kings, and moralizes thereon; and, entering the Royal Gardens, shows
the uncertainty of human events, and the insecurity of British laws,
by the abrupt seizure and constrained deportation of an innocent and
unforeboding Englishman.

Such a glorious afternoon! The capricious English summer was so kind
that day to the child and her new friends! When Sophy's small foot once
trod the sward, had she been really Queen of the Green People, sward and
footstep could not more joyously have met together. The grasshopper
bounded in fearless trust upon the hem of her frock; she threw herself
down on the grass and caught him, but, oh, so tenderly! and the gay
insect, dear to poet and fairy, seemed to look at her from that quaint
sharp face of his with sagacious recognition, resting calmly on the palm
of her pretty hand; then when he sprang off, little moth-like butterflies
peculiar to the margins of running waters quivered up from the herbage,
fluttering round her. And there, in front, lay the Thames, glittering
through the willows, Vance getting ready the boat, Lionel seated by her
side, a child like herself, his pride of incipient manhood all forgotten;
happy in her glee; she loving him for the joy she felt, and blending his
image evermore in her remembrance with her first summer holiday,--with
sunny beams, glistening leaves, warbling birds, fairy wings, sparkling
waves. Oh, to live so in a child's heart,--innocent, blessed, angel-
like,--better, better than the troubled reflection upon woman's later
thoughts, better than that mournful illusion, over which tears so bitter
are daily shed,--better than First Love! They entered the boat. Sophy
had never, to the best of her recollection, been in a boat before. All
was new to her: the lifelike speed of the little vessel; that world of
cool green weeds, with the fish darting to and fro; the musical chime of
oars; those distant stately swans. She was silent now--her heart was
very full.