And I did hear it; I heard during the slow gathering and heavy bursting of that summer storm, the story about which my imagination had been so busy, and of which I had so longed to be assured; I heard from Mr. Rutledge's own lips, of his happy childhood, his hopeful boyhood. He described himself as he was then, as if he were describing some one else, some one who had died and left the light of day; for it was nothing else but death that passed upon him, a death to hope and faith, a death to tenderness and trust, a death to all but stern endurance and sufferings that make life worse than death. If he had not been just so enthusiastic and full of hope, he could not have been so dashed down to despair; but because he had never dreamed that there could be anything but truth and purity and honor in those he loved, just so cruel and fatal was the awakening from the dream. He told me of his brother, the handsome Richard: with a soul too refined and delicate for the rough world he had to do with, a temperament that recoiled with pain from all that was coarse or common, a pride that was so intuitive that it could hardly be overcome, so unconscious that it could hardly be called a sin, so fostered that he, at least, was not to blame for it. To him it was not matter of exultation that he was rich and well-born and high-bred; it was only his native air, his place in life, his vital breath, without which he must have died. Never overbearing and imperious, his reserve saved him from familiarity, his gentleness from aversion. Ah! Rutledge had then a worthy heir, noble, handsome, high-toned enough to fill even his proud father's ambition. And then he told me, and it cost him a keen pang to speak her name, of Alice, his beautiful sister; of the adoration with which he had looked up to her, the pride which every one of the narrow home circle felt in her loveliness and grace. He had believed she was almost an angel; he had never looked above her for purity and truth, and in one cruel moment he had to learn that she was false and sinful, that she had fallen below the lowest, that "she had mixed her ancient blood with shame," that the darling and pride of every heart was now the disgrace and anguish of every heart. The story that he told me did not sound at all like this; I could no more tell it as he told it, than I could paint one of Church's pictures. I could, perhaps, describe, so as to make intelligible, the picture or the story, but it would be as impossible for me to render faithfully, in every delicate tone and touch, in the masterly strength and vivid power, the one as the other.