A MYSTERIOUS CONVERSATION.--THE RETURN
OF ONE UNLOOKED FOR.

Time went slowly on, and Lucilla grew up in beauty. The stranger traits
of her character increased in strength, but perhaps in the natural
bashfulness of maidenhood they became more latent. At the age of
fifteen, her elastic shape had grown round and full, and the wild girl
had already ripened to the woman. An expression of thought, when
the play of her features was in repose, that dwelt upon her lip and
forehead, gave her the appearance of being two or three years older than
she was; but again, when her natural vivacity returned,--when the clear
and buoyant music of her gay laugh rang out, or when the cool air and
bright sky of morning sent the blood to her cheek and the zephyr to her
step, her face became as the face of childhood, and contrasted with a
singular and dangerous loveliness the rich development of her form.

And still was Lucilla Volktman a stranger to all that savoured of the
world; the company of others of her sex and age never drew forth her
emotions from their resting-place:--

"And Nature said, a lovelier flower
On earth was never sown
* * * * *
Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse; and with me
The girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power
To kindle or restrain.

The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place;
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty, born of murmuring sound,
Shall pass into her face."

WORDSWORTH.

These lines have occurred to me again and again, as I looked on the
face of her to whom I have applied them. And, remembering as I do its
radiance and glory in her happier moments, I can scarcely persuade
myself to notice the faults and heats of temper which at times dashed
away all its lustre and gladness. Unrestrained and fervid, she gave way
to the irritation of grief of the moment with a violence that would have
terrified any one who beheld her at such times. But it rarely happened
that the scene had its witness even in her father, for she fled to the
loneliest spot she could find to indulge these emotions; and perhaps
even the agony they occasioned--an agony convulsing the heart and whole
of her impassioned frame--took a sort of luxury from the solitary and
unchecked nature of