ce; but here,
earth lent her own charms to be decked by heaven.

Through a quiet landscape went the river--the grand silent flood which
by-and-by, many miles further on its course, would make Niagara. Here it
flowed calmly, reflecting the sunset, a giant with its energies untaxed
and its passions unroused--a kindly St. Christopher, yet capable of
being transformed into a destroying Thor. Far away, seen over a low
projecting point of land, white sails gleamed now and then, as ships
moved upon the lake from whence the river came; and nearer, upon the
great stream itself, a few boats were idling. In the bend formed by the
point, and quite near the lake, lay a small town, its wooden wharves and
warehouses lining the shore for some distance. Lower down, the bank rose
high, dropping precipitously to the water's edge; and nearer still, the
precipice changed to a steep, but green and wooded bank, and here, on
the summit of the bank, stood Mrs. Costello's cottage.

It was a charming white nest, with a broad verandah all embowered in
green, so placed as to look out upon the river through a screen of
boughs and flowers. If you had seen Mrs. Costello and her daughter
sitting upon the verandah, as they were tolerably sure to be found every
day while summer lasted, you would have owned that it would be hard to
find a prettier picture set in a prettier frame.

This evening they were there alone. Mrs. Costello had her work-table
placed at the end nearest the river, and her rocking-chair beside it.
Some knitting was in her hands, but she could not knit, for her ball of
wool was being idly wound and unwound round her daughter's fingers.

Sitting on a footstool, leaning back against her mother's knee, was this
daughter--a child loved (it could almost be seen at a glance) with an
absorbing, passionate love. A girl of seventeen, just between child and
woman, who seemed to have been a baby but yesterday, and who still, in
the midst of her new womanly grace, kept her caressing baby ways.
Something unusual, not only in degree but in kind, belonged to her
brilliant beauty, and set it off. The marvellous blackness of hair and
eyes was so soft in its depth, the tint of her skin so transparent in
its duskiness, her slight figure so flexible, so exquisite in its
outlines, that it was impossible not to wonder what the type was which
produced so perfect an example. Spanish it was said to be, but the child
was Canadian by birth, and her mother Engl