ng far declined, the sunshine
was almost pensive and the shade almost cheerful; glory and gloom were
mingled in the placid light, as if the spirits of the Day and Evening
had met in friendship under those trees and found themselves akin. I
was admiring the picture when the shape of a young girl emerged from
behind the clump of oaks. My heart knew her: it was the vision, but so
distant and ethereal did she seem, so unmixed with earth, so imbued
with the pensive glory of the spot where she was standing, that my
spirit sunk within me, sadder than before. How could I ever reach her?

While I gazed a sudden shower came pattering down upon the leaves. In
a moment the air was full of brightness, each raindrop catching a
portion of sunlight as it fell, and the whole gentle shower appearing
like a mist, just substantial enough to bear the burden of radiance. A
rainbow vivid as Niagara's was painted in the air. Its southern limb
came down before the group of trees and enveloped the fair vision as
if the hues of heaven were the only garment for her beauty. When the
rainbow vanished, she who had seemed a part of it was no longer there.
Was her existence absorbed in nature's loveliest phenomenon, and did
her pure frame dissolve away in the varied light? Yet I would not
despair of her return, for, robed in the rainbow, she was the emblem
of Hope.

Thus did the vision leave me, and many a doleful day succeeded to the
parting moment. By the spring and in the wood and on the hill and
through the village, at dewy sunrise, burning noon, and at that magic
hour of sunset, when she had vanished from my sight, I sought her, but
in vain. Weeks came and went, months rolled away, and she appeared not
in them. I imparted my mystery to none, but wandered to and fro or sat
in solitude like one that had caught a glimpse of heaven and could
take no more joy on earth. I withdrew into an inner world where my
thoughts lived and breathed, and the vision in the midst of them.
Without intending it, I became at once the author and hero of a
romance, conjuring up rivals, imagining events, the actions of others
and my own, and experiencing every change of passion, till jealousy
and despair had their end in bliss. Oh, had I the burning fancy of my
early youth with manhood's colder gift, the power of expression, your
hearts, sweet ladies, should flutter at my tale.

In the middle of January I was summoned home. The day before my
departure, visiting the spots