When she first met Legard, Hester Ormesby had just numbered her fourteenth summer, and the genial influence of renovated health had given beauty to her countenance and symmetry to her form. Struck with the bounding freedom of her step, the grace of her unfettered movements, and the rich bloom of her dark but clear complexion, the young artist had already made several sketches of the unconscious girl before she became sensible of his notice. He regarded her as a lovely child, who stood upon the very threshold of womanhood, while the sentiments which were hereafter to become passions, were slowly budding within her heart, their existence only known by their sweet and delicate perfume of maiden modesty. He was charmed with her freshness of feeling, her enthusiasm, her girlish romance, and found in her artless character a new and delightful study. An intimacy, characterized by all the purest and best impulses of human nature, sprung up between them; yet it was only the familiar intercourse which might safely exist between a gifted man and an admiring child. Legard would have denied the possibility of inspiring a passion in so young a heart, but a very little knowledge of woman’s nature might have led him to doubt the prudence of forcing into premature existence those passions whose slow expansion formed so sweet a subject of contemplation. Hester returned from this visit almost reluctantly, and, for the first time in her life, her home seemed dull and sad. She carried with her a beautifully finished sketch of herself, painted by Legard, for Miss Templeton, while a few stanzas addressed to her, on parting, by the same gifted individual, and a faded rosebud which he laid once twined in her long curls, were her own solitary treasures. Not long after this, Miss Templeton was seized with a severe nervous affection, which partially deprived her of the use of her limbs, and compelled her to require the constant aid of others. Hester loved her too devotedly to shrink from such attendance, and month after month passed away, while she was confined to the invalid’s apartment, with only her own thoughts to relieve the monotony of her existence. Had she never met Legard, such thoughts would have been but “The thousand things That keep young hearts forever glowing— Vague wishes, fond imaginings, Love dreams, as yet no object knowing.”