upon those whose hearts are most susceptible of its forms. Many a time
has he sat alone upon the brow of a rock or hill, watching the clouds
of heaven, or gazing on the setting sun, or communing with the thousand
aspects of nature in a thousand moods, his young spirit relaxed into
that elysian reverie which, beyond all other kinds of intellectual
enjoyment, is the most seductive to a youth of poetic temperament.

There were, indeed, in Osborne's case, too many of those light and
scarcely perceptible tokens which might be traced, if not to a habit of
decline, at least to a more than ordinary delicacy of constitution.
The short cough, produced by the slightest damp, or the least breath of
ungenial air--the varying cheek, now rich as purple, and again pale as a
star of heaven--the unsteady pulse, and the nervous sense of uneasiness
without a cause--all these might be symptoms of incipient decay, or
proofs of those fine impulses which are generally associated with quick
sensibility and genius. Still they existed; at one time oppressing the
hearts of his parents with fear, and again exalting them with pride. The
boy was consequently enjoined to avoid all violent exercise, to keep out
of Currents, while heated to drink nothing cold, and above all things
never to indulge in the amusement of cold bathing.

Such were the circumstances under which Osbome first appeared to the
reader, who may now understand the extent of his alarm on feeling
himself so suddenly and seriously affected by his generosity in rescuing
the wounded dove. His mere illness on this occasion was a matter of much
less anxiety to himself than the alarm which he knew it would occasion
his parents and sister. On his reaching home he mentioned the incident
which occurred, admitted that he had been rather warm on going into the
water, and immediately went to bed. Medical aid was forthwith procured,
and although the physician assured them that there appeared nothing