“It may be partiality,” he replied; “but I think she has a decided talent for every elegant acquirement. If I recollect right, somebody has defined _genius_ to be ‘the various powers of a strong mind directed to one point:’ making it the _result_ of combined force, not the vital source, whence all intellectual powers flow; in which light, the genius of Glorvina has ever appeared to me as a beam from heaven, an emanation of divine intelligence, whose nutritive warmth cherishes into existence that richness and variety of talent which wants only a little care to rear it to perfection. “When I first offered to become the preceptor to this charming child, her father, I believe, never formed an idea that my tuition would have extended beyond a little reading and writing; but I soon found that my interesting pupil possessed a genius that bore all before it--that almost anticipated instruction by force of its tuitive powers, and prized each task assigned it, only in proportion to the difficulty by which it was to be accomplished. “Her young ambitious mind even emulated rivalry with mine, and that study in which she beheld me engaged seldom failed to become the object of her desires and her assiduity. Availing myself, therefore, of this innate spirit of emulation--this boundless thirst of knowledge, I left her mind free in the election of its studies, while I only threw within its power of acquisition, that which could tend to render her a rational, and consequently a benevolent being; for I have always conceived an informed, intelligent, and enlightened mind, to be the best security for a good heart; although the many who mistake talent for intellect, and unfortunately too often find the former united to vice, and led to suppose that the heart loses in goodness what the mind acquires in strength, as if (as a certain paradoxical writer has asserted) there was something in the natural mechanism of the human frame necessary to constitute a fine genius that is not altogether favourable to the heart. “But here comes the unconscious theme of our conversation.” And at that moment Glorvina appeared, springing lightly forward, like Gresset’s beautiful personification of health: “As Hebe swift, as Venus fair, Youthful, lovely, light as air.” As soon as she perceived me she stopt abruptly, blushed, and returning my salutation, advanced to the priest, and twining her arm familiarly in his, said, with an air of playful tenderness, “O! I have brought you something you will be glad to see--here is the spring’s first violet, which the unusual chilliness of the season has suffered to steal into existence: this morning as I gathered herbs at the foot of the mountain, I inhaled its odour ere I discovered its purple head, as solitary and unassociated it was drooping beneath the heavy foliage of a neighbouring plant.