Spring had departed, and the good citizens of Richmond complained as piteously of the heat, as though every zephyr that awoke for miles around, did not sweep over their seven hills freighted with the perfume of gardens and groves, instead of the reeking odors of a thronged city. And in our day, as then, airy, spacious villas are forsaken, while their infatuated denizens hie away to pay $50 per week, for a genteel sty, six feet by ten; with the privilege of eating such fare, as in the event of its appearance upon their own boards, would find its way back to the place where it was concocted, accompanied by an anathematised warning to the cook;—and of gulping down unwholesomely-copious draughts of a nauseous liquid, which the stomach neither relishes, nor needs. There is dancing "all night, 'till broad day-light," a dusty drive to assist the digestion of a breakfast, one's common sense, no less than the digerent organs assures him is insured against chylifaction; promenading until dinner, which meal is taken in full dress;—another drive, or an enervating siesta, and it is time to dress for supper; then dancing again; and at the end of "the season," the fashionable votaries return, jaded and debilitated, to home and comfort, and tell you, with a ghastly smile, that they have been ruralizing at the "Carburretted, Sulphuretted, Chalybeate Springs." Ruralizing at the Springs! sketching a landscape from an Express train—sleeping in a canal-boat—reciprocating ideas with a talkative woman!

Mr. Read came home to tea, on a sultry July evening, with some crotchet in his brain. That could be seen with half an eye; and Josephine was affable to a distressing degree, to coax the stranger into an earlier incubation, than would occur without artificial warmth. The effects of her Eccolodeon were presently apparent.

"When does your session close, Josey?" he inquired.

"On Friday, sir."

"Then you will be on your head to quit town, like everybody else."

"I have no solicitude on the subject, sir. I am as indifferent to it, as to many other things people rave about."

"You are your father's child, cool and hard!" observed her parent, with a gratified look.

"But for a novelty, what say you to a trip to Saratoga?"

"I should like it, sir,—if you accompany me."

"I have business which takes me in that direction, and I thought, as you are to 'come out' next winter, it would sound well to have made your dÉbut at such a fashionable place."

Josephine smiled; she could appreciate this argument. The journey was discussed—the expenses, dress, appearance, etc. Ida sat by, taciturn and unconsulted. She had a motive in remaining. Finally, she contrived to throw in a word.

"I wish to inform you of my arrangements for the summer, sir, if you have time to listen."

"Yours! they are the same as ours, of course. Do you imagine that I would permit my daughter to travel without a female companion, or give her an advantage, you are not to share!"

The latter clause was so clearly an afterthought, and dove-tailed so oddly with its antecedent, that Ida's smile was almost a sneer.

"I am sorry, sir, that you are disappointed in your calculations; but as Josephine has a maid, I do not deem my attendance indispensable. If I leave town, I shall go in another direction, unless you positively forbid it."

"And what place is to be honored by your preference? May I presume to ask?"

"I shall go home with Miss Carleton."

"Ahem! I comprehend. I should have anticipated this from your overpowering intimacy. You have played your cards badly, Josephine. Why have you not ingratiated yourself with some 'divine creature,' who has a rich papa? It is a capital means of extending one's acquaintance, and sparing one's purse. How long do you intend to sponge—to remain, I mean, with your friend, Miss Ross?"

"I may not return before Christmas. I hear that the holidays are celebrated with much style and festivity, in the country," she replied.

Mr. Read suppressed something very like an oath, at her calm assurance.

"When do you go?"

"Next Monday. Dr. Carleton is expected daily. Did I understand you to say, that you did not object?"

"Confound it! what do I care where, or when you go?"

"Oh Carry!" apostrophized Ida, shutting herself in her room. "Even you could not be charitable and forbearing here. It is hard! hard!"

"That is unquestionably the most wrong-headed girl I know," said Mr. Read, to his daughter.

"I am heartily glad she is not going with us," was the answer. "She would be of no use to me, and an additional care to you."

"Maybe so, maybe not. Her travelling expenses would not have come out of my pocket; and there are advantages, sometimes, in having two ladies, a larger and better room, and such like; you pay the same price, and have twice the value of your money. You understand?"

"I don't care. I had rather sleep upon a pallet in a loft, by myself, than in the handsomest room in the house, with her for a room-mate. It frets me, though to see her airs! I wish the law allowed you absolute control."

"It won't do with her. If she suspected a design on my part to abridge her liberties, or defraud her of her dues, she would as lief enter a complaint against me as not. She has the temper of the Evil One; and watch as you may, will get the bit between her teeth."

The carriage was at the door by six o'clock on Monday morning. Ida was ready; but her trunk was strapped on, and her maid seated upon the box with the driver, before she appeared. The truth was, she dreaded to meet Dr. Carleton. She did not recollect her own father, and had no agreeable associations connected with any who bore that relation to her young acquaintances. She was inclined to look upon the class, as a set of necessary discords in life; Mr. Read being the key-note. Carry often spoke of her surviving parent with earnest affection; but Ida attributed this to a charity, that beheld no faults in those she loved. The thought of her ride and visit would have been unalloyed, but for this idiosyncrasy. "If he were like Mr. Dana!" she said, going slowly down stairs. He was in the porch, with Mr. Read and Carry. "My friend Ida, father," said Carry. He was not like Mr. Dana,—better than that! He was the image of Carry—her eyes, mouth and smile—his locks, although silvered by years, must in youth have waved in the same golden curls. He was handsome yet, how could he be otherwise! and had she failed to love him at sight, the unaffected geniality of his salutation would have captivated her. She had not a care in the world, as she reclined in the carriage, beside Carry, the revolving wheels bearing her towards the country. Mr. Read and his feminine prototype were sign-posts, marking rough and miry roads she had travelled; they were troubles no more; she was leaving them behind.

There had been a thunder-storm in the night, and in that brief fit of passion, nature had wept away every unkind or unpleasant emotion. The sky wore that rich, soft, transparent hue, which imparts its own pureness to the soul of him, who looks upon it; smilingly luring it to soar away, and "steep itself in the blue of its remembered home;" the forest-leaves glittered with rain-diamonds, and the bird-matin was warbled by a full orchestra. And on, through the slants of sunlight, and the alternations of deep, green shade; with the old, familiar chirpings in her ear, and the touch of the loved one's hand upon hers, rode the orphan; very quiet, through excess of happiness; afraid to speak or move, lest this should prove a never-to-be realized dream, whose awaking should bring bitter, hopeless yearnings!

Little by little, Carry broke up her musings; and her father seconded her. He was prepared to like his daughter's friend, and there was that in his eye and voice, which made Ida forget, as she had done with Carry,—that she was talking with a stranger.

"That is a fine specimen of your favorite tree, Ida," observed Carry, pointing to a majestic pine, grand and solitary, at the entrance of a grove of oaks.

"And superb it is, in its loneliness!" said Ida.

"Farmers would cavil at your taste," remarked Dr. Carleton. "'Pine barrens' are proverbial. A thick growth of them is an unmistakeable sign of poverty of soil. Nothing else can extract sustenance from the worn out ground."

"That is why I like them, sir. There is sublimity in their hardy independence, taking root, as you say, where pampered, or less robust vegetation would perish, and with never-furling banners, stretching up boldly towards the stars."

"They are emblems to you—of what?" asked the Doctor.

"Of the few really great ones, who have demonstrated that human nature is not of necessity, vile or imbecile, or yet a debtor to accident, for its spice of good."

"The gifted,—or the fortunate?"

"The resolute,—sir. They, who have riven the shackles of low birth or poverty, and made for themselves a glorious name—out of nothing!—have done it by the naked force of will. Call it 'talent' or 'genius,' if you choose;—upon analyzation, you will resolve it into this one element of character."

"It is a sorry task to pick flaws in your beautiful analogy," said the old gentleman. "You may not be aware that your pine, sturdy as it appears, is less fitted than any other tree, for standing alone; its roots running out laterally from the trunk; and lying near the surface of the earth. Cut down the outer row which have kept off the tempests, and helped to support him, and the first hard wind is apt to lay him low."

"And so there are fates, against which the mightiest of mortal energies are powerless. Leave the pine unprotected, and if it survive one blast, it strikes its roots deeper and deeper into the ground, until it has strength to brave an hundred winters. Adversity, if it does not kill—strengthens."

"Do you favor the philosophy, which teaches that a certain amount of trouble is necessary for the complete development of character?"

"Whether necessary or not—it comes. That is not a matter of hypothesis; but I have seen some, who, I did not think, required discipline; and many more, who wanted softening, instead of hardening."

"Is hardening the legitimate effect of sorrow?" asked he, more gravely. "When the chastening is guided by love, does it not melt and refine? Are strength and hardness synonymous?"

"I question the difference, sir,—as the world goes."

"Instead of referring to 'the world,' in an abstract sense—judge we of the influence of trials, by what we know of ourselves. I never tasted real happiness, until I learned to bear grief, by submitting to the will of Providence."

"And one affliction has embittered life for me!" returned Ida, gloomily.

"Poor child!" then recollecting himself, he addressed Carry in a jesting tone. "And you—Miss Carry—what is your vote upon this important question?"

"I have had no trouble, sir," replied she, lightly, "except school-quarrels. You would not class them in the category of tribulations."

There was sadness in her father's look of love, as he answered, "I hope you may long be able to say so, dear!"

Carry brushed away the mist from her lashes. "'A consummation devoutly to be desired,'—as Charley, or Shakspeare would say. Where is he, father?"

"Who? Shakspeare or Charley?"

"The latter, of course. Apart from his probable location being more easily decided upon,—he is, to me, the more interesting of the two."

"He is somewhere in the Western part of the State;—travelling, partly for pleasure. John told you, that they have committed the New York branch of the business to Mr. E——, and that Charley will in future reside in Richmond."

"Yes, sir. I was glad to hear it; I understood, however, that this change would not be made before Fall. In the interim, are not we to be favoured with his company?"

"I trust so. It will seem like old times for us all to be together again."

"I hope he will come while you are with us, Ida," said Carry. "I am so anxious you should know him!"

"You have seen him, surely, Miss Ida?" said Dr. Carleton.

"I have not yet had that pleasure, sir."

"He is an original worth studying."

"I can credit that. Elle's panegyrics would have created a desire to see this nonpareil of an 'Uncle Charley,' and Carry has raised my curiosity to the highest pitch, by naming him as the successful rival of Shakspeare."

"Oh!" cried Carry, laughing. "I said more interesting to me. Charley is one of my pets; and I am afraid I have presented you with an erroneously flattered picture of him. You must not look for an 'Admirable Crichton.' He is not one to please the fancy on a slight acquaintance."

"Is he as handsome as his brother?"

"Which brother?" inquired the Doctor; and Carry blushed.

"I have met but one," said Ida. "I consider Mr. John Dana very fine-looking."

"I will repeat Charley's ideas of what he styles, his 'personal pulchritude,'" responded Carry. "He says he thanks Heaven he is not handsome. To endow him with a moderate share of beauty, some one would have been deprived of his, or her good looks. No broken hearts are laid at the door of his conscience." 'Yes'—concluded he, triumphantly—'A man ought to be grateful for ugliness; and I am persuaded that not many have as much cause to rejoice on that score as myself!'"

"He is not homely," said her father, warmly.

"Ah father! other people tell a different story."

"That may be; but where you find one handsomer face than his, you see a thousand destitute of its intelligence and agreeableness."

"Granted. Homely or not, I prefer him to any doll-faced dandy of my acquaintance."

"He is fortunate in his advocates," said Ida. "He has the art of making friends."

"Because he is such a firm friend himself," replied Carry. "Yet some will have it that he is frivolous and unfeeling. The only satirical remark I was ever guilty of, was extorted by an aspersion of this kind. A lady was offended by a playful bagatelle of his; and thinking that I would be a sure medium of communicating her wrath to its object, criticised him unsparingly. She ridiculed his person and manners;—I said nothing. She said he was bankrupt in chivalry and politeness. I smiled; and she blazed out a philippic against his 'disgusting levity and nonsense—he had not a spark of feeling, or grain of sense—intelligent indeed! for her part she had never heard him say a smart or sensible thing yet.'—I put in my oar here—'You will then allow him one talent, at least; the ability to adapt his conversation to the company he is in.' I repented having said it; but it quieted her."

"You did not reproach yourself for taking the part of your friend!"

"No, but I might have done it in a less objectionable manner. It did not alter her feelings to him, and caused her to dislike me."

"How is it, sir, that I hear so much more of this one of your former wards, than of his younger brother?" said Ida to the Doctor.

The question was innocently propounded, and for an instant, she was puzzled by the quizzical demureness, with which he glanced at his daughter.

"This is a serious charge, Carry. Your predilection for one old play-fellow should not make you forgetful of another."

She was looking down, touching the shining tire of the wheel with the tip of her gloved finger. The truth beamed upon Ida; and with it a thousand little circumstances she had been blindly stupid not to understand before. Her intelligent eye said the mystery was explained, but she forbore to say so in words. Dr. Carleton went on in a changed tone.

"Arthur is not a whit behind his brothers in sterling worth, or personal graces. He is associated with me in the practice of medicine, and unites a skill and prudence, rarely found in one so young. He is popular, and deservedly so."

Carry bestowed a grateful smile upon him, and was answered in the same mute language. In such desultory chat, the sunny hours ran out They travelled well; only stopping an hour to dine and rest; yet twilight saw them eight miles from their destination. Each was disposed to silence, as the light grew dimmer; and when the moon smiled at them above the tree-tops, she elicited but a single observation of her beauty. The road was lonely and sheltered; bordered by forests on one side, and thicket-grown banks on the other; the soil sandy and heavy; the tramp of hoofs scarcely heard, and the wheels rolling with a low, crushing sound, that, to Ida, was not unmusical. Silver willows, and twisting 'bamboo' vines, and the long-leaved Typha Latifolia edged the road; and she watched through the openings in the woven screen, for a glimpse of the stream that watered their roots; sometimes deceived by the shimmer of the moon upon the leaves; sometimes, by the white sands, until she doubted whether there was indeed one there;—when the gurgling of falling waters betrayed the modest brooklet, and it widened into a pretty pool; the moon's silver shield upon its bosom. The thicket became taller, and not so dense; tulip trees and oaks in place of the aquatic undergrowth; and between them the fleeting glimmerings of the sky were, to her, an army of pale spectres, marching noiselessly past; no halting or wavering; on, on, in unbroken cavalcade, "down to the dead." And memory, at fancy's call, produced the long roll of those who had gone to the world of shades;—the master-spirits of all ages;—the oppressed and the oppressor;—the lovely and the loved;—had joined that phantom procession;—how few leaving even the legacy of a name to earth! With the Persian Poet, her heart cried out—"Where are they?" and echo answered—"Where are they?" And thought poured on thought, under the weird influence of that enchanted night, until the shadowy host was the one reality in the landscape; and one and another beckoned and waved to her, as they defiled by. She came near shrieking—so startled was she—as a horseman reined up at the window. The moon was at his back; but showed every lineament of her countenance. He raised his hat. "Miss Ross, I believe. I fear my sudden appearance has alarmed you."

"Arthur! my boy! how are you?" exclaimed Dr. Carleton, extending his hand, which was as eagerly seized. "Miss Ross—Dr. Dana."

"Miss Ross will excuse me for having anticipated the introduction," said he, bowing again, and rode to the opposite side of the carriage. The greetings there were more quiet; but it needed not Ida's delicate ear to detect the feeling in the voices which tried to say common-place things. Arthur had much to say to the doctor, and once in a while a remark for her—Carry remaining in the back-ground.

"Were you uneasy that we did not arrive?" asked Dr. Carleton.

"Not uneasy—but restless; and to relieve my impatience rode out to meet you."

He was first on this side—now on that—as the highway afforded him room; but Ida could not get a view of his face. His figure was good, and he sat his horse well;—upon these facts, and such impressions as were made by a pleasant voice and gentlemanly address, she was obliged to form her opinion of his personal appearance, until more light should be shed upon the subject. The house appeared, approached by a shady lane, and so embowered in trees, that only the chimneys were visible from the main road. Carry's tongue was unloosed as she bounded into the midst of the sable throng that swarmed about the carriage. Arthur exclaimed merrily at the clamor of blessings and inquiries.

"Will you accept me as your attendant, Miss Ross? The ceremony of reception will last some time."

But Carry was in the piazza as soon as they were.

"Thank you, Arthur, for taking charge of her. Welcome to Poplar-grove, dear Ida! May you be as happy here as I have been!"

"Amen!" said Dr. Carleton and Arthur, heartily.

Carry acted like a wild creature all the evening. She half-carried Ida to her chamber, and kissed her over and over.

"Now, darling!" she ran on, strewing their shawls and bonnets in all directions. "You see I have no idea of putting you off, company style, in another room. You will be with me morning, noon, and night. My dear, dear room! how natural it looks! and to think I am never to leave it again!"

"Bless your heart!" said a middle-aged mulatto woman, whose mild and pleasing face struck Ida as much as her motherly kindness to her young mistress, "You are not half so glad to get back as we are to have you here."

"Hush, Mammy! you will make me cry. Comb my hair—will you? Not that I do not believe you could do it, Sally; but it used to be Mammy's work."

"Thoughtful of others still," reflected Ida, as the girl Sally displayed a double row of ivories, at Carry's apology. "Can nothing make her selfish?"

"We won't waste time by an elaborate toilet, dear," said Carry, seeing Ida deliberating upon two dresses. "Father will be too much engaged with his supper to notice our dress. Wear the plain white one; it is very becoming; and remember, you are in the back-woods."

Arthur was in the parlor when they descended. He looked as happy as Carry, and "almost as good," thought Ida. She was not de trop; it might have been a brother and sister who strove to convince her that this, their home, was hers for the time-being. The supper-table was set with taste and profusion. Ida wondered whether the mÉnage were entirely controlled by coloured servants. She learned afterwards that "Mammy," trained by Mrs. Carleton, and until that lady's death, her constant attendant, was housekeeper.

"You have not much affection for a city life, Miss Ida," said Arthur, continuing a conversation commenced in the parlor.

"No. I am country-bred, and cherish a preference for the scenes of my childhood. Perhaps," she said, ingenuously, "the fault is in myself. I did not want to live in Richmond, and determined not to like it."

"And are your aversions so strong that the manifold attractions of the metropolis cannot shake them? or, are you countrified upon principle?"

"I have not given the city a fair trial. It has occurred to me lately that my weariness of it proceeded from monotony rather than satiety. There is little variety in school life."

"Except when we regard it as the world in miniature," said Arthur. "It is different, doubtless, in 'Young Lady Establishments,' but we boys contrived to maintain a healthy circulation, one way or another."

"Is it not a popular fallacy that school-days are the happiest of one's life?" asked Ida.

"Unquestionably," rejoined he, promptly. "As well say that Spring is the farmer's happiest season. He has the pleasures of hope, the delight of viewing his whitening harvests in futuro; but there is severe, unromantic drudgery; suspense and boding fears for the result. The 'harvest home' for me!"

"And when is that!" questioned Ida.

"Now!" said he, with emphasis.

"What do you mean?" inquired Carry.

"That you and Miss Ida begin to reap from this date. To dispense with this inconvenient metaphor, your actions will be the proof of what your lessons have been; every day your knowledge and principles will be brought into play,—you will be binding up sheaves of worthy or of evil deeds."

"You are trying to terrify us," said Carry. "Don't you wish yourself at school again, Ida!"

"Are you sorry you're a-goin' to turn out!" replied Ida, in a peculiar tone.

"Oh, Celestia!" exclaimed Carry, with a burst of laughter.

"Who? what?" said her father.

"One of our school-mates, father; who, hearing another say that she was sorry to quit school, went through the house the day we were dismissed, asking each one confidentially, 'Are you sorry you're a-goin to turn out?' grief at such an event being, in her code, a more heinous sin than to dance at a funeral."

"Who was she?" asked Arthur.

"Miss Pratt—Celestia Pratt."

"Daughter of the member from A——?"

"The same—what do you know of her?"

"I met her once at a ball," he replied.

"Were you introduced?" cried both girls in a breath.

"Yes; and danced with her."

"Enough!" said Carry. "We will not pursue the subject."

"As you please," he returned; "but if I am not mistaken, as Sir Roger says, though with a different meaning, 'much could be said on both sides.'"