“Never shall I forget the wild delight with which she hailed our approach to land, nor the care with which she nurtured the plants that were to relieve the monotony of the voyage—the touching gratitude with which she received the gift of a bird or animal that was to be her especial pet. And then to mark her many little expedients to preserve the order and taste of her poor garments: true, nothing could be more picturesque than her half oriental costume, the loose trowsers and robe confined by a girdle that every sailor vied in keeping tasteful. Her dark, changeful eyes and luxuriant hair might well afford to meet a skin embrowned by exposure, but rich with the brightest hue of health. The sailors called her the little queen, from her proud air, and the officers applied a thousand aristocratic epithets, all indicating a playful reverence. She was a child in heart, but a woman in manner. “I need not recount her studies, nor that pretty reserve that made her apply to me, and to me only, for aid. Alas! I knew not the poison I thus imbibed. I dreamed not that that sweet child could ever be aught to me but a sister. “At length, after an absence of four years, I placed the dear girl under the protection of my mother. I was an only child, and she received Anne as the gift of God, a new object of attachment. “But why dwell upon these things? Why tell how the child ripened into womanhood—beautiful, most beautiful, not in feature merely, though even there few of her sex were her equals; but beautiful in thought, in voice, and motion—that combination of parts, that wondrous result of grace, even where shades may be defective yet producing an harmonious whole? Why tell how her confiding, sisterly attachment remained unshaken, while I learned to love her with all the fervor of manhood? I felt it was hopeless, and became an exile from home, that I might not inflict a pang upon her trusting heart. After a long absence, in which time, which had only softened, I fondly trusted had cured me of my passion, I returned to find Anne but more lovely and attaching, and now doubly lost to me. When she pressed her maidenly lips to my cheek, and again called me brother, I rebelled at the term and madly revealed the truth. “Poor Anne! she recoiled from me trembling and in tears. At length she put her arms about my neck, and with the same gentle accent, the same confiding tenderness that I remembered upon that fearful night at sea, she uttered— “‘Dear, dear brother Charles, am I not your sister? You do love me, you will not cast me from you, though—though I have dared to love another.’ “I raised her head, and her calm eyes met mine, though her cheek and bosom were dyed with blushes. “‘Never, dear Anne, you shall be my sister; God help me to regard you as such only.’ “I kept my promise. Oh, God! did I not, through years of agony that tongue might never utter!