"We are so different. She was born for the position she occupies. She is one of the lilies of the valley, that toil not, neither do they spin, yet they fulfil a lovely mission. Do not try to make me discontented with a lot, so full of blessings, Richard. Surely no orphan girl was ever more tenderly cherished, more abundantly cared for." "Discontented!" he exclaimed, "heaven forbid! I must be a wretched blunderer. I am saying something wrong all the time, with a heart full of most excellent intentions. Discontented! no, indeed; I have only the unfortunate habit of speaking before I think. I shall grow wiser as I grow older, I trust." He reached up to a branch that bent over the way-side, and breaking it off, began to strip it of its green leaves and scatter them in the path. "You do not think me angry, Richard?" I asked, catching some of the leaves, before they fell to the ground. "I once felt all that you express; and I was doubly wrong; I was guilty of ingratitude, you only of thoughtlessness." "When does Mrs. Linwood expect her son?" he asked abruptly. "Next summer, I believe; I do not exactly know." "He will take strong hold of your poetic imagination. There is something 'grand, gloomy, and peculiar' about him; a mystery of reserve, which oft amounts to haughtiness. I am but very little acquainted with him, and probably never shall be. Should we chance to meet in society, we would be two parallel lines, never uniting, however near we might approach. Besides, he is a number of years older than myself." "I suppose you call him old Mr. Linwood," said I, laughing. We had now entered the gate, and met Mrs. Linwood and Edith walking in the avenue, if Edith could be said to walk, borne on as she was by her softly falling crutches. She looked so exceedingly lovely, I wondered that Richard did not burst forth in expressions of irrepressible admiration. I was never weary of gazing on her beauty. Even after an absence of a few hours, it dawned upon me with new lustre, like that of the rising day. I wondered that any one ever looked at any one else in her presence. As for myself, I felt annihilated by her dazzling fairness, as the little star is absorbed by the resplendent moon. Strange, all beautiful as she was she did not attract, as one would suppose, the admiration of the other sex. Perhaps there was something cold and shadowy in the ethereality of her loveliness, a want of sympathy with man's more earthly, passionate nature. It is very certain, the beauty which woman most admires often falls coldly on the gaze of man. Edith had the face of an angel; but hers was not the darkening eye and changing cheek that "pale passion loves." Did the sons of God come down to earth, as they did in olden time, to woo the daughters of men, they might have sought her as their bride. She was not cold, however; she was not passionless. She had a woman's heart, formed to enshrine an idol of clay, believing it imperishable as its own love.