“Yes and no, dear Emily,” replied Mrs. Eastman, fondly looking at Harrington. “Yes and no. It was the evening star of my life; a cloud obscured it, but I still had faith that my evening star was there.” There was a pause, filled by the pensive memory of her voice. Suddenly Wentworth and Emily uttered a low exclamation, and Mrs. Eastman and Harrington turned, started, and stood still. It was Muriel, but Muriel transfigured in resplendent beauty. A robe of rich, ethereal vivid crimson, at once soft and glowing, like the color of the rose, cut low, and encircling the shoulders by only a narrow gathered band, spread loosely around her bosom, and descending in many light folds, expressed her perfect form, and heightened the dazzling fairness of her complexion. Color faint as the hues of the blush roses whose ecstatic odors filled the room, bloomed on her cheeks and lips; her amber hair, encircled by a slender fillet of myrtle, bright green, small leaved, and terminating on either side with a rose, drooped low in rippling tresses around her radiant and hymn-like face; and her mouth rosy-pale against its milk-white teeth, was parted in an enchanting smile. Gliding forward, with her noble harmony of movement, the floating gold and violet glory that filled the chamber resting on her beauteous face and figure, and her sumptuous drapery falling around her faultless limbs, she seemed some wondrous vision of incarnate joy. So sacred, so transcendent was her bewildering loveliness, that they gazed upon her with strange awe, as in the presence of her in her immortality. Harrington looked at her, rapt, and passion-pale; then with a thrill of melting tenderness, as if his soul was dissolving in his frame, he closed his giddy eyes and bowed his head upon his clasped hands. “Harrington, my beloved!” He started at the deep eolian music of her voice, and holding her in his arms, gazed with an impassioned face into her clear lambent eyes. “Ah, Muriel, Muriel!” he fervently murmured, “I tremble lest you make life too sweet for me. Oh, dear friends,” he cried, “you can bear to see the dance, for you hear the music! Look at her; is she not beautiful?” A low murmur of admiration ran from lip to lip, and Emily, breaking from her trance, embraced Muriel and kissed her fervently. Then her mother, with tender and pathetic words of endearment, folded her to her heart. “Oh, my daughter,” she said, gently and mournfully, “what would I give if your father could see you now! He who hung over your cradle so often in your infancy, and called you so fondly his glorious little child, what would I give if he could see you now in your glorious womanhood!” “Dear mother, he sees me,” answered Muriel, her face lit with a celestial smile, and her clear eyes upturned. “In this the best and brightest hour of my life, he sees me! He is alive and well, and he sees me!”