she viewed the first symptoms of Paula's girlish
appreciation of her lover. If eyes and lips could speak, Paula was
happy. The mournful shadows which of late had flitted with more or less
persistency over her face, had vanished in a living smile, which if not
deep, was cloudlessly radiant; and her voice when not used in speech,
was rippling away in song, as glad as a finch's on the mountain side.

Miss Belinda was therefore very much astonished when one day Paula burst
into her presence, and flinging herself down on her knees, threw her
arms about her waist, crying,

"Take me away, dear aunt, I cannot, dare not stay here another day."

"Paula, what do you mean?" exclaimed Miss Belinda, holding her back and
endeavoring to look into her face. But the young girl gently resisted.

"I have just had a letter from Cicely," she returned in a low and
muffled voice. "She has seen Mr. Sylvester, and says he looks both wan
and ill. He told her, too, that he was lonely, and I know what that
means; he wants his child. The time has come for me to go back. He said
it would, and that I would know when it came. Take me, aunt, take me to
Mr. Sylvester."

Miss Belinda, to whom self-control was one of the cardinal virtues,
leaned back in her chair and contemplated the eager, tear-stained face
that was now raised to hers, with silent scrutiny. "Paula," said she at
last, "is that your only reason for desiring to return to New York?"

A flush, delicate as it was fleeting, swept over the dew of Paula's
cheek. She rose to her feet and met her aunt's eye, with a look of
gentle dignity. "No," said she, "I wish to test myself. Birds that are
prisoned will caress any hand that offers them freedom. I wish to see if
the lure holds good when my wings are in mid-heaven."

There was a dreamy cadence to her voice as she uttered that last phrase,
that startled her aunt. "Paula," exclaimed she, "Paula, don't you know
your own heart?"

"Who does?" returned Paula; then in a sudden rush of emotion threw
herself once more at her aunt's side, saying, "It is in order to know
it, that I ask you to take me away."

And Miss Belinda, as she smoothed back her darling's locks, was obliged
to acknowledge to herself, that time has a way of opening, in the stream
of life, unforeseen channels to whose current we perforce must yield, or
else hopelessly strand upon the shoals.

BOOK IV.

FROM A. TO Z.

XXX.

MISS BELINDA PRESENTS MR. SYLVESTER WIT