the beautifying veil of moss upon the roses of her youth. The soft bloom diffuses itself over the grapes for life's vintage. Hope's whispering voice of promise makes perpetual music in her ears. The golden haze of anticipation envelops her future in misty glory. She moves in an atmosphere of festal joy. All germs of goodness, and strength, and loveliness, lying dormant in the depths of her spirit, are quickened. Her very existence seems suddenly enlarged.
Often she is unconscious of this marvellous revolution. She does not pause to analyze her own tumultuous sensations. Though the sound of a coming step, his well-known step, makes her pulses throb with almost painful pleasure; though his lightest tone thrills her, even when the words are unheard; though at the mention of his name, coupled with praise, she smiles unaware, and vainly seeks to repress the involuntary blush, she hides from herself, as long as possible, that love throbbed in her pulses, thrilled her with that voice, woke that smile, and conjured up that blush.
But when the tender knowledge presses upon her, when the sweet confession has once been drawn from her, when she has once yielded up her heart, how lavishly she pours out its whole wealth! Like Juliet, her "bounty is as boundless as the sea, her love as deep," and the more she gives the larger grows her store, until love and bounty both prove infinite. Like Portia, unambitious in her
