Are most divine. Where earth and sky
Are picture both and poetry;
Of Italy--"

A Madame de Stael would have immortalized her as another Corrinne.

_Heu, me miserum!_ Where shall we find goose-quill cruel and grey enough
to write her down wife of Jude Thornton Rush?

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of
in your philosophy."

Have you forgotten, dear reader, that September night after Ellice's
funeral? How Duncan Lisle sat alone with Hubert, his child, before the
bright fire, while the rain pattered against the pane, and the memory of
the widowed man broke up into such a shower of reminiscences as almost,
for the moment, to drown the fire of his grief? Do you remember that
Philip St. Leger, returned from the East, came abruptly upon the scene,
telling of Della's death, and the little child left at the North? Well,
was it not natural for us to think that Hubert and Althea, children of
Della and Ellice, the "Pythias and Damon" friends, should grow up and
love each other, and marry at last, as they do in novels?

Yes, that was our pet scheme, indulged in to the last. But we are
compelled to admit with the poet, that "best laid plans go oft astray."
We are also compelled to think half wickedly with Amy--what pity it was
Jude Rush fell down a precipice breaking his neck, thus giving his wife
liberty to capture her own good master--and what pity it was too that
Jude Thornton Rush did _not_ fall down some precipice and did _not_
break his neck before, spider-like, he had woven his fine web, and said
softly to Della's daughter:

"Will you walk into my parlor?"

For, something like a spider was Thornton Rush. He was quite tall and
too slender. His body was out of proportion to his long limbs, and his
hands and feet had the remarkable faculty of protruding too far from
every garment, even those the tailor declared should be long enough
_this_ time. The "ninth part of a man" would seize the sleeve at the
wrist with both hands, give a good jerk and an emphatic _there_! But
when Thornton Rush was ordered to lift his arm naturally, the wrist
protruded like a turtle's neck.

"He must be made of gutta percha," soliloquized the discomfited tailor,
giving him up as an incorrigible _non-fit_.

The rather stooping shoulders and long neck supported a splendid head
for Thornton Rush. This was indeed his crowning attraction. Short silken
curls of raven black clustered around it, shading a