"I have been something of an egotist, to be sure, my little girl, but I wanted to show my dear young friend here how much might depend upon a rainy evening. Life is not made all of sunshine. The happiest and most prosperous must have their seasons of gloom and darkness, and woe be to those from whose souls no rays of brightness emanate to gild those darkened hours. I bless the God of the rain as well as the sunshine. I can read His mercy and His love as well in the tempest, whose wings obscure the visible glories of His creation, as in the splendour of the rising sun, or the soft dews that descend after his setting radiance. I began with a metaphor. I said a rainbow was drawn on the clouds that lowered on that eventful day, and that it still continued to shine with undiminished beauty. Woman, my children, was sent by God to be the rainbow of man's darker destiny. From the glowing red, emblematic of that love which warms and gladdens his existence, to the violet melting into the blue of heaven, symbolical of the faith which links him to a purer world, her blending virtues, mingling with each other in beautiful harmony, are a token of God's mercy here, and an earnest of future blessings in those regions where no _rainy evenings_ ever come to obscure the brightness of eternal day." THREE SCENES IN THE LIFE OF A BELLE. There was a rushing to and fro in the chamber of Ellen Loring, a tread of hurrying feet, a mingled hum of voices, an opening and shutting of doors, as if some event of overwhelming importance agitated the feelings, and moved the frames of every individual in the house. A stranger, in the apartment below, might have imagined an individual was dying, and that all were gathering round to offer the appliances of love and sympathy. But Ellen Loring, the object of all this commotion, was in all the bloom and beauty of health. She sat in a low chair and in front of a large mirror, half-arrayed in the habiliments of the ball-room, her head glowing with flowers, and streaming with ringlets, her feet encased in silk cobweb and white satin, her face flushed with excitement, her waist compressed into the smallest possible compass, while the strongest fingers the household could supply, were drawing together the last reluctant hook and eye, which fastened the rich and airy mixture of satin blonde, that fell in redundant folds round her slender person. "I am afraid, Ellen, your dress is _rather_ too tight," said Mrs. Loring, who was superintending the process with a keen and experienced eye; "you had better not wear it, it may give you a consumption." "Ridiculous!" exclaimed Ellen, "it feels perfectly loose and comfortable; I am sure it fits delightfully. Look, Agnes," addressing a weary-looking girl who had been standing more than half an hour over her, arranging her hair in the most fashionable style. "Look, Agnes, is it not beautiful?"