ds, and
drag her out; and poor Isabel, choked, chilled, and wet, is lying upon
the grass.

I commence crying aloud. The workmen in the fields hear me, and come
down. One takes Isabel in his arms, and I follow on foot to our uncle's
home upon the hill.

--"Oh, my dear children!" says my mother; and she takes Isabel in her
arms; and presently with dry clothes, and blazing wood-fire, little
Bella smiles again. I am at my mother's knee.

"I told you so, Paul," says Isabel--"aunty, doesn't Paul love me?"

"I hope so, Bella," said my mother.

"I know so," said I; and kissed her cheek.

And how did I know it? The boy does not ask; the man does. Oh, the
freshness, the honesty, the vigor of a boy's heart! how the memory of it
refreshes like the first gush of spring, or the break of an April
shower!

But boyhood has its PRIDE, as well as its LOVES.

My uncle is a tall, hard-faced man; I fear him when he calls
me--"child;" I love him when he calls me--"Paul." He is almost always
busy with his books; and when I steal into the library door, as I
sometimes do, with a string of fish, or a heaping basket of nuts to show
to him--he looks for a moment curiously at them, sometimes takes them in
his fingers--gives them back to me, and turns over the leaves of his
book. You are afraid to ask him if you have not worked bravely; yet you
want to do so.

You sidle out softly, and go to your mother; she scarce looks at your
little stores; but she draws you to her with her arm, and prints a kiss
upon your forehead. Now your tongue is unloosed; that kiss and that
action have done it; you will tell what capital luck you have had; and
you hold up your tempting trophies; "are they not great, mother?" But
she is looking in your face, and not at your prize.

"Take them, mother," and you lay the basket upon her lap.

"Thank you, Paul, I do not wish them: but you must give some to Bella."

And away you go to find laughing, playful, cousin Isabel. And we sit
down together on the grass, and I pour out my stores between us. "You
shall take, Bella, what you wish in your apron, and then when study
hours are over, we will have such a time down by the big rock in the
meadow!"

"But I do not know if papa will let me," says Isabel.

"Bella," I say, "do you love your papa?"

"Yes," says Bella, "why not?"

"Because he is so cold; he does not kiss you, Bella, so often as my
mother does; and besides, when he forbids your going away, he does not