the
lady contrived to twist a branch aside, so as to intercept it. And
having done this little act of kindness, she began to feel like a mother
to him.

"Providence seems to have laid him here," whispered she to her husband,
"and to have brought us hither to find him, after our disappointment in
our cousin's son. Methinks I can see a likeness to our departed Henry.
Shall we waken him?"

"To what purpose?" said the merchant, hesitating. "We know nothing of
the youth's character."

"That open countenance!" replied his wife, in the same hushed voice, yet
earnestly. "This innocent sleep!"

While these whispers were passing, the sleeper's heart did not throb,
nor his breath become agitated, nor his features betray the least token
of interest. Yet Fortune was bending over him, just ready to let fall a
burthen of gold. The old merchant had lost his only son, and had no heir
to his wealth, except a distant relative, with whose conduct he was
dissatisfied. In such cases, people sometimes do stranger things than to
act the magician, and awaken a young man to splendor, who fell asleep in
poverty.

"Shall we not waken him?" repeated the lady, persuasively.

"The coach is ready, sir," said the servant, behind.

The old couple started, reddened, and hurried away, mutually wondering
that they should ever have dreamed of doing anything so very ridiculous.
The merchant threw himself back in the carriage, and occupied his mind
with the plan of a magnificent asylum for unfortunate men of business.
Meanwhile, David Swan enjoyed his nap.

The carriage could not have gone above a mile or two, when a pretty
young girl came along with a tripping pace, which showed precisely how
her little heart was dancing in her bosom. Perhaps it was this merry
kind of motion that caused--is there any harm in saying it?--her garter
to slip its knot. Conscious that the silken girth, if silk it were, was
relaxing its hold, she turned aside into the shelter of the maple-trees,
and there found a young man asleep by the spring! Blushing as red as any
rose, that she should have intruded into a gentleman's bed-chamber, and
for such a purpose, too, she was about to make her escape on tiptoe. But
there was peril near the sleeper. A monster of a bee had been wandering
overhead--buzz, buzz, buzz--now among the leaves, now flashing through
the strips of sunshine, and now lost in the dark shade, till finally he
appeared to be settling on the eyelid of David Swa