your knife on that bark? Oh, you do not know how deep
you cut! It seems that my life is infused into that tree, and that it is
henceforth a part of myself."

"Strange, romantic girl that you are! Supposing the lightning should
strike it, think you that you would feel the shaft?"

"Yes, if it shattered the tablet that bears those united names. But the
lightning does not often make a channel in the surface of the silver
barked beech. There are loftier trees around. The stately oak and
branching elm will be more likely to win the fiery crown of electricity
than this."

Mittie clasped her arms around the tree, and laid her cheek against the
ciphers. The next moment she flitted away, ashamed of her enthusiasm, to
hide her blushes and agitation in the solitude of her own chamber.

The next morning she found a wreath of roses round the tablet, and the
next, and the next. So day after day the passion of her heart was fed by
love-gifts offered at that shrine, where, by the silver starlight, they
had met, and ONE at least had worshiped.

PART THIRD.

CHAPTER VIII.

----A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records,--promises as sweet--
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food;
For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles.

_Wordsworth._

And now we have arrived at the era, to which we have looked forward with
eager anticipation, the return of Helen and Alice, the period when the
severed links of the household chain were again united, when the folded
bud of childhood began to unclose its spotless leaves, and expand in the
solar rays of love and passion.

We have said but little lately of the young doctor, not that we have
forgotten him, but he had so little fellowship with the characters of
our last chapter, that we forbore to introduce him in the same group. He
did feel a strong interest in Louis, but the young collegian was so
fascinated by his new friend, that he unconsciously slighted him whom he
had once looked upon as a mentor and an elder brother. Mittie, the
handsome, brilliant, haughty, but now impassioned girl, was as little to
his taste as Mittie, the cold, selfish and repulsive child. Clinton, the
accomplished courtier, the dashing equestrian, the graceful
spendthrift--the apparently resistless Clinton had no attraction for
him. He sometimes wondered if his little, simple-hearted pupil Helen
would be carrie