in a pleased tone of voice.

In a few minutes the carriage drew up at the beautiful mansion, in
the portico of which were Mr. Willet and his mother and sisters,
waiting to receive them. The welcome was most cordial, and the
ladies soon felt at home with each other.

Flora, the youngest sister of Mr. Willet, was a lovely girl about
Fanny's age. It did not take them long to know and appreciate each
other. The mind of Flora was naturally stronger than that of Fanny,
partaking slightly of the masculine type; but only sufficient to
give it firmness and self-reliance. Her school education had
progressed farther, and she had read, and thought, and seen more of
the world than Fanny. Yet the world had left no stain upon her
garments, for, in entering it, she had been lovingly guarded. To her
brother she looked up with much of a child's unwavering confidence.
He was a few years her senior, and she could not remember the time
when she had not regarded him as a man whose counsels were full of
wisdom.

"Where have you been for the last hour?" Mr. Willet inquired of the
young maidens, as they entered, arm-in-arm, their light forms gently
inclined to each other.

"Wandering over your beautiful grounds," replied Fanny.

"I hardly thought you would see them as beautiful," said Mr. Willet.

"Do you think that I have no eye for the beautiful?" returned Fanny,
with a smile.

"Not so," quickly answered Mr. Willet. "Woodbine Lodge is so near
perfection that you must see defects in Sweetbrier."

"I never saw half the beauty in nature that has been revealed to my
eyes this morning," said Fanny. "It seemed as if I had come upon
enchanted ground. Ah, sir, your sister has opened a new book for me
to read in--the book of nature."

Mr. Willet glanced, half-inquiringly, toward Flora.

"Fanny speaks with enthusiasm," said the sister.

"What have you been talking about? What new leaf has Flora turned
for you, Miss Markland?"

"A leaf on which there is much written that I already yearn to
understand. All things visible, your sister said to me, are but the
bodying forth in nature of things invisible, yet in harmony with
immutable laws of order."

"Reason will tell you that this is true," remarked Mr. Willet.

"Yes; I see that it must be so. Yet what a world of new ideas it
opens to the mind! The flower I hold in my hand, Flora says, is but
the outbirth, or bodily form, of a spiritual flower. How strange the
thought!"

"Did she not s