The boy received the tidings with a burst of grief, which seemed to
threaten his existence. But the sorrows of youth are usually
short-lived, particularly in the case of eager, energetic natures. The
exchange of solitude for the crowd; the emulation of college life; the
sports and communion of youthful associates--served, after a while, to
soothe the sorrows of Ralph Colleton. Indeed, he found it necessary that
he should bend himself earnestly to his studies, that he might forget
his griefs. And, in a measure he succeeded; at least, he subdued their
more fond expression, and only grew sedate, instead of passionate. The
bruises of his heart had brought the energies of his mind to their more
active uses.

From fifteen to twenty is no very long leap in the history of youth. We
will make it now, and place the young Ralph--now something older in mind
as in body--returned from college, finely formed, intellectual,
handsome, vivacious, manly, spirited, and susceptible--as such a person
should be--once again in close intimacy with his beautiful cousin. The
season which had done so much for him, had been no less liberal with
her; and we now survey her, the expanding flower, all bloom and
fragrance, a tribute of the spring, flourishing in the bosom of the more
forward summer.

Ralph came from college to his uncle's domicil, now his only home. The
circumstances of his father's fate and fortune, continually acting upon
his mind and sensibilities from boyhood, had made his character a marked
and singular one--proud, jealous, and sensitive, to an extreme which was
painful not merely to himself, but at times to others. But he was noble,
lofty, sincere, without a touch of meanness in his composition, above
circumlocution, with a simplicity of character strikingly great, but