“Who will go with you? why, father, of course,” exclaimed one of the young girls, entering heart and soul into the interests of her friend. “Where can you rest? Have we not a brother married and settled at New Castle, who knows and loves you, even as we do? His wife will receive you, and joyfully enough.” Myra arose, her sweet face animated and sparkling with gratitude; she threw her arms around the young girl and kissed her. “Oh, what friends you are; how I love you,” she said, in her own frank, joyous way, turning to the other sister and pressing her forehead with lips that glowed with generous feeling. “It is worth while having a little trouble, if it were only to prove such hearts as yours. I shall never forget this night; never to my dying day.” “Oh, it is quite like a romance, Myra,” exclaimed the younger of the girls, shaking back her ringlets, with a light laugh. “Here we had been for hours and hours watching at the window, with the rain beating and pelting on the glass close to our faces, and exactly like two characters in a novel. Then, between the flashes of lightning and the rain that absolutely came down in sheets—I never saw any thing like it in my life—you come toiling up to the door, like some poor little fairy shut out in the storm—your face so wet and pale, and your eyes floating like diamonds, and your black curls all dripping with rain. Upon my word, Myra, there was something unearthly about it all.” “Perhaps it was best,” said Myra, smiling at the vivid fancy of her young friend. “Had the night been calm and every thing quiet, I should have felt it more. The storm gave me courage. It seemed as if the very rushing and outbreak of the elements excited a sort of heroism in my heart. Had it been a soft moonlight evening, when I could have seen the old trees, the flowers, and all those sweet objects that poor mamma and I have loved to look upon so often when the moonlight was on them, I could hardly have found strength to leave them all. Poor, poor mamma, how she will grieve; it will be a sad morning for her.” Myra bowed her head as she spoke, and her dark eyes filled with tears. The young girls gazed upon her with saddened countenances. This sorrow, so natural, so true, it was something to chill all their light ideas of romance.