Fortunately or unfortunately, an acquaintance of this kind, a friendship founded on the most serious and disinterested principles it may be, very often gives rise to emotions of quite another nature from those which were at first of engrossing interest.
Many a reverend divine, shaking his head over the romantic follies of his young parishioners whence he draws his text for a Sunday sermon upon the bad tendencies of novel reading, finds himself the unconscious hero of some unwritten tale, trenching somewhat on the sanctity of his profession. When we can banish love from the world, it will be possible to write a story for the faithful delineation of human nature which shall leave out this interlacing of the emotions.
On a bright May morning the following spring, Marianne returned from her accustomed walk with a basket full of her favorite flower, that modest spring beauty, the trailing arbutus. Having arranged it for her table the loose. Careless manner she liked best to see it, she collected the finest, largest specimens which she had reserved, in a boquet. The morning passed away before it was completed, and one might perceive by the unusual care manifested in its arrangement that something more than fancy was nerving her fingers to the task.
First she gave it a cone-shaped appearance, but that looked too stiff, and they were all speedily separated and arranged in an umbel form, which struck her as being as far the other way, and it is uncertain how many more attempts she would have made had not the door bell rung just as she had completed it
