up the nosegay you cut for her this morning: she loves flowers. Ah! Sir,
an excellent young lady is Miss Lester," continued the hostess, as the
boy ran back for the nosegay; "so charitable, so kind, so meek to all.
Adversity, they say, softens some characters; but she must always have
been good. And so religious, Sir, though so young! Well, God bless her!
and that every one must say. My boy John, Sir, he is not eleven yet, come
next August--a 'cute boy, calls her the good lady: we now always call
her so here. Come, John, that's right. You stay to dine here, Sir? Shall
I put down a chicken?"

At the farther extremity of the town stood Miss Lester's dwelling. It was
the house in which her father had spent his last days; and there she had
continued to reside, when left by his death to a small competence, which
Walter, then abroad, had persuaded her, (for her pride was of the right
kind,) to suffer him, though but slightly, to increase. It was a detached
and small building, standing a little from the road; and Walter paused
for some moments at the garden-gate, and gazed round him before he
followed his young guide, who, tripping lightly up the gravel-walk to the
door, rang the bell, and inquired if Miss Lester was within?

Walter was left for some moments alone in a little parlour:--he required
those moments to recover himself from the past that rushed sweepingly
over him. And was it--yes, it was Ellinor that now stood before him!
Changed she was, indeed; the slight girl had budded into woman; changed
she was, indeed; the bound had for ever left that step, once so elastic
with hope; the vivacity of the quick, dark eye was soft and quiet; the
rich colour had given place to a hue fainter, though not less lovely. But
to repeat in verse what is poorly bodied forth in prose--

"And years had past, and thus they met again;