"Dawn! Dawn! where are you?" called Mrs. Austin from the library after Mr. Bowen had left. "I'm glad that stupid fellow has gone," she continued, "for we want you to sing for us."

How could she sing? The sentiment which would suit her mood would not surely be fitted to those who would listen; but forcing her real state aside, she played and sung several lively songs.

"Delightful!" exclaimed her friend, "we mean to have more of your company now, and keep such stupid people as Clarence Bowen away, he is so changed; he used to be very gay and lively; what do you find in him, Dawn?"

"A need; a great soul need. He wants comforting."

"What, is he sad? He ought to be the merriest, happiest fellow alive. He has enough of this world's goods, and a most brilliant woman for a wife."

"These alone cannot give happiness. True, lasting happiness is made up of many little things on which the world places but little value. He has much to make him thoughtful and earnest, and very little to make him gay."

"You are so unlike everybody else, Dawn. Now I like life; real, hearty, earnest life. I don't care a straw for hidden causes. I want what's on the surface. I think we were put here to enjoy ourselves and make each other happy."

"So do I; but what you call 'happiness,' might to some, be mere momentary excitement, mere transient pleasure. To me, the word happiness means something deeper; a current, which holds all the ripples of life in its deep channel."

"Well, if happiness is the deep undercurrent, as you say, I don't want it. I want the ripples, the foam, and the sparkle. So let us go to bed and rest, and to-morrow ride over the hills on horseback. I'll take Arrow, he's fiery, and you may take Jessie. Will you? You need some roses on your cheek." And the joyous-hearted woman kissed the pale face of her friend till the flush came on her cheeks and brow.

"There; now you look like life; you seemed a moment since as still and white as snow!"

"Your warm nature has surely changed the condition of things, for I feel more like riding just now than sleeping."

"That's good. Suppose we have a moonlight race?"

"I protest against any such proceeding, being the lord and master of this manor," said her husband, looking up from his book, in which they supposed he was too deeply engaged to hear their conversation.

Reader, don't trust a gentleman who has his eyes on the page of a volume when two ladies are conversing.

"Then I suppose there's nothing left for us but to go to bed."

"Yes, a something else," said her husband.

"What?"

"Go to sleep."

"Stupid! I suppose you think you have made a brilliant speech."

"On the contrary I think it the reverse. I never waste scintillations of genius on unappreciative auditors."

"Edward Austin! you deserve to be banished a week from ladies' society. Come Dawn, let us retire."

It was in this pleasant, light vein of thought that Dawn recovered her mental poise, and she sank into a sweet and profound slumber, which otherwise would not have come to her. Thus do we range from one sphere to another, and learn, though slowly, that all states are legitimate and necessary, the one to the other. The parts of life contribute to the perfection of the whole. Each object has its own peculiar office, as it has its own form. The tulip delights with its beauty, the carnation with its perfume, the unseemly wormwood displeases both taste and smell, yet in medicinal value is superior to both. So each temperament, each character, has its good and bad. The one has inclinations of which the other is incapable.

"This is a world of hints, out of which each soul seizes what it needs." So from other lives we draw and appropriate continually into our own, and we need the manifestations of life to make us harmonious. Each person draws something from us that none other can, and imparts out of its special quality that which we cannot receive from any other. We need at times to surrender our will, to merge ourselves into another sphere, and loose the tension of our own action; this surrender being to the mind what sleep is to the brain.

The whole of life does not flow through any one channel; we drink from many streams. "A ship ought not to be held by one anchor, nor life by a single hope." Slowly we learn life's compliments, and the value of its component parts. Many threads make up the web, and many shades the design. As we advance in experiences, we feel that we could not have afforded to have lost one shade, however dark it may have been. Time, the silent weaver, sits by the loom, seeing neither the light nor shade, but only the great design which grows under his hand in the immortal web.

The morning was clear and lovely. Mrs. Austin and Dawn rode over the hills, their spirits rising at every step, under the exhilarating exercise. A fresh breeze stirred the leaves of the trees, and made the whole air sweet and vital. Birds carolled their songs, and made the woods vocal with praise. Nature seemed set to a jubilant key; while fresh inspiration flowed into the heart of man as he gazed on the scene so redolent with life and beauty.

"You are as radiant as the day," said Mrs. Austin, drawing in Arrow a little, and coming to the side of Dawn.

"Thank you for your compliment, but it's more the reflection of the outer world, than a manifestation of myself. One cannot but be bright on such a morning."

"I cannot hold Arrow in longer, or I might argue on that point." In a moment she was out of sight, round the bend of the road.

"She does me good every moment. I sometimes wish I did not see the conditions of life, and its states as I do. I must keep on the surface a little more,--so run along Jessie," said Dawn, giving the gentle animal a little touch of the whip that caused her to canter away briskly and catch up with Arrow. Yet it was but for an instant, for Arrow bounded off as he heard the approach, and horse and rider were soon as far in the distance as before.

At the end of the long road Mrs. Austin halted, and reined Arrow under a tree to wait for her friend.

"You are quite a stranger," said Dawn, coming up at a slow pace. "I've been taking time to enjoy the scenery."

"So I perceive. I thought you had dismounted and was sketching, or writing a sonnet to the woods."

"It were most likely to have been the latter, as I never sketch anything but human character."

"Then tell me what I am like. Sketch me as I am."

"You are unlike every one else," said Dawn, in an absent manner.

"That's a diversion. Come to the point, and define me. I'm a riddle, I know."

"If you have got thus far, you can analyze yourself. It's a good beginning to know what you are."

"But I cannot unriddle myself. I have, under my rippling surface, a few deep thoughts, and good ones, and they make me speak and act better, sometimes. I am not all foam, Dawn."

"I never supposed you were. There is a depth in you that you have never fathomed, because your life has been gay, and you have never needed the truths which lie deep, and out of sight."

"But I'd rather go up than down; much rather."

"Depth is height, and height is depth."

"So it is. I never thought of that before. Dawn, you could make a woman of me. Edward does not call me into my better self as you do. Why is it?"

"I suppose because he does not need that manifestation of your being. Your lives are both set to sweetly flowing music. You have never felt the sting of want and suffering, either mental or physical, nor witnessed it to any great extent in others."

"Why are we allowed to sit in the sunshine, then, if there is so much sorrow in the world?"

"You are saved for some work. When the worn laborers now in the field can do no more, perhaps you will be called forth."

"O, Dawn, your words thrill me. Then we may not always be as happy as now?" and her glance seemed to turn inward on her joyous heart.

"You may be far happier, but not so full of life's pleasures."

"Yes; I remember the deep, strong current, and the ripples. Let us go on, Dawn. I feel, I don't know how, but strange. Shall we start?"

"Certainly; I wait your move. Come, Jessie, show me another phase of your nature. I have seen how gentle you are; now go."

At the word, the creature seemed to fly through the air, so swiftly did she leap over the ground, and Arrow was left behind.

At noon they stopped at a house on the mountain side, the home of an acquaintance of Mrs. Austin's, to refresh themselves and their horses.

"I have brought you to some strange people," said Mrs. Austin, as they alighted, and a boy came and led their horses to the stable.

"Strange; in what way?"

"O; they believe in all sorts of supernatural things-in the doctrine of transmigration, second-sight, and every other impossible and improbable thing."

"I am delighted. I shall be most happy to see them."

"Because you yourself are so much inclined that way?"

"No. I should be more curious to see them if I were not interested in the things you have mentioned. But now I shall meet kindred souls, and in those I always find delight."

"I've half a mind to take you home without even an introduction, for your impudence; as though I was not a 'kindred soul.'"

"It's too late, now, for here comes a lady and gentleman to welcome you."

"Miss Bernard, my friend Miss Wyman, Mr. Bernard."

Dawn took their proffered hands which seemed to thrill with a welcome, and they led the way to a large, old-fashioned parlor. The house was one of those delightful land-marks of the past generation, which we sometimes see. It stood on a high hill, or rather on a mountain shelf, shaded by lofty trees which seemed like sentinels stationed about to protect it from all intrusion. No innovations of modern improvement had marred the general keeping of the grounds and buildings, for any change would have been an injury to the general harmony of the whole. A large, clean lawn sloped to a woody edge in front, and in the rear of the dwelling were clusters of pines and oaks.

Miss Bernard could not be described in a book, nor sensed in a single interview, yet we must lay before the reader an outline to be filled by the imagination. She was a blending of all the forces, mental, moral, and spiritual. Her face was full of thought, without the sharp, defined lines, so common to most women of a nervous temperament. It impressed you at once with vigor and power; chastened by a deep, spiritual light, which shone over it like that of the declining sun upon a landscape. It seemed to burst from within, not having the appearance of proceeding from dross burning away, but like a radiance native to the soul, a part and quality of it, not an ignition which comes from friction and war within.

Basil, her brother, whose name indicated his nature, made every one feel as though transported to a loftier atmosphere. He seemed to belong among the stars. Dawn felt at home at once in his presence, which was a mystery to her friend, to whom he seemed intangible and distant. She had never seen upon the face of Dawn such rapt admiration as she saw there, when Basil conversed.

The conversation changed from external to inner subjects, just as the bell rung for dinner. At the table there were no strangers, and to Dawn it seemed as though she had always known them, and many times before, occupied the same place in their midst. Thus do those who are harmonious in spirit affiliate, regardless of material conditions.

A vase of elegant flowers decked the table, also a basket of blossoms, unarranged, which, at dessert, were placed on the plates of the guests.

A light shone from Basil's eyes, which did not escape Mrs. Austin's notice, as he placed a scarlet lily upon her plate.

"The wand-like lily which lifted up,
As a Maenad, its radiant-colored cup,
Till the fiery star, which is in its eye,
Gazed through clear dew on the tender sky."

While these lines of Whittier's ran through her mind:

"I bring no gift of passion,
I breathe no tone of love,
But the freshness and the purity
Of a feeling far above.
I love to turn to thee, fair girl,
As one within whose heart
Earth has no stain of vanity,
And fickleness no part."

Then she watched him with deeper interest as he placed ............