een roving all along her past life, and had left her amid
her childhood's sorrows in the narrow dreary room, with the weary and
forsaken ones, and none else to love and cheer her.

"Jennie," said her companion, noticing the bitterness that passed over
her young face, and wishing to dissipate any mournful musings, "do you
know why I asked you to come alone with me to Blinkdale to-day?"

Aroused thus suddenly, the young girl started from her lowly seat, and
patting its mossy side with her foot, replied, "How should I, Henry,
unless it be that it is always pleasanter to have one companion who can
understand and appreciate your love of nature, than to be surrounded in
your walks by many who care only for merriment and chatting. I could
spend the whole day in these solemn old woods with nothing to amuse me
but my own thoughts."

"And yet, I doubt if your pensive musings would be profitable to you,"
said her companion; "there is something dirge-like in the music of
nature that begets a morbid sort of feeling in a mind like yours,
Jennie, and too much of such solitude would injure you. Pardon me,"
continued he, as he caught her half comic inquisitive gaze; "but your
character has been my study for a long, long time."

"Not more profitable to you than my solitary reveries, I fancy," said
Jennie.

"But more delightful to me than any study," replied Henry, and seating
her again upon the bank near him, he told her all--how he had watched
her growing graces both of heart and mind, since the first time they had
met beneath her grandfather's porch; how he had striven in his
profession for her sake; how he had suffered his whole soul to go out
toward her in a hallowed and sincere affection; and how cold, and dead,
and sad his life must be if she reciprocated not his tenderness; and
then, with a flushed and anxious face, he awaited her answer.

Oh! how weary was the walk home! The woods were dark and dreary, and the
steps of the young man heavy and listless, as he sauntered on beside his
silent and suffering companion. Life had gained a new and somber aspect
to her too, since she was the cause of a crushing sorrow to one who had
lavished upon her his heart's breath. Why could he not be content with
the sisterly regard she had ever felt toward him? It is so terrible to
see him in his manly grief, and to feel that she may avert it! And yet,
how can it be otherwise, since there is ever before her a pale face,
with its spiritual eyes