My vacations were generally spent at the school, for it was situated in a very healthy section of country, and there were always many of the boarding scholars that different circumstances compelled to remain. But the summer of my sixteenth year, my health gave evidences of failing. The preceding winter had been a trying one, both out of doors and in—bleak and stormy had been the weather—the studies had likewise been arduous and severe for me. The class of younger girls, my charges, had been uncommonly large, consequently my duties increased, which caused me to take from my sleeping hours the time necessary for accomplishing my other studies. I felt that my reputation as the leading scholar in the establishment was all I had to depend upon, therefore I could not permit any thing to deprive me of that which I knew was my only capital. But, ah! how wretchedly I felt at the close of the session; all the old pining sadness of my childhood returned to me—I sickened for a tender mother’s gentle soothings, a father’s looks of anxious pride—but these were not for me, poor lone hearted girl, and “the future rose only as a wall of darkness before me.” No longer did my heart beat with pride when the principal prizes were unanimously awarded to me; and the directors of the school looked compassionately on me, as they marked my thin form, hollow cheeks, and dim eyes. A change of scene was necessary, so all said, and I received from a distant relative an invitation to spend the weeks of my vacation in his family. Passively I accepted the kind offer, for so despondent was I, that all places seemed alike to me; but I little expected the happiness that awaited me. They were relatives I had never met with before; the husband was kind, intelligent, and pleasant—the wife was still handsome, though no longer young—in my eyes a great virtue—had known and loved my mother, and was gentle and affectionate. They had many children, all married, and young grandchildren shouted merrily through the house. It was a beautiful country place where they lived, high mountains surrounded them, and thick forests, such as I had never seen but in pictures and dreams. The glow of health soon bloomed once more upon my cheeks; the dark cloud of the Future was no longer regarded by me, for the bright sunny light of the Present, blinded me to its shadows and I again rejoiced in life. When my visit was about half over, a ward of my cousin’s came to pay them a visit. Does not my reader see already that I am approaching the history of my second infatuation? How my heart beats even now, old as I am, when I recall the image of Walter Grey. He was also beautiful, or my heart would never have been enchained. A miniature of him lies beside me as I write, and I fancy I am a girl again, as I look in those liquid dark eyes and dwell on the lovely lines of the countenance—massive and rich are the dark clusters of the wavy hair; beautiful is the face, and deeply, devotedly, did I love the original.