It was springtime again in Virginia. The sky, its blue depths accentuated by the shifting clouds, was never more clear, wherever it appeared in the intervals of sunshine, nor the air more fresh and pure, even in that land famed for its bright skies and its mild climate, than it was this April day; which, with its sunshine and showers in unregulated alternation, seemed symbolical of life,--that life of which every tender blade of grass, every venturesome flower thrusting its head above the sod, seemed to speak. There was health and strength in the gentle breeze which wantonly played with the budding leaves of the great trees, already putting forth little evangels of that splendid foliage with which they decked themselves in the full glory of summer. That merry wind which swept through the open boat-house at the end of the wharf laid a bold hand upon the curls which fell about the neck of the young girl sitting there by the door near the water on one of the benches, gazing out over the broad reaches of the quiet, ever beautiful Potomac, rippled gently by the wind under the late afternoon sun. The gallant little breeze, fragrant with balm and perfume of the trees and flowers, kissed a faint color into her pale cheek, and seemed to whisper to her despondent heart in murmuring sounds that framed themselves into the immortal words "hope, hope." The young girl had but yesterday entered upon her twentieth spring. Four months ago there had not been a merrier, lighter-hearted, gayer, more coquettish young maiden in tidewater Virginia; and to-day, she thought, as she looked down at her thin hand outlined so clearly upon the vivid cardinal cloak she wore, which had dropped unheeded on the seat by her side, to-day she was like that man in the play of whom her father read,--a grave man. No, not a man at all. Once, in her enthusiasm, she had fondly imagined that she had possessed all those daring qualities of energy and action, those manly virtues, which might have been hers by inheritance could the accident of sex have been reversed. But now she knew she was but a woman, after all,--so weak, so feeble, so listless. What had she left to live for? Once it was her father, then it was her country, then it was her lover; now? Nothing! Her father at the request of Congress would soon resume his interrupted duties in France, now become more important than ever. He was a man of the world and a soldier, a diplomat. The hard experiences of the past few months were for him episodes, exciting truly, but only part of a lifetime spent in large adventure, soon forgotten in some other strenuous part demanded by some other strenuous exigency. But she,--no, she was not a man at all, but a woman,--unused to such scenes and happenings as fate had lately made her a participant in. Her father might have his country,--he had not lost his love, his heart was not buried out in the depths of the cruel sea. What had become of that