ition and fatigue had vanished
in the deep, tranquil, refreshing slumbers of the night. She awoke with
the joyous consciousness of being at home beneath her father's roof. She
was not a boarder, subject to a thousand restraints, necessary but
irksome. She was not compelled any more to fashion her movements to the
ringing of a bell, nor walk according to the square and compass. She was
free. She could wander in the garden without asking permission. She
could _run_ too, without incurring the imputation of rudeness and
impropriety. The gyves and manacles of authority had fallen from her
bounding limbs, and the joyous and emancipated school-girl sang in the
gladness and glee of her heart.

Alice still slept--the door of Mittie's chamber was closed, and every
thing was silent in the household, when she flew down stairs, rather
than walked, and went forth into the dewy morn. The sun was not yet
risen, but there was a deepening splendor of saffron and crimson above
the horizon, fit tapestry for the pavilion of a God. The air was so
fresh and balmy, it felt so young and inspiring, Helen could hardly
imagine herself more than five years old. Every thing carried her back
to the earliest recollections of childhood. There were the swallows
flying in and out of their little gothic windows under the beetling
barn-eaves; and there were the martins, morning gossips from time
immemorial, chattering at the doors of their white pagodas, with their
bright red roofs and black thresholds. The old England robin, with its
plumage of gorgeous scarlet, dashed with jet, swung in its airy nest,
suspended from the topmost boughs of the tall elms, and the blue and
yellow birds fluttered with warbling throats among the lilac's now
flowerless but verdant boughs. Helen hardly knew which way to turn, she
was so full of ecstacy. One moment she wished she had the wings of the
bird, the next, the petals of the flower, and then again she felt that
the soul within her, capable of loving and admiring all these, was worth
a thousand times more. The letters carved on the silver bark of the
beech arrested her steps. They were new. She had never seen them before,
and when she saw the blended ciphers, a perception of the truth dawned
upon her understanding. Perhaps there never was a young maiden of
sixteen years, who had more singleness and simplicity of heart than
Helen. From her shy and timid habits, she had never formed those close
intimacies that so often bind