and shy temperament, who excelled so much in study that she was sent
to a fine academy in a neighboring town, and won all the honors of the
course. She met at the school, and in the society of the place, a
refinement and cultivation, a social gayety and grace, which were
entirely unknown in the hard life she had led at home, and which by
their very novelty, as well as because they harmonized with her own
nature and dreams, were doubly beautiful and fascinating. She enjoyed
this life to the full, while her timidity kept her only a spectator;
and she ornamented it with a fresher grace, suggestive of the woods
and fields, when she ventured to engage in the airy game. It was a
sphere for her capacities and talents. She shone in it, and the
consciousness of a true position and general appreciation gave her the
full use of all her powers. She admired and was admired. She was
surrounded by gratifications of taste, by the stimulants and rewards
of ambition. The world was happy, and she was worthy to live in it.
But at times a cloud suddenly dashed athwart the sun--a shadow stole,
dark and chill, to the very edge of the charmed circle in which she
stood. She knew well what it was and what it foretold, but she would
not pause nor heed. The sun shone again; the future smiled; youth,
beauty, and all gentle hopes and thoughts bathed the moment in lambent
light.

But school-days ended at last, and with the receding town in which
they had been passed the bright days of life disappeared, and forever.
It is probable that the girl's fancy had been fed, perhaps indiscreetly
pampered, by her experience there. But it was no fairy-land. It was an
academy town in New England, and the fact that it was so alluring is a
fair indication of the kind of life from which she had emerged, and to
which she now returned. What could she do? In the dreary round of petty
details, in the incessant drudgery of a poor farmer's household, with