Charley was leaning upon the back of her chair, and this remark was made partly to him. Lynn pressed her hand, as he recovered himself from his lowly posture, but there was as much meaning in the kind gaze of his undemonstrative friend. Their affection was a rill of pure water, stealing through a region of artificial light and bloom; and people pretended to, or did misinterpret it. Josephine credited, doubted, and was impatient by turns. One of them was the lover;--they were too friendly to be bound upon the same errand. Lynn's manner was most unequivocal--but his attentions to Ellen! Charley was not a marrying man--that was settled--everybody said; but the tender respect he paid Ida; the watchfulness that protected her from impertinence and neglect, were weighty offsets to this popular decision;--and again, opposed to these, were his disinterestedness in surrendering his post to Lynn, or any agreeable companion, who sought it, and the absence of uneasiness in his observation of her belleship. Ida laughed at her mystification, as did those who effected it,--frequently concerting some manoeuvre, by which to lead her further into the labyrinth. If Charley made one of the family in the evening, the morrow brought Lynn to drive or walk. Charley lent her books, and imported a writing-desk from Paris, upon hearing Mrs. Dana say that Ida had made a fruitless search through the city, for one of a particular description;--Lynn appeared to have laid down the brush for the spade and pruning knife, so abundant were the bouquets, left with Mr. Holmes' compliments; and the walls of her chamber were adorned with pictures, from subjects proposed or approved by her. But amidst the frolicsome action of this drama, was collecting matter for another, to be closed only with Life,--to be remembered, perchance, with Eternity; and the chief actor danced and sang and sported, unaware of the importance of the dawning era. All her life a dreamer, she did not observe that the enshrined ideal was shaping itself into the real;--that the far-off future, her hopes had sprung forward to greet, as if to meet it half-way would hasten its lagging pace, was merging into the brightening present. She had expected the summer to burst upon her, with fragrance and music and sunshine, and took no note of the swelling buds and violet perfume of Spring. And here, let not him, who is wearied by the labors of Autumn, or numbed by the frosts of Winter, close our humble story, with a lofty scorn, or scathing displeasure at the prospect of a "love-tale." Rather let him unfold his shut-up heart, and read there of his own glad May, its dancing shadows, fairer than the oblique sun-rays that fall open his beaten track;--of the rosy June, the redemption of its young sister's promise:--and looking sadly upon its dust-eaten blossoms, think, with loving pity, of flower-cups which hold the dew-drop now,--soon to fade and shrivel as these have done! CHAPTER XIV.