A week had passed since the arrival of the city nieces at the farmhouse. An early tea, one of Aunt Sarah's generous and appetizing repasts, was over; and through the garden, out at the gate that terminated the middle walk, and across the strip of meadow-land, danced Charley and Jeannie, followed at a more sedate pace by Philip Benson and Sarah. Seven days' rustication had wrought a marked change in the town-bred girl. There was a lighter bound in her step, and in her cheek a clear, pink glow, while her eyes looked softly, yet brightly, from out the shadow of her gypsy hat, a look of half surprise, half confidence in her companion's face.

"One week ago," he was saying, "how firmly I made up my mind that you and I could never be anything but strangers to each other! How I disliked you for coming down here to interfere with my liberty and leisure!"

"But even then you thought that I would prove a 'nice companion for Aunt Sarah'—perceived my suitableness to her society," was the demure reply.

"Who told you that I said so?"

"Not Aunt Sarah herself, although she considered it honest praise. I overheard it accidentally from my window, and I can assure you properly appreciated the compliment, which, by the way, was more in the tone than the words."

"And you were thereby piqued to a different style of behavior. Bravo! did ever another seed so worthless bring forth so rich a harvest? I am glad I said it! Here is the boat."

It was a pretty little affair—Charley's property and care, and he was already in his seat at the bow, oar in hand. Philip helped Sarah in, placed Jeannie beside her, and stationing himself upon the middle bench took up a second pair of oars. A noiseless dip of the four, and the craft glided out into the stream, then up against the tide, the water rippling into a foamy wake on either side of the sharp bow. A row was now the regular sequel to the day's enjoyments, and to Jeannie, at least, the climax of its pleasures.

"Pull that way, please, Mr. Benson!" she cried. "There! right through that beautiful red water!"

A skilful sweep brought them to the spot designated, but the crimson deserted the wave as they neared it, and left dull gray in its stead.

"It is too bad!" complained the child, pointing back to the track of their boat, quivering amidst the fickle radiance she had thought to reach by this change of course. "It is behind us and before us—everywhere but where we are!"

"Is there a moral in that?" questioned Philip, smiling at Sarah.

"Perhaps so."

A fortnight before, how assured would have been her reply! How gloomy her recognition of the analogy! Changed as was her mood, a shade fell over her countenance. Was it of apprehension, and did Philip thus interpret it?

"I could not love life and this fair world as I do, if I conceded this to be universally true," he said. "That there comes, sometimes, a glory to the present, besides which the hues of past and future fade and are forgotten, I must and will believe. Such, it seems to me, must be the rapture of reciprocal and acknowledged affection; the joy of reunion after long separation from the beloved one; the bliss of reconciliation after estrangement. Have you ever thought how much happier we would be if we were to live only in the Now we have, and never strain our eyes with searching for, the lights and shades of what may be before us, or with 'mournful looking' after what is gone?"

"Yet is this possible?" asked Sarah, earnestly. "Does not the very constitution of our natures forbid it? To me that would be a miserably tame, dead-level existence over which Hope sheds no enchanting illusions; like this river, as we saw it three days ago, cold and sombre as the rain-clouds that hung above it. Oh, no! give me anything but the chill, neutral tint of such a life as thousands are content to lead—people who expect nothing, fear nothing—I had almost said, feel nothing!"

"That is because every principle of your being is at war with common-places. Tell me frankly, Miss Sarah, did you ever meet another woman who had as much character as yourself?"

"I do not know that I understand the full bearing of your question." She leaned on the side of the boat, her hand playing in the water, her lips working in an irresolute timidity that was oddly at variance with their habitual firmness.

"I am aware," she began slowly and gravely, "that I express myself too strongly at times; that I am more abrupt in language and action than most other girls. I have always been told so; but it is natural to me. My character has many rough and sharp edges that need softening and rounding"—

"In order to render you one of the pretty automatons, the well-draped, thoroughly-oiled pieces of human clockwork that decorates men's homes—falsely so called—in these days of gloss and humbug!" interrupted Philip with energy. "I am sick to death of the dollish 'sweet creatures' every boarding-school turns out by the score. I understand all the wires that work the dear puppets—flatter myself that I can put them through their paces (excuse the slang!) in as short a time as any other man of my age in the country. The delightful divinities! A little music, and a little less French; a skimming of the arts and sciences; and it is a rare thing to meet one who can tell an art from a science ten days after she has graduated—a stock of pet phrases—all hyperbolical, consequently unmeaning—a glib utterance of the same; a steady devotion to balls, beau-catching, gossip, and fancy-work; voila the modern fine lady—the stuff we are expected to make wives of! Wives! save the mark! I never think of the possibility of being thus ensnared without an involuntary repetition of a portion of the Litany—'From all such, etc., etc.!'"

He plied his oars with renewed activity for a moment, then suspended them to continue, in a softer tone: "And this is the representative woman of your Utopia, Miss Sarah?"

"Did I intimate, much less assert, such a heresy?" responded she, laughing. "But there is a golden mean somewhere—a union of gentleness and energy; of domestic and literary taste; of independence and submission. I have seen such in my day dreams. She is my ideal."

"Which you will one day embody. No reproachful looks! This is the sincerity of a friend. I have promised never to flatter you again, and do not violate the pledge in speaking thus. From my boyhood, I have made human nature my study, and it would be hard to convince me that I err in this case."

"You do! indeed you do!" exclaimed Sarah, with a look of real pain. "I lack the first characteristic of the portrait I have drawn. I am not gentle! I never was. I fear that I never will be!"

"Let us hear a competent witness on that head. Jeannie!" to the child, who was busy spelling on her fingers to Charley; his nods and smiles to her, from the far end of the boat, being more intelligible to her than were her attempts to signal her meaning to him. "Jeannie!" repeated Philip, as he caught her eye. "Come, and whisper in my ear which of your sisters you love the best. Maybe I won't tell tales out of school to the one you care least for."

"I don't care who knows!" said the saucy, but affectionate child. "Sis' Lucy is the prettiest, and she never scolds me either; but she doesn't make my clothes, and tell me nice stories, and help me with my lessons, and all that, you know. She isn't my dear, best sister!" And, springing up suddenly, she threw her arms around Sarah's neck, with a kiss that answered the question with emphasis.

Sarah's lip trembled. The share of affection she had hitherto dared to claim as her own had barely sufficed to keep her heart from starving outright. She had often dreamed of fulness of love as a stay and comfort, as solace and nutriment in a world whose wrong side was ever turned to her. Now there dawned upon her the sweetness and beauty of a new revelation, the bliss of loving and being beloved. Over life floated a warm, purple tinge, like the sunset light upon the river. For the first time within the reach of her memory her heart rested!

In the smile whose overflowing gave a tender loveliness to her features, Philip saw the effect he had wished and anticipated, and, motioning to Charley to let the boat drift with the current, he picked up the guitar, that by Sarah's request was always taken along in these excursions.

It was a love song, inimitable in its purity and tenderness, with just the touch of sadness that insured its passage to the heart. Sarah's smile was softer, but it was a smile still, as the melody arose on the quiet air. When the ballad was concluded, she only said, "Another, please!"

Philip sang more than well. Without extraordinary power, his voice had a rich and flexible quality of tone and a delicacy of expression that never failed to fascinate. To the rapt and listening girl it seemed as if time could bring no more delicious fate than thus to glide on ever upon this empurpled, enchanted stream, the summer heavens above her, and, thrilling ear and soul, the witching lullaby that rocked her spirit to dreams of the youth she had never had, the love for which she had longed with all the wild intensity, the fervent yearning, her deep heart could feel.

Still they floated on with the receding tide, its low washing against the sides of their boat filling up the pauses of the music. The burning red and gold of the sky cooled into the mellower tints of twilight, and the pale curve of the young moon shone with increasing lustre. Jeannie fell asleep, her head upon her sister's lap; the dumb boy sat motionless as stone, his dark eyes fixed on the moon; there seemed some spell upon the little party. Boat after boat passed them, almost noiselessly, for far into the clear evening went the tones of the singer's voice, and the dullest hearer could not withhold the tribute of admiring silence until beyond its reach.

And Sarah, happy in the strange, restful languor that locked her senses to all except the blessed present, dreamed on, the music but a part of her ideal world, this new and beautiful life. Into it stole presently a theme of sadness, a strain of grief, a heart-cry, that, ere she was aware, wrung her own heart-strings with anguish.

If ever a pierced and utterly hopeless soul poured forth its plaint in musical measure, it was in the wondrously simple and unspeakably plaintive air to which these words are set. There breathes in it a spirit wail so mournfully sincere that one recognizes its sob in the very chords of the accompaniment. The mere murmur of the melody, were no words uttered, tells the story of grieving desolation.

Sarah did not move or speak, yet upon her enchanted ground a cloud had fallen. She saw the high casement and its tearful gazer into the night, a night not of music, and moonlight, and love, but chill, and wet, and dreary. Rain dripped from eaves and trees; stone steps and pavements caught a ghastly gleam from street lamps; save that sorrowful watcher, there was no living creature abroad or awake. She grew cold and sick with looking into those despairing eyes; the gloom, the loneliness, the woe of that vigil became her own, and her heart sank swooning beneath the burden.

As he ceased the song, Philip looked up for some comment or request. To his surprise, she only clasped her hands in a gesture that might have been either relief from or abandonment to woe, and bowed her head upon them. Puzzled, yet flattered by her emotion, he refrained from interrupting her; and, resuming his oars, lent the impetus of their stroke to that of the tide. Nothing was said until the keel grated upon the shelly beach opposite the farmhouse. Then, as Philip stooped to lift the unconscious Jeannie, he imagined that he discerned the gleam of the sinking moon upon Sarah's dripping eyelashes.

The fancy pursued him after he had gone up to his room. Seated at his window, looking out upon the now starlit sky, he smoked more than one cigar before his musing fit was ended. It was not the love-reverie of a smitten boy. He believed that he had passed that stage of sentimentalism ten years before. That Southerner of the male gender who has not been consumed by the fires and risen as good as new from the ashes of half a dozen never-dying passions before he is eighteen, who has not offered the heart and hand, which as often as otherwise constitute his chiefest earthly possessions, to some elect fair one by the time he is one-and-twenty, is voted "slow" invulnerable. If these susceptible sons of a fervid clime did not take to love-making as naturally as does a duckling to the pond by the time the eggshell is fairly off its head, they would certainly be initiated while in the callow state by the rules and customs of society. Courtship is at first a pastime, then an art, then when the earnestness of a real attachment takes hold of their impassioned natures, it is the one all-absorbing, eager pursuit of existence, until rewarded by the acquisition of its object or thwarted by the decided refusal of the hard-hearted Dulcinea.

This state of things, this code of Cupid, every Southern girl understands, and shapes her conduct accordingly. Sportively, yet warily, she plays around the hook, and he is a very fortunate angler who does not in the moment of fancied success discover that she has carried off the bait as a trophy upon which to feed her vanity, and left him to be the laughing-stock of the curious spectators of this double game. She is imperturbable to meaning equivoques, receives pretty speeches and tender glances at their current value, and not until the suit becomes close and ardent, the attachment palpable to every one else, and is confessed in so many words, does she allow herself to be persuaded that her adorer is "in earnest," and really desires to awaken a sympathetic emotion in her bosom.

Philip Benson was no wanton trifler with woman's feelings. On the contrary, he had gained the reputation in his circle of an invincible, indifferent looker-on of the pseudo and real combats, in Love's name, that were continually transpiring around him. Chivalrous in tone, gallant in action, as he was, the girls feared while they liked and admired him. They called him critical, fastidious, cold; and mockingly wondered why he persisted in going into company that, judging the future by the past, was so unlikely to furnish him with the consort he must be seeking. In reality, he was what he had avowed himself to Sarah—a student of human nature; an amateur in this species of social research—than which no other so frequently results in the complete deception of the inquirer. Certainly no other is so apt to find its culmination of devotion in a cold-blooded dissection of motive, morals, and sentiment; an unprincipled, reckless application of trial and test to the hearts and lives of its victims and final infidelity in all human good, except what is concentrated in the inspector's individual, personal self. Grown dainty amid the abundant supply of ordinary material, he comes at length to disdain common "subjects." Still less would he touch one already loathsome in the popular estimation, through excess of known and actual crime. But a character fresh and noble from the Creator's hand; a soul that dares to think and feel according to its innate sense of right; an intellect unhackneyed, not vitiated by worldly policy or the dogmas of the schools; a heart, tender and delicate—yet passionate in love or abhorrence; what an opportunity is here presented for the scalpel, the detective acid, the crucible, the microscope! It is not in fallible mortality to resist the temptation, and even professors of this ennobling pursuit, whose motto is, "The proper study of mankind is Man," are, as they allow with shame and confusion of face, themselves mortal. Of all the dignified humbugs of the solemn farce of life, deliver me from that creature self-styled "a student and judge of character!"

In Sarah Hunt, Philip discovered, to his surprise, a rare "specimen;" a volume, each leaf of which revealed new matter of interest. The attentions he had considered himself bound to pay her, in order to avoid wounding their kind hosts, were soon rendered from a widely different motive. It did not occur to him that he was transcending the limits of merely friendly courtesy, as prescribed by the etiquette of the region in which he was now a sojourner. He was by no means deficient in appreciation of his personal gifts; rated his powers of pleasing quite as highly as did his warmest admirers, although he had the common sense and tact to conceal this; but he would have repelled, as an aspersion upon his honor, the charge that he was endeavoring to win this young girl's affections, his heart being as yet untouched.

"Was it then altogether whole?" he asked himself to-night, with a coolness that should have been an immediate reply to the suggestion.

Side by side, he set two mental portraits, and strove deliberately, impartially, to discern any traces of resemblance between the two. The future Mrs. Benson was a personage that engrossed much of his thoughts, and by long practice in the portrayal of her lineaments, he had brought his fancy sketch very nearly to perfection. A tall, Juno-like figure, with raven locks, and large, melting eyes, unfathomable as clear; features of classic mould; an elastic, yet stately form; a disposition in which amiability tempered natural impetuosity, and generous impulse gave direction to gentle word and deed; a mind profoundly imbued with the love of learning, and in cultivation, if not strength, equal to his own; discretion, penetration, and docility combined in such proportions as should render her her husband's safest counsellor, yet willing follower; and controlling and toning the harmonious whole, a devotion to himself only second in degree, not inferior in quality, to worship of her Creator. This was the ideal for whose embodiment our reasonable, modest Coelebs was patiently waiting. Answer, oh ye expectant, incipient Griseldas! who, from your beauteous ranks, will step into the prepared niche, and make the goddess a reality?

And how appeared the rival picture in comparison?

"No, no!" he ejaculated, tossing the remnant of his third cigar into the garden. "I must seek further for the 'golden mean.' Intellect and heart are here, undoubtedly. I must have beauty and grace as well. Yet," he continued, relentingly, "there are times when she would be quite handsome if she dressed better. It is a pity her love for the beautiful does not enter into her choice of wearing apparel!"

In ten minutes more he was asleep, and dreamed that he stood at the altar with his long sought ideal, when, as the last binding words were spoken, she changed to Sarah Hunt, arrayed in a light blue lawn of last year's fashion, that made her look as sallow as a lemon, and, to his taste, as little to be desired for "human nature's daily food."

Poor Sarah! The visionary robe was a faithful reflection upon the dreamer's mental retina of a certain organdie which had formed a part of Lucy's wardrobe the previous summer, and having become antiquated in six months' time, was altogether inadmissible in the belle's outfit of this season.

"Yet it cost an awful sum when it was new!" reasoned Mrs. Hunt, "and will make you a very useful dress while you are with your Aunt Sarah. It's too good to cut up for Jeannie!"

"But the color, mother?" objected the unwilling recipient.

"Pooh! who will notice that? Besides, if you had a good complexion, you could wear blue as well as anybody."

Sarah's stock of thin dresses was not plentiful, and, recalling this observation, she coupled it with the fact that she was growing rosy, and dared to equip herself in the azure garment, with what effect she did not dream and Mr. Philip Benson did!