the past, grief revisits its mossy marbles, the poet harvests the
ripe thoughts which he will tie in sheaves of verses by his winter
fireside.

The minister had got into the way of taking frequent walks with Myrtle,
whose health had seemed to require the open air, and who was fast
regaining her natural look. Under the canopy of the scarlet, orange, and
crimson leaved maples, of the purple and violet clad oaks, of the birches
in their robes of sunshine, and the beeches in their clinging drapery of
sober brown, they walked together while he discoursed of the joys of
heaven, the sweet communion of kindred souls, the ineffable bliss of a
world where love would be immortal and beauty should never know decay.
And while she listened, the strange light of the leaves irradiated the
youthful figure of Myrtle, as when the stained window let in its colors
on Madeline, the rose-bloom and the amethyst and the glory.

"Yes! we shall be angels together," exclaimed the Rev. Mr. Stoker. "Our
souls were made for immortal union. I know it; I feel it in every throb
of my heart. Even in this world you are as an angel to me, lifting me
into the heaven where I shall meet you again, or it will not be heaven.
Oh, if on earth our communion could have been such as it must be
hereafter! O Myrtle, Myrtle!"

He stretched out his hands as if to clasp hers between them in the
rapture of his devotion. Was it the light reflected from the glossy
leaves of the poison sumach which overhung the path that made his cheek
look so pale? Was he going to kneel to her?

Myrtle turned her dark eyes on him with a simple wonder that saw an
excess of saintly ardor in these demonstrations, and drew back from it.

"I think of heaven always as the place where I shall meet my mother," she
said calmly.

These words recalled the man to himself for a moment and he was silent.
Presently he seated himself on a stone. His lips were tremulous as he
said, in a low tone, "Sit down by me, Myrtle."

"No," she answered, with something which ch