fluous metre of
Epic hexameter, and again with its bounding life pulsating with the
glorious dashes of tragic verse.

Yet with the exception of stolen glances and secret admiration, you keep
aloof. There is no wish to fathom what seems a happy mystery. There lies
a content in secret obeisance. Sometimes it shames you, as your mind
glows with its fancied dignity; but the heart thrusts in its voice; and,
yielding to it, you dream dreams like fond old Boccaccio's upon the
olive-shaded slopes of Italy. The tongue even is not trusted with the
thoughts that are seething within: they begin and end in the voiceless
pulsations of your nature.

After a time--it seems a long time, but it is in truth a very short
time--you find who she is who is thus entrancing you. It is done most
carelessly. No creature could imagine that you felt any interest in the
accomplished sister--of your friend Dalton. Yet it is even she who has
thus beguiled you; and she is at least some ten years Dalton's senior,
and by even more years--your own!

It is singular enough, but it is true, that the affections of that
transition state from youth to manliness run toward the types of
maturity. The mind in its reaches toward strength and completeness
creates a heart-sympathy--which in its turn craves fulness. There is a
vanity too about the first steps of manly education, which is disposed
to underrate the innocence and unripened judgment of the other sex. Men
see the mistake as they grow older; for the judgment of a woman, in all
matters of the affections, ripens by ten years faster than a man's.

In place of any relentings on such score you are set on fire anew. The
stories of her accomplishments, and of her grace of conversation,
absolutely drive you mad. You watch your occasion for meeting her upon
the street. You wonder if she has any conception of your capacity for
mental labor, and if she has any adequate idea of your admiration for
Greek poetry, and for herself.

You tie your cravat poet-wise, and wear broad collars turned down,
wondering how such disposition may affect her. Her figure and step
become a kind of moving romance to you, drifting forward and outward
into that great land of dreams which you call the world. When you see
her walking with others, you pity her, and feel perfectly sure, that, if
she had only a hint of that intellectual fervor which in your own mind
blazes up at the very thought of her, she would perfectly scorn the
stout ge