"These will match your lilac muslin exactly, Miss," said Kitty, offering me a handful of purple "morning glories." "I ran out to get you some flowers before I came in to wake you, but I was in such a hurry, that I couldn't go as far as the garden, and so just picked these out of the hedge." I thanked her as I fastened them in my dress; they looked lovely with the dew still shining on them. It was yet a good while to breakfast, but I turned to go downstairs, accepting, with a smile at the newness of such services, the dainty handkerchief that Kitty shook out for me. The fresh morning breeze swept softly through the wide hall as I descended the stairs. Summer had come in and taken the gloomy old place by storm. A pyramid of flowers stood on the dark oak table in the centre, a mocking-bird in its gay cage hung at one end, and over the cold marble pavement the sunshine was creeping fast. The house was so quiet, that I could almost fancy I was alone in it, and crossing the hall, I went up to the library door; but a cowardly irresolution made me turn away, and pass on to the north door of the hall, which, as well as the front one, stood wide open. The broad fields stretched far away June-like and lovely in the sunshine; the hedges and trees were in such luxuriant leaf, that they quite hid the stables and outhouses on the left that last fall had been so prominent in the landscape. Looking from the parlor windows, there was the same view of the lake that I had from my room. The mists were rolling up from its fair bosom, and the foliage that crowned its banks was of the freshest and glossiest green. The dew was glittering on the lawn, early birds twittered and sang in the branches overhead, and on the breeze came the rich perfume of the roses that climbed from pillar to pillar of the piazza. Rutledge had fulfilled my anticipations; in my weary, longing day-dreams, I had never pictured anything fairer than this. It was with a half-defined feeling of curiosity that I wandered through the large parlors, furnished in an odd mixture of old-fashioned splendor and modern elegance. It was _terra incognita_ to me; I had never entered these rooms before. I could hardly understand how the sunshine and fresh air came to be so much at home in them, as it seemed they now were. It was difficult to believe that these finely furnished, habitable looking apartments, had been closed and unused for twenty years and more. They had been thoroughly revised, no doubt, and the past put to the rout; but they were strange and unattractive to me, and I turned again to the library. Listening at the door before I pushed it open, I entered noiselessly. There was no need of so much caution; this room was as untenanted as its neighbors, save by thronging memories and torturing regrets, and they entered with me.