eech tree."

Arthur's serious, dark eye rested on the young girl with a searching,
anxious expression, as Clinton approached and paid the compliments of
the morning with more than his wonted gracefulness of manner. He
apologized for the freedom he had taken so sportively and naturally,
that Helen felt it would be ridiculous in her to assume a resentment she
did not feel, and yielding to her passionate admiration for flowers, she
wreathed them again round her sun-bright locks.

It was thus the trio approached the house. Mittie saw them from the
window, and the keenest pang she had ever known penetrated her heart.
She saw the beech tree shorn of its morning garland, that garland which
was blooming triumphantly on her sister's brow. She saw Clinton walking
by her side, calling up her smiles and blushes according to his own
magnetic will.

She accused Helen of deceit and guile. Her languor and illness the
preceding evening was all assumed to heighten the blooming contrast of
the present moment. Her morning ramble and meeting with Clinton were
all premeditated, her seeming artlessness the darkest and deepest
hypocrisy.

For a few weeks Mittie had revelled in the joy of an awakened nature.
She had reigned alone, with no counter influence to thwart the sudden
and luxuriant growth of passion. She, alone, young, beautiful and
attractive, had been the magnet to youth, beauty and attraction. She had
been the centre of an island world of her own, which she had tried to
keep as inaccessible to others as the granite coast in the Arabian
Nights.

Poor Mittie! The flower of passion has ever a dark spot on its petals, a
dark, purple spot, not always perceptible in the first unfolding and
glory of its bloom; but sooner or later it spreads and scorches, and
shrivels up the heart of the blossom.

She tried to control her excited feelings. She was proud, and had a
conviction that she would degrade herself by the exhibition of jealousy
and envy. She tried to call up a bloom to her pale cheek, and a smile to
her quivering lip, but she was no adept in the art of dissimulation, and
when she entered the sitting room, Helen was the first to notice her
altered countenance. It was fortunate for all present that Alice had
seated herself at the piano, at the solicitation of Louis, and commenced
a brilliant overture.

Alice had always loved music, but now that she had learned it as an art,
in all its perfectness, it had become the one passion