Alice Morris was a hearty, cordial, blooming hoyden, really about ten or eleven years of age, but seeming from her fine growth and proportions, at least thirteen or fourteen. Paul Douglass was a fine, handsome, well-grown boy of fourteen, with an open, manly forehead, shaded with clustering, yellow curls, as soft and silky as a girl's, and a full, beaming, merry blue eye, whose flashing glances were the most mirth-provoking to all upon whom they chanced to light. Paul was, and ever since his first arrival in the house had been, "the life of the family." His merry laugh and shout were the pleasantest sounds in all the precincts of Dell-Delight. When Paul first heard that there was to be an invasion of "women and girls" into Dell-Delight, he declared he had rather there had been an irruption of the Goths and Vandals at once--for if there were any folks he could not get along with, they were "the gals." Besides which, he was sure now to have the coldest seat around the fire, the darkest place at the table, the backward ride in the carriage, and to get the necks of chickens and the tails of fishes for his share of the dinner. Boys were always put upon by the girls, and sorry enough he was, he said, that any were coming to the house. And he vowed a boyish vow--"by thunder and lightning"--that he would torment the girls to the very best of his ability. Girls, forsooth! girls coming to live there day and night, and eat, and drink, and sleep, and sit, and sew, and walk up and down through the halls, and parlors, and chambers of Dell-Delight--girls, with their airs, and affectations, and pretensions, and exactions--girls--pah! the idea was perfectly disgusting and offensive. He really did wonder at "Brother," but then he already considered "Brother" something of an old bachelor, and old bachelors would be queer. But Thurston well knew how to smite the rock, and open the fountain of sympathy in the lad's heart. He said nothing in reply to the boy's saucy objections, but on the evening that little Miriam arrived, he beckoned Paul into the parlor, where the child sat, alone, and pointing her out to him, said in a low tone: "Look at her; she has lost all her friends--she has just come from her mother's grave--she is strange, and sad, and lonesome. Go, try to amuse her." "I'm going to her, though I hardly know how," replied the lad, moving toward the spot where the abstracted child sat deeply musing. "Miriam! Is that your name," he asked, by way of opening the conversation. "Yes," replied the child, very softly and shyly. "It's a very heathenish--oh, Lord!--I mean it's a very pretty name is Miriam, it's a Bible name, too. I don't know but what it's a saint's name also." The little girl made no reply, and the boy felt at a loss what to say next. After fidgeting from one foot to the other he began again. "Miriam, shall I show you my books--Scott's poems, and the Waverley novels, and Milton's Paradise, and--"