like this rich, velvet grass. How beautiful,
how magnificent!" he exclaimed, his eye taking in the wide sweep of
landscape, here and there darkened with shade, and at intervals
literally blazing with the crimson sunlight,--then sweeping on over the
swelling mountains, so grand in their purple drapery and golden crowns.
"How exquisitely beautiful! My mother could not have selected a lovelier
spot,--and these old granite walls! how antique, how classic they are!"

He turned and examined them, with a pleased yet criticizing eye. He
walked up and down the velvet lawn with a firm, yet restless step,
stopping occasionally to measure with his glance the towering oaks and
the gigantic elm. I began to be uneasy at the protracted absence of Mrs.
Linwood, and kept my eyes fixed upon the road, whose dark, rich,
slatish-colored surface, seen winding through green margins, resembled a
stream of deep water, it was so smooth and uniform. I knew how full must
be the heart of the traveller. I did not wish to interrupt his
meditations even by a look.

We saw it coming,--the family carriage. I saw his pale cheek flush at my
joyous exclamation. He moved rapidly towards the gate, while I ran into
the house, up stairs and into my own room, that I might not intrude on
moments too sacred for curiosity.

In a little while, I could hear the sound of their mingling voices
coming up the long flight of marble steps, across the wide piazza, and
then they came soft and muffled from the drawing-room below. At first,
forgetful of self, I sympathized in their joy. I rejoiced for my
benefactress, I rejoiced for the tender and affectionate Edith. But
after sitting there a long time alone, and of course forgotten in the
rapture of this family reunion, thoughts of self began to steal over and
chill the ardor of my sympathetic emotions. I could not help feeling
myself a mote in the dazzling sunshine of their happiness. I could not
help experiencing, in all its bitterness, the isolation of my own
destiny. I remembered the lamentation of the aged and solitary Indian,
"that not a drop of his blood flowed in the veins of a living being." So
it was with me. To my knowledge, I had not a living relative. Friends
were kind,--some were more than kind; but oh! there are capacities for
love friends can never fill. There are niches in the temple of the heart
made for household gods, and if they are left vacant, no other images,
though of the splendor of the Grecian st