“I fear I must acknowledge that it is more a fairy-land to me than ever,” she softly replied. “Knowledge does not always bring disillusion, and though I have learned one by one the names of the towns scattered along those misty banks, and though I know they are no less prosaic in their character than our own humdrum village, yet I cannot rid myself of the notion that those verdant slopes with their archway of clouds, hide the portals of Paradise, and that I have only to follow the birds in their flight up the river to find myself on the verge of a mystery, the banks at my feet can never disclose.” “May the gates of God’s Paradise never recede as those would do, my child, if like the birds you attempted to pierce them.” “Paula is a dreamer,” quoth Miss Belinda in a matter-of-fact tone, “but she is a good girl notwithstanding and can solve a geometrical problem with the best.” “And sew on the machine and make a very good pie,” timidly put in Miss Abby. “That is well,” laughed Mr. Sylvester, observing that the poor child’s head had fallen forward in maidenly shame at her aunts’ elogiums as well as at the length of the speech into which she had been betrayed. “It shows that her eyes can see what is at hand as well as what is beyond our reach.” Then with a touch of his usual formal manner intended to restore her to herself, “Do you like study, Paula?” In an instant her eyes flashed. “I more than like it; it feeds me. Knowledge has its vistas too,” she added with an arch look, the first he had seen on her hitherto serious countenance. “I can never outgrow my recognition of the portals it discloses or the fairy-land it opens up to every inquiring eye.” “Even geometry,” he ventured, more anxious to probe this fresh young mind than he had ever been to sound the opinions of the most notable men of the day. “Even geometry,” she smiled. “To be sure its portals are somewhat methodical in shape, allowing no scope to the fancy, but from its triangles and circles have been born the grandeurs of architecture, and upright on the threshold of its exact laws and undeviating calculations, I see an angel with a golden rod in his hand, measuring the heavens.” “Even a stone speaks to a poet,” said Mr. Sylvester with a glance at Miss Belinda. “But Paula is no poet,” returned that lady with strict and impartial honesty. “She has never put a line on paper to my knowledge. Have you child?” “No aunt, I would as soon imprison a falling sunbeam or try to catch the breeze that lifts my hair or kisses my cheek.” “You see,” continued Mr. Sylvester still looking at Miss Belinda. She answered with a doubtful shake of the head and an earnest glance at the girl as if she perceived something in that bright young soul, that even she had never observed before. “Have you ever been away from home?” he now asked.