And Edith? All this while of chances and changes how is the time passing with her? See for yourself reader! Follow me gently into that well-known parlor of her mother’s dwelling. There she sits, the beautiful one! as light, as graceful, and still more lovely than when we saw her last; for we now behold her a thinking, refined, intellectual woman, with all her youthful, beaming charms, heightened into exquisite and womanly perfection. She is leaning, rather pensively, on the arm of the chair, drawn to the opened and perfume draped window, with her soft, dimpled hand holding in its rose-colored palm the rounded chin; the neat, little foot patting unconsciously the floor—her eyes bent on the flowers of her garden, seeing them in all their floating hues, like the mingled colors of a kaleidoscope, before her musing gaze. Her guitar leans against her knee, and the other hand is straying across the strings, awaking its echoes like the notes of an Eolian harp. “Mother, I will go with cousin Frank and Sallie to Old Point. They are so anxious I should do so.” “And suppose, Edith, Mr. Lennard arrives in your absence, what shall I tell him?” said Mrs. Morton, with a smile. “Mother, you must forgive my first breach of confidence, for I was too unhappy, too wounded in my pride and love to speak of what I am going to tell you,” said Edith, her listless attitude now abandoned for one of energy, and the usual musical tones were rapid and more harsh—“yes, mother, my very first. Mr. Lennard will be at Old Point soon after I reach there. Yesterday I received a letter from him, and such a letter!” Edith’s voice faltered, but indignantly driving back the tears which were filling her eyes, she drew from her pocket a letter, and handing it to her mother, told her to read it. Whilst Mrs. Morton arranged her glasses, Edith sunk back into the chair with a slight frown and heightened color, and one could see from the clenched hand how determined she was to overcome the agitation which was increasing by her disclosures. “_New York, June, 1847._