"'Never call again on a rainy evening,' said she, sportively; 'I am always so wretchedly dull. I believe I was born to live among the sunbeams, the moonlight, and the stars. Clouds will never do for me.' "'Amen,' I silently responded, as I closed the door. While I was putting on my coat, I overheard, without the smallest intention of listening, a passionate exclamation from Theresa. "'Good heavens, mother! was there ever anything so unlucky? I never thought of seeing my neighbour's _dog_ to-night. If I have not been completely caught!' "'I hope you will mind my advice next time,' replied her mother, in a grieved tone. 'I told you not to sit down in that slovenly dress. I have no doubt you have lost him for ever.' "Here I made good my retreat, not wishing to enter the _penetralia_ of family secrets. "The rain still continued unabated, but my social feelings were very far from being damped. I had the curiosity to make another experiment. The evening was not very far advanced, and as I turned from Mrs. Vane's fashionable mansion, I saw a modest light glimmering in the distance, and I hailed it as the shipwrecked mariner hails the star that guides him o'er ocean's foam to the home he has left behind. Though I was gay and young, and a passionate admirer of beauty, I had very exalted ideas of domestic felicity. I knew that there was many a rainy day in life, and I thought the companion who was born alone for sunbeams and moonlight, would not aid me to dissipate their gloom. I had, moreover, a shrewd suspicion that the daughter who thought it a sufficient excuse for shameful personal neglect, that there was no one present but her _mother_, would, as a wife, be equally regardless of a _husband's_ presence. While I pursued these reflections, my feet involuntarily drew nearer and more near to the light, which had been the lodestone of my opening manhood. I had continued to meet Mary in the gay circles I frequented, but I had lately become almost a stranger to her home. 'Shall I be a welcome guest?' said I to myself, as I crossed the threshold. 'Shall I find her _en déshabille_, likewise, and discover that feminine beauty and grace are incompatible with a rainy evening?' I heard a sweet voice reading aloud as I opened the door, and I knew it was the voice which was once music to my ears. Mary rose at my entrance, laying her book quietly on the table, and greeted me with a modest grace and self-possession peculiar to herself. She looked surprised, a little embarrassed, but very far from being displeased. She made no allusion to my estrangement or neglect; expressed no astonishment at my untimely visit, nor once hinted that, being alone with her mother, and not anticipating visiters, she thought it unnecessary to wear the habiliments of a _lady_. Never, in my life, had I seen her look so lovely. Her dress was perfectly plain, but every fold was arranged by the hand of the Graces. Her dark-brown hair, which had a natural wave in it, now