head bending as if it were sinking and melting away in its own richness—oh! when did ever man make anything to equal the living, perfect flower!
But the sunlight that streamed through the window revealed something fairer than the rose. Reclined on an ottoman, in a deep recess, and intently engaged with a book, rested what seemed the counterpart of that so lovely flower. That cheek so pale, that fair forehead so spiritual, that countenance so full of high thought, those long, downcast lashes, and the expression of the beautiful mouth, sorrowful, yet subdued and sweet—it seemed like the picture of a dream.
“Florence! Florence!” echoed a merry and musical voice, in a sweet, impatient tone. Turn your head, reader, and you will see a light and sparkling maiden, the very model of some little wilful elf, born of mischief and motion, with a dancing eye, a foot that scarcely seems to touch the carpet, and a smile so multiplied by dimples that it seems like a thousand smiles at once. “Come, Florence, I say,” said the little sprite, “put down that wise, good, and excellent volume, and descend from your cloud, and talk with a poor little mortal.”
The fair apparition, thus adjured, obeyed; and, looking up, revealed just such eyes as you expected to see beneath such lids—eyes deep, pathetic, and rich as a strain of sad music.
“I say, cousin,” said the “light ladye,” “I have been thinking what you are to do with your pet rose when you go to New York, as, to our consternation, you are determined to do; you know it would be a sad pity to leave it with such a scatterbrain as I am. I do love flowers, that is a fact; that is, I like a regular bouquet, cut off and tied up, to carry to a party; but as to all this tending and fussing, which is needful to keep them growing, I have no gifts in that line.”
“Make yourself easy as to that, Kate,” said Florence, with a smile; “I have no intention of calling upon your talents; I have an asylum in view for my favourite.”
“Oh, then you know just what I was going to say. Mrs. Marshall, I presume, has been speaking to you; she was here yester-
