. "See there," she went on, opening a drawer, "What a heap of
them! I can't see, for my part, what any one can want to write a letter
every day to anybody for. John is such a goose about me."

"He'll get over it after he's been married six months," said Miss
Clippins, nodding her head with the air of a woman that has seen life.

"I'm sure I shan't care," said Lillie, with a toss of her pretty head.
"It's _borous_ any way."

Our readers may perhaps imagine, from the story thus far, that our
little Lillie is by no means the person, in reality, that John
supposes her to be, when he sits thinking of her with such devotion,
and writing her such long, "borous" letters.

She is not. John is in love not with the actual Lillie Ellis, but with
that ideal personage who looks like his mother's picture, and is the
embodiment of all his mother's virtues. The feeling, as it exists
in John's mind, is not only a most respectable, but in fact a truly
divine one, and one that no mortal man ought to be ashamed of. The
love that quickens all the nature, that makes a man twice manly, and
makes him aspire to all that is high, pure, sweet, and religious,--is
a feeling so sacred, that no unworthiness in its object can make
it any less beautiful. More often than not it is spent on an utter
vacancy. Men and women both pass through this divine initiation,--this
sacred inspiration of our nature,--and find, when they have come into
the innermost shrine, where the divinity ought to be, that there is no
god or goddess there; nothing but the cold black ashes of commonplace
vulgarity and selfishness. Both of them, when the grand discovery has
been made, do well to fold their robes decently about them, and make
the best of the matter. If they cannot love, they can at least be
friendly. They can tolerate, as philosophers; pity, as Christians;
and, finding just where and how the burden of an ill-assorted union
galls the least, can then and there strap it on their backs, and
walk on, not only without complaint, but sometimes in a cheerful and
hilarious spirit.

Not a word of all this thinks our friend John, as he sits longing,
aspiring, and pouring out his heart, day after day, in letters that
interrupt Lillie in the all-important responsibility of getting her
wardrobe fitted.

Shall we think this smooth little fair-skinned Lillie is a
cold-hearted monster, because her heart does not beat faster at
these letters which she does not understand, and whi