in and poor compared with
the glossy _neglige_ of those bright tresses. The earthen jar sits upon
her head with the grace of a golden coronet--every attitude is the
_pose_ of a statue, a study for a sculptor; and the coarse garment that
drapes that form is in your eyes more becoming than a robe of richest
velvet. You care not for that. You are not thinking of the casket, but
of the pearl it conceals.

She disappears within the cottage--her humble home. Humble? In your
eyes no longer humble; that little kitchen, with its wooden chairs, and
scoured dresser, its deal shelf, with mugs, cups, and willow-pattern
plates, its lime-washed walls and cheap prints of the red soldier and
the blue sailor--that little museum of the _penates_ of the poor, is now
filled with a light that renders it more brilliant than the gilded
saloons of wealth and fashion. That cottage with its low roof, and
woodbine trellis, has become a palace. The light of love has
transformed it! A paradise you are forbidden to enter. Yes, with all
your wealth and power, your fine looks and your titles of distinction,
your superfine cloth and bright lacquered boots, mayhap you dare not
enter there.

And oh! how you envy those who dare!--how you envy the spruce
apprentice, and the lout in the smock who cracks his whip, and whistles
with as much _nonchalance_ as if he was between the handles of his
plough! as though the awe of that fair presence should not freeze his
lips to stone! _Gauche_ that he is, how you envy him his
_opportunities_! how you could slaughter him for those sweet smiles that
appear to be lavished upon him!

There maybe no meaning in those smiles. They may be the expressions of
good-nature of simple friendship, perhaps of a little coquetry. For all
that, you cannot behold them without envy--without _suspicion_ If there
be a meaning--if they be the smiles of love--if the heart of that simple
girl has made its lodgement either upon the young apprentice or him of
the smock--then are you fated to the bitterest pang that human breast
can know. It is not jealousy of the ordinary kind. It is far more
painful. Wounded vanity adds a poison to the sting. Oh! it is hard to
bear!

A pang of this nature I suffered, as I paced that high platform.
Fortunately they had left me alone. The feelings that worked within me
could not be concealed. My looks and wild gestures must have betrayed
them. I should have been a subject for satire and la