ilding was surrounded by fine gardens, and lawn-like
meadows, and stood sheltered within a grove of noble old trees. It was
beneath the shade of these trees, and reposing upon the velvet-like
sward at their feet, that Flora had first indulged in those delicious
reveries--those lovely, ideal visions of beauty and perfection--which
cover with a tissue of morning beams all the rugged highways of life.
Silent bosom friends were those dear old trees! Every noble sentiment of
her soul,--every fault that threw its baneful shadow on the sunlight of
her mind,--had been fostered, or grown upon her, in those pastoral
solitudes. Those trees had witnessed a thousand bursts of passionate
eloquence,--a thousand gushes of bitter, heart-humbling tears. To them
had been revealed all the joys and sorrows, the hopes and fears, which
she could not confide to the sneering and unsympathising of her own sex.
The solemn druidical groves were not more holy to their imaginative and
mysterious worshippers, than were those old oaks to the young Flora.

Now the balmy breath of spring, as it gently heaved the tender green
masses of brilliant foliage, seemed to utter a voice of thrilling
lamentation,--a sad, soul-touching farewell.

"Home of my childhood! must I see you no more?" sobbed Flora. "Are you
to become to-morrow a vision of the past? O that the glory of spring was
not upon the earth! that I had to leave you amid winter's chilling
gloom, and not in this lovely, blushing month of May! The emerald green
of these meadows--the gay flush of these bright blossoms--the joyous
song of these glad birds--breaks my heart!"

And the poor emigrant sank down amid the green grass, and, burying her
face among the fragrant daisies, imprinted a passionate kiss upon the
sod, which was never, in time or eternity, to form a resting-place for
her again.

But a beam is in the dark cloud even for thee, poor Flora; thou
heart-sick lover of nature. Time will reconcile thee to the change which
now appears so dreadful. The human flowers destined to spring around thy
hut in that far off wilderness, will gladden thy bosom in the strange
land to which thy course now tends; and the image of God, in his
glorious creation, will smile upon thee as graciously in the woods of
Canada, as it now does, in thy English Paradise. Yes, the hour will
come, when you shall exclaim with fervour,

"Thank God, I am the denizen of a free land; a land of beauty and
progression. A land unp