and we paused a while before entering, to linger over the loveliness of the fair fragrant buds that were just bursting into perfume. The night jasmine, with her tiny star-bells hanging fragilely along its bending stem, and her pale, sweet sister blooming amid its “deep dark green,” and sending forth its incense upon the summer air. Here, too, was the constant heliotrope, which, at decline of sun, exhales in deepest sighs her balmy breath. How much more pure is the odor of flowers at evening, as though a voiceless prayer were ascending in praise of the Hand that fashioned them! Such were some of the thoughts busy in our hearts as we turned away to mount the steps, and seating ourselves in the light arm-chairs upon the piazza, we recollected that there was such a feeling as the one of fatigue. Mr. Bettyman had preceded us some time into the house, and now came through the hall with his blouse and slippers on. How these lords do love their slippers and their ease! When women express a wish to change their shoes forsooth, they forever get the credit of wearing tight ones. (N. B. Is it not time when so many revolutions are taking place, that we should revolutionize _some_ things in this world? Sisters! to the rescue!) “Do turn the lamp down, Martin,” said Isabel, as the bright glare of the solar globe burst upon us, “I love a mellow light in summer. Do not you, Ellen?” “Yes,” replied I, “one can think so pleasantly in the twilight, or the moonlight. If you sit in silence where your face is visible, your nice air-castles are all at once tumbled down by some one exclaiming ‘Why what is the matter? Yon look so grave.’ And then you start and look foolish, answering stupidly, or begin an account of your thoughts, which cannot possibly interest any one but your own self.” “_Tene_; but I love to trace a chain of thought—threading a mental way through all its intricacies, to find how very, very small the ‘baseless fabric’ from whence we started. It is like watching the circle upon circle that sweeps out from around the troubled water of a small stream. A commotion that a single drop may occasion. No very new comparison, to be sure, but one may be excused a plagiarism when one has no genius. Josy, give us an idea or two to start on, you who think so prettily.” “A silver penny for Edwin’s thoughts!” said Josy, laying her little hand on his and looking up into his face. “Now tell us where you have been wandering all this while, grave man? Do you too weave romances at this witching hour, and for whom? _Your_ day is gone, Sir Benedict, and I am here to remind you of it.” “Who can say that I am free?” exclaimed he. “Forced to answer this syren’s questions, I must plead guilty to wondering if the man in the moon had a family, and, if so, what can be the nature of the little moonses.” “O lame and impotent conclusion,” cried Josy, laughing merrily. “Oh, Edwin! I did expect something poetical at least, after your silent meditation.”