_vraisemblance_ in the fiction over which they hang enraptured, the romances of a preceding age seem dull, prosy and unnatural. But at the time of which I speak, the great object of the novelist was to portray heroines, such as never could exist, and events such as never could have happened, while feelings refined to absolute mawkishness, and sentiments sublimated beyond the limits of human understanding, were expressed in parlance to which the language of common life was tame and trite. With such models placed before her in her favorite volumes, and the example of Miss Templeton to impress their truthfulness upon her ductile mind, it is not surprising that Hester Ormesby should have been thoroughly imbued with romance at an age when most girls are only thinking of their dolls. Hester was in the habit of paying an annual visit to her parents, but seldom derived much pleasure from her short sojourn with the family. Her mother derided her rustic manners, while her sisters ridiculed what they termed her “highflown notions,” and it was rather in obedience to the dictates of duty than in the hope of pleasure that she ever turned her face toward the home of her infancy. On one occasion, however, her visit produced a more lasting impression. Among the gentlemen who surrounded her elder and lovelier sisters was one whose personal appearance was little calculated to prepossess a stranger. Small in stature, and with a slight deformity which destroyed all grace, his countenance full of intelligence, but “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,” Edward Legard was not one on whom the eye of woman rests with pleasure. Reserved and almost cold in manners, he mingled rarely in the gayeties of society, and, excepting amid a select circle, seldom displayed the treasures of his gifted mind. Yet those who had once seen him in moments of enthusiasm, when the fire of genius lit up his dark eye, and the honey-dew of eloquence hung on his pale lip, could never forget the effect of his words and looks. But he was excessively sensitive, the merest trifle discomposed him, and there were times when, for days together, his manner was moody, sad, and almost severe. Legard was an artist of no mean skill, but he was young and poor, and the poetic images which filled his imagination, and were depicted on the speaking canvass, or portrayed in the graphic language of eloquence, were unable to secure him the gifts of fortune. The hope of his heart was a visit to the birthplace of Art—the glorious land of shadows—the kingdom of noble memories—even Italy; and for this he toiled day after day as if life had no other object worth attainment.