"I don't think a lover would make my Charlotte forget her father and mother, and feel contempt for her home, and all in and about it that she does not want for herself. Why, a stranger would think that Sophia was never loved by any human heart before! They would think that she never had been happy before. Nay, then, she sets more store by the few nick-nacks Julius has given her than all I have bought her for twenty years. When yonder last bracelet came, she went on as if she had never seen aught of the kind in all her born days. Yet I have bought her one or two that cost more money, and happen more love, than it did. Eh? What, Charlotte?" There were two large tears standing in his blue eyes, and two sprang into Charlotte's to meet them. She clasped his hand tight, and after a minute's silence said,-- "I have a lover, father; the best a girl ever had. Has he made any difference between you and me? Only that I love you better. You are my first love; the very first creature I remember, father. One summer day you had me in your arms in the garden. I recollect looking at you and knowing you. I think it was at that moment my soul found me." "It was on a summer day, Charlotte? Eh? What?" "And the garden was all roses, father; red with roses,--roses full of scent. I can smell them yet. The sunshine, the roses, the sweet air, your face,--I shall never, never forget that moment, father." "Nor I. I was a very happy man in those days, Charlotte. Young and happy, and full of hope. I thought my children were some new make of children. I could not have believed then, that they would ever give me a heartache, or have one themselves. And I had not a care. Money was very easy with me then: now it is middling hard to bring buckle and tongue together." "When Sophia is married, we can begin and save a little. Mother and you and I can be happy without extravagances." "To be sure, we can; but the trouble is, my saving will be the losing of all I have to send away. It is very hard, Charlotte, to do right at both ends. Eh? What?" After this conversation, spring came on rapidly, and it was not long ere Charlotte managed to reach Up-Hill. She had not seen Ducie for several weeks, and she was longing to hear something of Stephen. "But if ill had come, ill would have cried out, and I would have heard tell;" she thought, as she picked her way among the stones and _débris_ of the winter storms. The country was yet bare; the trees had no leaves, no nests, no secrets; but she could see the sap running into the branches, making them dark red, scarlet, or yellow as rods of gold. Higher up, the pines, always green, took her into their shade; into their calm spirit of unchangeableness, their equal light, their keen aromatic air. Then came the bare fell, and the raw north wind, and the low gray house, stretching itself under the leafless, outspreading limbs of the sycamores.