parents and children if they are longing to be married. One evening towards the end of July, when the summer is at its heat, and makes the world feel as if there never had been, and never ought to be anything but summer; and when the wind of its nights comes to us from the land where the sun is not, to tell human souls that, dear as is the sunlight to their eyes, there are sweeter things far with which the sun has little to do--Hester was sitting under a fir-tree on the gathered leaves of numberless years, pine-odors filling the air around her, as if they, too, stole out with the things of the night when the sun was gone. It happened that a man came late in the day to tune her piano, and she had left him at his work, and wandered up the hill in the last of the sunlight. All at once the wind awoke, and began to sing the strange, thin, monotonous Elysian ghost-song of the pine-wood--for she sat in a little grove of pines, and they were all around her. The sweet melancholy of the hour moved her spirit. So close was her heart to that of nature that, when alone with it, she seldom or never longed for her piano; she _had_ the music, and did not need to hear it. When we are very near to God, we do not desire the Bible. When we feel far from him, we may well make haste to it. Most people, I fear, wait till they are inclined to seek him. They do not stir themselves up to lay hold on God; they breathe the dark airs of the tomb till the morning break, instead of rising at once and setting out on their journey to meet it. As she sat in music-haunted reverie, she heard a slight rustle on the dry carpet around her feet, and the next moment saw dark in the gloom the form of a man. She was startled, but he spoke instantly; it was Vavasor. She was still, and could not answer for a moment. "I am so sorry I frightened you!" he said. "It is nothing," she returned. "Why can't one help being silly? I don't see why ladies should ever be frightened more than gentlemen." "Men are quite as easily startled as ladies," he answered, "though perhaps they come to themselves a little quicker. Nothing is more startling than to find some one near when you thought you were alone." "Except," said Hester, "finding yourself alone when you thought some one was near. But how did you find me?" "They told me at the house you were somewhere in this direction. Mark had followed you apparently some distance. So I ventured to come and look for you, and--something led me right. But all the time I seem going to lose myself instead of finding you." "It might be both," returned Hester; "for I don't at all know my way with certainty, especially in the dusk. We are on the shady side of the hill, you see." "I cannot have lost myself if I have found you," rejoined Vavasor, but did not venture to carry the speech farther. "It is time we were moving," said Hester, "seeing we are both so uncertain of the way. Who knows when we may reach the house!"