transparent that the color deepened at every movement, and varied with each passing word. Pencilled brows, overarching long almond-shaped eyes, whose predominant expression in repose was one of pensive thoughtfulness, but which in moments of mirth, actually sparkled and danced with fun, as the dimples of laughter broke over her cheek, and the lips parted to show the pearls within. Imagine, too, hair of the softest texture, and of that peculiar shade of brown which looks bright in the sunbeam, but dark in the shade, and a fairy figure which if as yet somewhat too thin, gave full promise in after life, of ripening into the rounded perfection of maturity. Such is the portrait of Evelyn Travers, when in her sixteenth year she left school, and, accompanied by her faithful mentor, (as she would playfully term me) returned to the residence of her mother. Warenne Vicarage was a fine old house, full of queer old gables, built in what is termed the Elizabethian style. It stood far back in its own grounds, which were parcelled out into flower garden, orchard, and vegetable garden—also there was a charming walk called “the glebe,” a series of meadows sloping upward, bounded by a pleasant green path and a hedge fragrant with the sweetbrier-rose and eglantine. In this lover’s walk, did we two friends pass many a long hour, weaving sweet fancies, as hope, that lovely but deceitful syren, lifted for us, with fairy wand, the curtain of futurity. Happy is it for us, that in youth, the far-off horizon ever appears to be bathed in sunshine! In the dawn of life we are like a rose, our illusions the leaves; these drop, one by one, as we bear the burden and heat of the day—and in the evening who would recognize that flower which looked so lovely, and yielded so sweet a perfume, when sprinkled with the dew of earliest morning? In truth, a little poesy was needed, to enable us to support our surroundings with becoming philosophy. The Rev. Mr. Dale, the Vicar, had in his younger days been a military man, and even in the army had the reputation of being _fast_. Indeed, so fast had he been, that it was as a ruined spendthrift that he addressed the handsome, but imprudent young widow, who later became his wife. We fear that in the eyes of the admiring lover the lady’s jointure was by no means the least of her attractions. “_Veni, Vidi, Vici_,” was his watchword, and in less than six weeks from the commencement of their acquaintance the happy pair entered into the bliss of the honey-moon. Matrimony somewhat sobers a man. The reckless spendthrift remembering the old adage, “The greater the sinner the greater the saint,” commenced studying divinity, with a view to entering the church; for, as his newly-made wife very justly observed to her lord, “A nice parsonage would save house-rent.” In less than two years, therefore, Mr. and Mrs. Dale were installed in a small house attached to a curacy.