. Juliet seized the portfolio
from her father, and, with one bound, cleared the opposite doorway, and
disappeared.

"We have frightened your daughter away, Captain Whitmore," said the
Colonel, glancing after the retreating figure of Juliet. "What made my
young friend run from us?"

"Oh, I have just found out the saucy jade is scribbling verses all over
my paper; and she is afraid that I should tell you about it; and that
aunt Dorothy would quiz her before these gentlemen."

"I should like much to see a specimen of her poetry," said the Colonel.

"Here are a few lines addressed to myself," said the proud father,
handing them to his friend. "I was going to scold Julee for her folly;
but, by Jove, Colonel, I could not bring my heart to do it after reading
that!"

The paper went round. It lingered longest in the hand of Anthony
Hurdlestone. The lines possessed no particular merit. They were tender
and affectionate, true to nature and nature's simplicity, and as he read
and re-read them, it seemed as if the spirit of the author was in unison
with his own. "Happy girl!" he thought, "who can thus feel towards and
write of a father. How I envy you this blessed, holy affection!" He
raised his eyes, and rose up in confusion, to be presented to Miss
Whitmore.

Juliet could scarcely be termed beautiful; but her person was very
attractive. Her features were small, but belonged to none of the favored
orders of female beauty; and her complexion was pallid, rendered more
conspicuously so by the raven hair, that fell in long silken ringlets
down her slender white throat, and spread like a dark veil round her
elegant bust and shoulders. Her lofty brow was pure as marble, and
marked by that high look of moral and intellectual power, before which
mere physical beauty shrinks into insignificance. Soft pencilled
eyebrows gave additional depth and lustre to a pair of the most lovely
deep blue eyes that ever flashed from beneath a fringe of jet. There was
an expression of tenderness almost amounting to sadness, in those sweet
eyes; and when they were timidly raised to meet those of the young
Anthony, a light broke upon his heart, which the storms and clouds of
after-life could never again extinguish.

"Miss Juliet, your father has been giving us a treat," said the Colonel.

Poor Juliet turned first very red, and then very pale, and glanced
reproachfully at the old man.

"Nay, Miss Whitmore, you need not be ashamed of that which does