He gazed at me, for the first time, with an earnest and searching gaze. His eyes, large and gray, and capable of the most varied expression, became absent and dreamy. "You are very beautiful!" he said, as though thinking aloud,--"O, very beautiful! You will marry rich,--yes,--wealth and position will be yours at once." And as the moon, rising over the brow of the hill, poured her light upon his thoughtful face, he took my hand and said: "Frank, why is it that certain natures live only in the future or the past--never in the present? Look at ourselves, for instance. Yonder among the trees, bathed in the light of the rising moon, lies the cottage home in which we have passed the happiest, holiest hours of life. Of that home we are not thinking now--we are only looking forward to the future--and yet the time will come, when immersed in the conflict of the world, we will look back to that home, with the same yearning that one, stretched upon the couch of hopeless disease, looks forward to his grave!" His voice was low and solemn--I never forgot his words. We sat for many minutes in silence. At length without a word, he took my hand, and we went down the hill together, by the light of the rising moon. We climbed the stile, passed under the garden boughs, and entered the cottage, and found the good old man seated in his library among his books. He raised his eyes as we came in, hand joined in hand, and a look of undisguised pleasure stole over his face. "See here, father," said Ernest laughingly, "when I went to college, I left my little sister in your care. I now return, and discover that my little sister has disappeared, and left in her place this wild girl, whom I found wandering to-night among the hills. Don't you think there is something like a witch in her eyes?" The old man smiled and laid his hand on my dark hair. "Would to heaven!" he said, "that she might never leave this quiet home." And the prayer came from his heart. Ernest remained with us until fall. Those were happy days. We read, we talked, we walked, we lived with each other. More like sister and sister than brother and sister, we wandered arm-in-arm to the brow of the hill as the rich summer evening came on,--or crossed the river in early morning, and climbed the winding road that led to the brow of the Palisades,--or sat, at night, under the trees by the river's bank, watching the stars as they looked down into the calm water. Sometimes at night, we sat in the library, and I read while the old man's hand rested gently on my head and Ernest sat by my side. And often upon the porch, as the summer night wore on, Ernest and myself sang together some old familiar hymn, while "Father" listened in quiet delight. Thus three months passed away, and Ernest left for college. "Next year, Frank, I graduate," he cried, his thoughtful face flushed with hope, and his gray eyes full of joyous light--"and then for the battle with the world!"