d solid divine of
Puritan tendencies, declares that he prefers good-nature before grace in
the election of a wife; because, saith he, "it will be a hard Task, where
the Nature is peevish and froward, for Grace to make an entire Conquest
whilst Life lasteth." An opinion apparently entertained by many modern
ecclesiastics, and one which may be considered very encouraging to those
young ladies of the politer circles who have a fancy for marrying bishops
and other fashionable clergymen. Not of course that "grace" is so rare a
gift among the young ladies of the upper social sphere; but they are in
the habit of using the word with a somewhat different meaning from that
which the good Bishop attached to it.

CHAPTER XVIII.

VILLAGE POET.

It was impossible for Myrtle to be frequently at Olive's without often
meeting Olive's brother, and her reappearance with the bloom on her cheek
was a signal which her other admirers were not likely to overlook as a
hint to recommence their flattering demonstrations; and so it was that
she found herself all at once the centre of attraction to three young men
with whom we have made some acquaintance, namely, Cyprian Eveleth, Gifted
Hopkins, and Murray Bradshaw.

When the three girls were together at the house of Olive, it gave Cyprian
a chance to see something of Myrtle in the most natural way. Indeed, they
all became used to meeting him in a brotherly sort of relation; only, as
he was not the brother of two of them, it gave him the inside track, as
the sporting men say, with reference to any rivals for the good-will of
either of these. Of course neither Bathsheba nor Myrtle thought of him
in any other light than as Olive's brother, and would have been surprised
with the manifestation on his part of any other feeling, if it existed.
So he became very nearly as intimate with them as Olive was, and hardly
thought of his intimacy as anything more than friendship, until one day
Myrtle sang some hymns so sweetly that Cyprian dreamed about her that
night; and what young person does not know that the woman or the man once
idealized and glorified in the exalted state of the imagination belonging
to sleep becomes dangerous to the sensibilities in the waking hours that
follow? Yet something drew Cyprian to the gentler and more subdued
nature of Bathsheba, so that he often thought, like a gayer personage
than himself, whose divided affections are famous in song, that he could
have been bles