"Well, your little Undine is very bewitching, and much more than
bewitching, true to the core and loyal and loving. If only the
hardness of her life does not embitter her, I think she will make
a grand woman."

"Tell me what you did this afternoon," said Brian; "you must have
been some time with them."

Charles Osmond told him all that had passed; then continued:

"She is, as I said, a fascinating, bright little Undine, inclined
to be willful, I should fancy, and with a sort of warmth and
quickness about her whole character, in many ways still a child,
and yet in others strangely old for her years; on the whole I
should say as fair a specimen of the purely natural being as you
would often meet with. The spiritual part of her is, I fancy,
asleep."

"No, I fancy tonight has made it stir for the first time," said
Brian, and he told his father a little of what had passed between
himself and Erica.

"And the Longfellow was, I suppose, from you," said Charles Osmond.
"I wish you could have seen her delight over it. Words absolutely
failed her. I don't think any one else noticed it, but, her own
vocabulary coming to an end, she turned to ours, it was "What
HEAVENLY person can have sent me this?"

Brian smiled, but sighed too.