"I am glad I have met you, Gabriella," said he, in a tone so gentle, I lifted my eyes in amazement. His beamed with unusual kindness beneath his shading brows. Gone was the mocking gleam,--gone the deriding smile. He looked serious, earnest, almost sad, but not severe. Looking at his watch, and then at the golden vane, as if that too were a chronometer, he turned towards the old oak, and throwing himself carelessly on a seat formed of a broken branch, partially severed from the trunk, motioned me to sit down on the grass beside him. Quick as lightning I obeyed him, untying my bonnet and pushing it back from my head. I could scarcely believe the evidence of my senses. There reclined the formidable master, like a great, overgrown boy, his attitude alone banishing all restraint and fear, and I, perched on a mossy rock, that looked as if placed there on purpose for me to sit down upon, all my wounded and exasperated feelings completely drowned in a sudden overflow of pleasant emotions. I had expected scolding, rebuke, denial,--I had armed myself for a struggle of power,--I had resolved to hazard a martyr's doom. Oh, the magic of kindness on a child's heart!--a lonely, sensitive, proud, yearning heart like mine!--'Tis the witch-hazel wand that shows where the deep fountain is secretly welling. I was ashamed of the tears that _would_ gather into my eyes. I shook my hair forward to cover them, and played with the green leaves within my reach. The awful space between me and this tall, stern, learned man seemed annihilated. I had never seen him before, divested of the insignia of authority, beyond the walls of the academy. I had always been compelled to look up to him before; now we were on a level, on the green sward of the wild-wood. God above, nature around, no human faces near, no fear of man to check the promptings of ingenuous feeling. Softly the folded flower petals of the heart began to unfurl. The morning breeze caught their fragrance and bore it up to heaven.