onnilasse!
_P_. She roode at me with glauncing eye,
_W_. As clear as the crystal glasse.
_P_. All as the sunny beame so bright,
_W_. Hey, ho, the sunnebeame!
_P_. Glaunceth from Phoebus' face forthright,
_W_. So love into thy heart did streame."
--SPENSER: _Shepard's Calendar_.

"The kindliest symptom, yet the most alarming crisis in the ticklish
state of youth; the nourisher and destroyer of hopeful wits; * * * the
servitude above freedom; the gentle mind's religion; the liberal
superstition."--CHARLES LAMB.

The first sign of the unimagined snow-storm was like the transparent
white cloud that seems to set off the blue. Anna was in the secret of
Rex's feeling; though for the first time in their lives he had said
nothing to her about what he most thought of, and he only took it for
granted that she knew it. For the first time, too, Anna could not say
to Rex what was continually in her mind. Perhaps it might have been a
pain which she would have had to conceal, that he should so soon care
for some one else more than for herself, if such a feeling had not been
thoroughly neutralized by doubt and anxiety on his behalf. Anna admired
her cousin--would have said with simple sincerity, "Gwendolen is always
very good to me," and held it in the order of things for herself to be
entirely subject to this cousin; but she looked at her with mingled
fear and distrust, with a puzzled contemplation as of some wondrous and
beautiful animal whose nature was a mystery, and who, for anything Anna
knew, might have an appetite for devouring all the small creatures that
were her own particular pets. And now Anna's heart was sinking under
the heavy conviction which she dared not utter, that Gwendolen would
never care for Rex. What she herself held in tenderness and reverence
had constantly seemed indifferent to Gwendolen, and it was easier to
imagine her scorning Rex than returning any tenderness of his. Besides,
she was always thinking of being something extraordinary. And poor Rex!
Papa would be angry with him if he knew. And of course he was too young
to be in love in that way; and she, Anna had thought that it would be
years and years before any thing of that sort came, and that she would
be Rex's housekeeper ever so long. But what a heart must that be which
did not return his love! Anna, in the prospect of his suffering, was
begi