of the best and noblest women that could possibly be.

But his sister was all plain prose,--good, strong, earnest,
respectable prose, it is true, but yet prose. He could read English
history with her, talk accounts and business with her, discuss
politics with her, and valued her opinions on all these topics as much
as that of any man of his acquaintance. But, with the visionary Mrs.
John Seymour aforesaid, he never seemed to himself to be either
reading history or settling accounts, or talking politics; he was off
with her in some sort of enchanted cloudland of happiness, where she
was all to him, and he to her,--a sort of rapture of protective
love on one side, and of confiding devotion on the other, quite
inexpressible, and that John would not have talked of for the world.

So when he saw this distant vision of airy gauzes, of pearly
whiteness, of sea-shell pink, of infantine smiles, and waving, golden
curls, he stood up with a shy desire to approach the wonderful
creature, and yet with a sort of embarrassed feeling of being very
awkward and clumsy. He felt, somehow, as if he were a great, coarse
behemoth; his arms seemed to him awkward appendages; his hands
suddenly appeared to him rough, and his fingers swelled and stumpy.
When he thought of asking an introduction, he felt himself growing
very hot, and blushing to the roots of his hair.

"Want to be introduced to her, Seymour?" said Carryl Ethridge. "I'll
trot you up. I know her."

"No, thank you," said John, stiffly. In his heart, he felt an absurd
anger at Carryl for the easy, assured way in which he spoke of the
sacred creature who seemed to him something too divine to be lightly