Roland Gray was very young, and had seen but little of the world. He had led the secluded life of a student, and, but lately freed from collegiate restraints, he had been trying his wings, preparatory to a bolder flight across the Atlantic. He was now on the way to his sister, who, with himself, was placed under the guardianship of the excellent Mr. Worthington, for they were orphans, left with an independent fortune, but singularly destitute of kindred, being the last of their race. An invalid gentleman, one of his father's early friends, was about to travel in foreign climes to try the benefit of a milder atmosphere, and he urged Roland to be his companion. Such a proposal was accepted with gratitude, and Roland, with buoyant spirits, returned to his sister, to bid her farewell, before launching on the "deep blue sea." Lucy Gray was older than her brother, and from childhood had exercised over him the influence with which a few additional years, joined to a strength of mind far beyond her years, invested her. He was the object no less of her love than her pride. She looked upon him as the last representative of a family, honoured among the most honourable, and destined to transmit to posterity his ancestral name, with unblemished and still more exalted lustre. She resolved he should ennoble himself by marriage, and would have scorned, as degrading, the thought that love might make the youth a rebel to her will. She believed the affections entirely under the control of the reason, and looked upon the passions as vassals to be dragged at its chariot wheels. Lucy was not loved by her friends, but she was respected and esteemed for the firmness of her principles, and the strength of her mind. But Roland loved as much as he revered her. His heart was a fountain of warm and generous affections, and it flowed out towards her, his only sister, in the fulness of a current, that found no other legitimate channel. Accustomed to yield his rash and ardent impulses to the direction of her cooler judgment, he looked up to her as the mentor of his follies, rather than as the companion of his youthful amusements, and now, after an absence of several months, partly from pleasure and partly from business, he looked forward to meeting her with something of the feelings of a son, blended with the affection of a brother. His arrival at Mr. Worthington's was hailed with a burst of joy, for Roland had a face of sunshine and a voice of melody, that shed light and music wherever he went. In relating his adventures, he failed not to give due interest to his interview with the Shakers, and laughed over the Quixotism that exposed him to so stern a rebuke. The pretty little Shakeress did not lose any of her attractions in his romantic description, and he dwelt upon her dovelike eyes, melting beneath the snows of her antiquated cap, her sweet, appealing countenance and spiritual air, till Mr. Worthington's childless heart warmed within him, and Lucy listened