sister's course at school. He sees Jerusha Thornton in her youth and pride and beauty. She waves off the many suitors in her train, only to smile winsomely at the young master of Kennons. Her estate is equal to, and adjoins his own. He has known her from her childhood—he loves no other—and still he loves not her. He revolves the reason of this in his own mind. She has beauty, wealth, accomplishments. He gives no credence to rumors of her cruelty to servants, though aware of her haughtiness to all, and her disdain to inferiors. The high favor which she showed to him would be welcomed with joy by at least a half-dozen of his acquaintance. But this, her manifest preference, did not please Duncan Lisle—there might be no accounting for it, but it was a fact.

What was to be done? Kennons needed sadly a woman at its head. Its master had come to be nearly twenty-eight, and not married yet!

The servants were in a state of terrified suspense, lest he should bring Miss Rusha as their mistress. They wished their master to marry—they would dance for joy—but it must be some other young lady than the heiress of Thornton Hall.

Delia had been to a Northern school nearly five years; she would soon be eighteen, and was about to graduate.

As very young girls, Della and Rusha had known each other. For many years, however, having been at different schools they had rarely met.

Duncan held a faint impression that his half-sister had never been at all partial to this near neighbor of his. She was coming home so soon, he had such confidence in her judgment and womanly intuitions, he would await her coming, and see if she could divine why it was that while he would be attracted to Rusha Thornton he could not.

Besides, Della was not returning home alone. Ellice Linwood had been for five years her most intimate chosen friend, and room-mate. Ellice was the only child of a widowed Presbyterian clergyman. Her father had spent all he had to bestow upon her, in her education. This being thorough and complete, in the way such terms are used, she was henceforth to support herself by teaching.

In order to avoid a deplorable separation, these two young friends had put their wits together, and lo, the result! Through Della's good brother Duncan, a situation had been secured for Ellice in the family of Col. Anderson, not over six miles from Kennons. They would speedily become excellent equestrians, these friends, and annihilate the narrow space every day in the year.

Duncan Lisle, still gazing vacantly into the varying flames, performed anew the journey, not from Kennons to Troy on the Hudson, but from the latter city, via New York, back to his Virginian plantation. His sister and Ellice Linwood were his companions, for it had been arranged that, though Ellice's session of school was not to commence for a couple of months, yet she should thus early undertake the journey for sake of the company; and Della's home was to be hers also in the intervening time.

Della and Ellice! They flitted hither and thither before Duncan's mental vision, as they had on that memorable journey. Just free from the irksome restraints of the school-room, full of joyous anticipations, they gave way to that girlish gayety, and that unbounded enthusiasm, which a thorough sense of happiness and enjoyment cannot fail to inspire. Life was before them beautiful, glorious, and without end! This was only nine years ago—and now!

As we look through Duncan's eyes, we see that Della was the taller and more graceful of the two. Her hair and complexion were rather dark than fair; long, dark eyelashes shaded eyes deep blue, dreamy and wondrous in expression. We never mind much a nose, unless it be ugly to a deformity, or a model for the sculptor. An Angelo would have thrilled at sight of Della's nose, and straightway wrought it into immortality, alto relievo. Her mouth and chin were as lovely and divinely rounded as any Madonna's. The shape of her head was superb; and she wore her hair, which was truly a glory in itself, somewhat like a crown, which left her finely curved ear liberty to show itself and to hear everything that was going on. Many would have rhapsodised over her lithe, slender form. Not we. More admirable that faithful approach to those olden models of the human form that exist in artists' studios and adorn grand rooms of princely connoisseurs.

Nature is everywhere lovely. Had the ancient Greeks chiselled but the wasp waists of our modern belles, their hideous works would have sunk into oblivion in as little time as our self-made martyrs drop into early graves.

Not saying that Della Lisle, whose waist you could not "span with your two hands," had foolishly contributed to make less its natural size, but it was painfully suggestive of weakened lungs and an early translation.

Ellice, on the contrary, possessed a low, plump figure, all curve and dimple, with no appearance of angularity or stiffness. She had a fair, round face, cheeks in which roses came and went, laughing blue eyes, a wide, low brow, auburn curls, nose not retroussé, but the least bit inclined that way, white teeth, somewhat large, but pretty, that really did look like pearls between such cherry-red lips.

You might stand in respect and admiration before the dignified and intellectual Della Lisle; but Ellice Linwood you would take to your heart. If you were gay, she would laugh with you; if serious, she would become pensive; if sick, she would soothe and comfort you.

She was the most unselfish creature in existence. Self-denial ceased to become such to her; her happiness was in yours alone.

All things about the plantation brightened in presence of these two young maidens. Old servants grew more youthful, the young wiser and happier, and all, from black to brown, from young to old, as they looked upon the bright face of the northern stranger, turned dreamer and prophet. And this is what they dreamed and wished and foretold: that Master Duncan would make Ellice his wife and keep her forever.

And Duncan? Well, while such a spirit of prophecy reigned all around him, it is not to be supposed that it fell not on him also. He thought no more of seeking from his wise sister the solution of his antipathy to Miss Thornton. There was no room in his mind now for aught outside his home.

In three weeks he asked Ellice to be his wife. The same day he dispatched a letter to the Principal of the Troy Ladies' Seminary, soliciting a teacher for Colonel Anderson; another message, also, to the father of his affianced, begging him to come down at once and perform the marriage ceremony for his daughter.

This was doing up business very expeditiously. Of course it was soon noised near and far, that great quantities of snow-white cake were being made at Kennons kitchen. Servants would talk; little pitchers had ears, and birds carried news.

Miss Thornton went in state to call upon the strangers. She saw at a glance how matters stood, or were going to stand. She could have torn out Ellice's happy heart. As it was, she bowed to all haughtily as a queen, casting her last contemptuous glance at Miss Linwood's face.

Miss Thornton ordered to be driven rapidly homeward; and, as she was whirled along, her thoughts, in a swifter whirl, she meditated and resolved.

Before the bewildered clergyman could make his way down from the North, before the goddess of Rumor herself had even suspected such a thing, Miss Thornton's whole retinue of suitors,