through the orchard behind the house, she was doubly so when asleep at night in her little chamber. Often would her father and mother, before they retired to rest, softly steal in and kiss her white forehead, and draw the counterpane more closely over her lily bosom, which heaved gently in her calm slumber. It is not alone on canvass or in the pages of poetry that we meet with creations of beauty; for there are, infrequently to be sure, real forms of female loveliness, which the art of the poet or painter cannot excel. Lucy Hill was one of them. Graceful, and not too tall, this farmer's daughter, far from the world of elegance and fashion, had grown up almost to womanhood, and no skill in costume or attitude could have added one grace which she had not.

As yet, Lucy had not thought of love, other than the holy affection which bound her with silken bonds to her beloved parents. In the midst of her pleasant tasks, she had not even thought of that farther, brighter, yet not more blissful emotion; and if in dreams her young heart fashioned to itself some image other than her parents, it was so vague and indistinct that it did not busy her waking thoughts. Light-reading, as it is termed, was then neither so common nor so cheap as at present; and had not found its way to the little library which adorned the top of the old-fashioned desk in the front room of Lucy's dwelling. A well-worn edition of some old commentary on the Bible, and the sacred volume itself only were there, with the exception of some touching narrative of the old martyrs, or some simple but beautiful story, like that of the 'Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.' There were files also of the religious newspaper, which every week was issued from the metropolis; but these were filled only with religious matters; and served but to call attention more closely to the business and practical avocations of life, or the wonders of the eternal world. The world is wiser now, but how little better !

Though all the village regarded Lucy with admiration and affection, there was one who watched for her appearance on the Sabbath more eagerly than the rest, and listened with more emotion to the soft music of her voice; and when he met her in his walks, or waited upon her home from some evening meeting, his mantling cheek and half-stammering voice would have told a less simple heart than his that he loved her. This was William Herford; the son of the unassuming yet wealthy village lawyer; who took more pleasure in adjusting the few disputes that arose in the quiet neighborhood than many now can imagine. Squire Herford, as he was termed, had studied rather to have a profession than to gain a livelihood by it; and being left with a small fortune, which by care in management increased steadily every year, had married and settled down in unambitious quiet in this retired village. He had two children, William and a lovely daughter, younger by two or three years: and on these he bestowed all his leisure moments. William was intended for the law; and although Squire Herford's means were such as to have warranted a more expensive course, he preferred to give William the advantages of home while preparing for college. Accordingly, after attending the village school until he was fourteen, William was placed under the care of the minister, to whom he recited his preparatory exercises in the languages; while his father un

dertook his mathematical instruction. William was a noble-hearted boy; full of hope; and the minister saw with delight, that he possessed both talents and application in no common degree. His father, although not ambitious himself, was pleased with the promise which William gave of becoming distinguished, and spared no pains in advice and encouragement, to render him not only a good scholar, but well-informed in history; and sought to improve the taste which he already showed for general literature. In his father's well-stored library William found an almost exhaustless fund of profit and pleasure; and many a day in the summer he would take a volume of some poet and stroll among the hills, to read and compare the beautiful descriptions of Nature with the more lovely and interesting reality. The song of the birds and the bubbling of the brooks, as they stole out from their shaded sources and ran sparkling through the green meadows, filled him with an indescribable joy. The hawk sailing up in the clear sky, or gracefully perched upon the top of some tall and distant tree, seemed an emblem of untrammeled freedom, and he longed for the same power to track the pathless air, and take in at a glance hill, and quiet valley, and waving meadow. It was in one of these walks that he encountered Lucy Hill, who had wandered farther than usual in search of wild flowers to deck the old china vase on the mantel-piece of the front room at home. Her straw bonnet had fallen back, and dangled over her shoulders, as if in play with her long tresses; and her loose sleeve showed her fair round arm as she reached up and plucked the scented flowers from a wild-briar. She did not see him until he was close beside her, and a turn in the footpath had concealed her from him. She started as he bade her good afternoon, and in her haste a slender branch of the bush got entangled with her sleeve. Throwing down his book, William disengaged it; and she blushed while he gave her the bunch of flowers which she had dropped: and blushed still more, because he did, while he took hold of her soft wrist and plucked out a thorn which had pierced the delicate skin and reddened it with a drop or two of blood. William had never thought of loving her before, although from a child he had been at the same school, and had picked wild berries with her and his sister a thousand times. But as he sat there, with that beautiful girl, arranging her flowers, and looking into her rosy face and soft blue eyes, he all at once loved her tenderly, and felt the new emotion come like a dream of fairy-land into his heart. As he walked homeward by her side, and placed a wreath of leaves upon her still uncovered head, and listened to her merry laugh at his bashful awkwardness, he was in a new world, and all the descriptions of maiden loveliness that he had ever read, seemed realized to him. Heretofore he had only admired inanimate or insensate Nature; but now those passages descriptive of female beauty, and the witchery of its charms, flashed into his memory, and he wondered how they could before have passed unnoticed. Songs which he had heard his sister and mother sing, which never possessed meaning to his ear or pleased him, except for the melody which was linked with them, seemed new, and expressive, though faintly, of the very emotions that now filled him. By the time they reached her father's gate, he had grown so timid that he hardly dared bid her good evening; and that brave,

frolicksome boy was changed into the bashful lover! That night he lay awake thinking of the afternoon's vision of beauty; and the sweet image of Lucy Hill was present in his sleep. Her white, soft arm, and the rich blood starting out from the transparent skin, which lightly draped, like a gauze covering, the blue veins beneath; her waving auburn tresses, and her blue, eloquent eye; her sweet voice and clear, ringing laughter, echoing, like the louder notes of the blue-bird, among the trees on the hill, came to him in his dreams.

There is something holy in such first, early love, so unselfish and pure. How the man of the world, in his musing hours, looks back upon it after years have glided by; even with tears, though it be not sorrowful, except in contrast with the present! That eye, which to the world is so cold as it scans the crowd, is sometimes moistened with such remembrance; and the knitted brow relaxes for a moment, forgetful of its pride.

William did not remit his industry, nor forget in this new feeling his ambition. Love but increased his energy, and added a fresh incentive to exertion. Many were the air-castles he built however, and more frequent his rambles among the hills; but that simple wild-briar by the foot-path, had more interest than valley or glistening brook, or meadows of waving verdure. Oftentimes he met Lucy there during the next two summers, but although she had grown sisterly and confiding, he was scarcely less timid than when he first began to woo her. As for her, she liked to be with him there on the hill behind her father's house, and playfully even called him her brother; but she did not know that her fondness for him was love, nor that she was the object of such a passion in him. To be sure, on the Sabbath, she first glanced down from the gallery at Squire Herford's pew, to see if William was already there, and felt a sort of fluttering when she met his glistening, dark eye; and was uneasy when he was not in his wonted seat the Sunday through; and grew yet more rosy when she asked of his sister if he was ill, and was more gleeful when he took her and his sister out to ride in his father's chaise, than when twirling her wheel at home: but she did not think this arose from love; indeed she did not think to ask herself the reason. She liked her brother William, and was happy.

Lucy was admired by more young eyes than those of William; but she was too young to be courted' by the young farmers; and again too, William was so thick with her,' as they remarked among themselves, 'that others must stand aside.' There was not much heart-burning, however, for Bill Herford,' as he was familiarly termed, was liked by all for his open, manly demeanor, which was far above his years, and won good will among all the young folk of the town.

Delightful June had come, with its roses and balmy south winds: a deeper green upon the trees of the upland had succeeded the tinge of the spring-tide; and the blue haze rested all day long upon the hills in the horizon. The swallow passed and repassed over the daisied meadows, or lightly dipped its wing in the ripples of the stream as it caught up the insects hovering over the surface. Deep in the leafy solitudes the ring-dove cooed, and the wood-robin warbled its low, sweet note. The wild-briar by the foot-path was again in bloom, and every thing

was brimming with delight to the ear and eye. All was joyfulness; but none more joyful than Lucy Hill, as with William's assistance she gathered flowers for the old vase. This was her seventeenth summer, and William had also reached the same age; but his heart was not so light as hers, for he had nearly completed his preparatory studies, and the next August was to enter college; and he dreaded the approach of the time when he must leave Lucy and settle down among his books; away from her blue eyes and confiding smile.

They were sitting one afternoon on a mossy bank, where a spring welled up from the silvery-white sand below it. He had been reading her a beautiful passage in Thomson's Summer,' and his arm just touched her waist, while she leaned upon the alder-bush which bent over them. Gradually he began to talk of his approaching absence; and as he spoke, a tear, like a drop of dew resting in the hare-bell, glistened in Lucy's eye. But, brother William, are you going really so soon?' she said. That moment she was folded in his embrace: and they wept there together, with mutual avowal of affection and promises of truth and constancy; his arm clasping her waist, and her soft warm cheek laid closely to his, and her sunny curls mingling with his dark hair. The sun was tinging the western clouds with purple and gold, ere that guileless pair left the mossy bank, and departed homeward down the shaded dell. Beautiful dreams played in their sleep that night; and although Lucy did not tell her parents how happy she was in the love of that noble boy, she did not deem the concealment wrong. The weeks flew by apace, and a little while before it was time for William to go, he told his father of his love.

Squire Herford was too wise to instil false pride into the mind of his son; and although he was not exactly pleased with the idea of William's making such promises so young, and to one whose education was so limited, he made no objection to it; for he loved his boy, and did not wish to damp his ardor.

Farmer Hill and his wife were pleased when Lucy told them at last of William's love, and his father's consent; and the reflection of a rich marriage for their daughter did not once enter their minds. Long was the ramble of the lovers on the day before William left; and the moon was high before he kissed Lucy at the gate, and bade her good-bye for three long months.

The next morning, as the stage passed by, and William waved his hand in farewell, Lucy returned it from the window, and when the rattling of the wheels had died away in the distance, she went into her chamber and wept; nor for the whole day did she regain her usual lightness of spirits. But the next morning, after dreams of love, she arose as joyful as ever, and went about her pleasant labors with new cheerfulness. She trusted in William so fully that not one single thought of fear for the endurance of his attachment to her once crossed her mind. He had promised to write to her as soon as he had fairly settled in college life; and she awaited the reception of her first loveletter with a little fluttering impatience, to be sure, yet with joyful anticipation. Ah, how pure was the love of that young girl; and with how many rainbow hues did it span her soul! Happy in the affection of her

parents, and blest in that of William, the winged hours flew by unheeded. A fortnight passed away, and one morning as Farmer Hill returned from the village, he brought the expected letter, and Lucy hid it in her throbbing bosom, and went into her little chamber alone, to read it. Her tears fell fast; for it was written with glowing warmth, and she felt as if talking with her absent lover. The labors of the household were despatched that day long before the usual time; and in the warm air of the August afternoon, she went up on the shady hill to read it over and over again, there on the mossy bank, by the bubbling spring. Many a heart looked on her with love as the next Sunday that beautiful girl, made still more beautiful by her happiness, took her place in the choir, and poured forth the melody of her heart in the songs of praise. It was with a more heartfelt devotion that she sang the words of the hymn, and her whole heart went up in gratitude to the all-gracious Father of Mercies. The words of the grey-haired minister, as he discoursed to his flock as a friend and father, seemed more deeply impressive, and she listened to his kind voice and kinder teachings with more interest than ever before. The look of admiration with which Squire Herford regarded her, as the congregation turned round to listen to the closing hymn, was unnoticed by all eyes save hers: and as Ellen, William's sister, took her hand in the vestibule, with the inquiry, 'Have you heard from William yet?' and invited her home to tea, Lucy felt proud and happy.

Ellen was just fifteen, and though a lovely girl herself, she thought how happy she would be if she was as beautiful as Lucy. But there was no envy in this thought; for she loved her brother too dearly to feel any thing but the warmest love for the sweet object of his affection. Ellen was a frequent visiter of Lucy's; and when vacation brought William home, in the last bright days of September, she shared Lucy's joy at his return. Two years wore away, and Lucy was still happy; for William's letters were full of affection, and her innocent bosom swelled with pride as she heard now and then, through the letters which Squire Herford received from the college president, that William was winning golden opinions from his instructors.

William Herford studied closely, and won the respect and esteem of his teachers and his fellow students. He had a strong and brilliant mind; and while his talents gained respect, his affability and goodness of heart gained him many friends. Keeping aloof from dissipation, he preserved his health; and although his forehead was pale, and his sparkling eyes a little sunken, he was not much changed, save in height, from the boy of seventeen. He still loved Lucy, and longed for vacations with impatience, that he might again kiss her soft cheek, and hear the music of her voice; but near the close of his second year, he became acquainted with one who, while she rivalled Lucy's beauty, possessed cultivation and mind far superior. She was older than William, and being not only accomplished, but extremely fond of history and poetry, he soon found pleasure in her society and conversation; and when the term closed, he was for the first time loth to return home, for his first love was cooling. Not so with Lucy; for when he returned she welcomed him as eagerly, and returned his kiss as warmly as before, and